(Editors Note: This letter was mistakenly not printed in a timely manner.)

Hillary Clinton gave a gracious concession speech on Saturday, displaying once again her brand of tough, articulate intelligence. Despite all the pundits on both sides ripping and clawing at her for the last six months, she ran a strong, defiant race and lost to Obama by a half-length. Nothing to be ashamed of and it bodes well for the next woman who runs-Hillary made it abundantly clear a woman can go head to head with a man in a Presidential contest, and perceived toughness shouldn't stand in her way. Hillary was by far the toughest candidate in the race as she redefined that elusive political quality to mean someone with a formidable grasp of the issues and the passionate verbal gifts to argue those issues with a command rare in a candidate of either sex. I often thought how delicious it would have been to see Hillary confront the buffoon Bush in a debate. Her quick annihilation of Dubya's smirking stupidity would have had John Kerry shaking his head. _Despite her gifts, Hillary made a fatal mistake in October of 2002, when like the majority of Americans at that time, she bought in to the Bush Administration's massive lie about a nonexistent threat from Iraq, and voted to authorize Bush to attack that country. She never apologized for that mistake, as she should have, and that was just enough for Barack Obama to pass her down the stretch of the race for the Democratic nomination. At a time when Democrats and Republicans were falling over themselves to jump on Bush's Iraq war bandwagon, Mr. Obama made the following public statement:

"But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military is a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

"I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

With those words in October of 2002, Barack Obama identified himself as a man of vision and courage, who would not be cowed by popular opinion to rush into the horrendous catastrophe of an unnecessary war. I supported Hillary in the Democratic primary but I don't doubt that the person who beat her deserves the prize. As qualified as she was, Hillary succumbed to a political misjudgment that should be a lesson to all, politician and ordinary citizen alike: the nation should go to war only as an absolutely last resort, when there is no other conceivable choice. Obama knew this from the beginning, and I think Hillary knows it now. Based on his unbridled support for Bush's war, it appears John McCain is next in line to be schooled in this most fundamental truth of civilized people.__

Robert C. Carmody, Jr.