I was quite impressed by Joseph C. Wilson's rather tortured struggle to link Sen. Barack Obama's relationship with his pastor to the candidate's foreign policy judgment (Point of View article, May 4). But Wilson need not have stretched so far to find thoroughly sobering examples of a candidate's poor judgment.

Sen. Hillary Clinton's widely reported threat to "obliterate" Iran, which resulted in a diplomatic complaint to the United Nations, or even her mistaken congratulation of the British prime minister for his supposed plan to boycott the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics this summer, shocking both China and the prime minister himself, are disturbing examples of foreign policy gaffes that require no leaps or projection from outside the realm of diplomacy.

Linda Schmalbeck

Durham