To the Editor:

Re “With a New Speech, Clinton Lays Out Goals as President” (news article, Sept. 3):

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the latest string of banalities that her campaign is touting as a major policy statement, announces that she is willing to “work within the system,” since it’s not “just about the dream, it’s about the results.”

Has anyone ever thought of Mrs. Clinton as outside “the system”? And when in American history were great social advances ever wrested without great dreams?

Christopher Phelps
Mansfield, Ohio, Sept. 3, 2007
The writer is an associate professor of history at Ohio State University at Mansfield.

Note from KBJ: Hillary Clinton is not progressive enough for this academic (which tells you everything you need to know about academia).