First of all, time to bid you a welcome to the Downs, Marileangorifurnimaluim (from now on abbreviated as Maril by me for the obvious reason [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ). Entering by posting a lot and well is always good to see!
Let me work from the second to the first reply. "Denethor ruled so long he did not draw a distinction between himself, his role as steward of Gondor and de facto king". Good point, Maril, and obviously, this was a flaw, for in Middle-Earth no politician can compete with a noble righteous King if both are on the same ethic level (which was not the case with Aragorn and Denethor, I argue).
"...dying the leader of Gondor is what he would have chosen". He actually did choose that; to what extent his desparation was formed by the end of Gondor he saw in the victory of Sauron, or the downfall of Gondor he saw in the inthronization of Elessar, and how much these two relatively weighed compared to each other, we cannot know, but only speculate.
"It was Faramir's closeness with Gandalf he resented...": In correspondence with what I said myself in my first post, I of course have to agree.
As for your points, Mith, you sharply perceived some blurry points of mine... "Denethor was a politician, though at the wrong time." Precisely. The fact that he did use the mentioned methods - if we can call it greedily at all in that case - wasn't a mistake of his in my eyes, he had to try to live up to the demands of the time.
"[...] and who were the lesser men?" Good question, without reading into my own Letter quote, I think Denethor may have held a dialectical view. For one, he may have despised those of less noble origin than his own; but this would of course exclude Faramir (whom he certainly did not despise, but after all still loved as a son, I have to note here), or those whose descent he knew to be noble. Whether he knew who Gandalf and Thorongil were, and whether he thus was aware of their high order or birth, I cannot answer.
But then, Denethor may have also viewed those as lesser men and objects of his despise who could not match him - in his eyes - in some other fields such as experience or far-sightedness. Thorongil and Mithrandir may more likely have fallen into this category; Thorongil did not have a lineage of rulers directly before him (I can hear Denethor calling these something not unlike to 'captains of brigands of the hills'), and he had no experience as a politician or king for that matter. That he could make up for that by his inborn abilities, Denethor would not have judged as a valid arguement, it appears to me. The steward probably also believed himself to be at least one step ahead even of Gandalf because of his palantír, and it was natural for Denethor to despise the counsel of those who knew less than himself, apparently.
"[...] the world outside his realm did not suit his petty desires [...]": Yes, agreed, I left this one not as defined as I thought it to be. What I should rather have said was that he lost the objective view, the perception of the interrelations of some things, and the ability of impartial thinking a politician needs for true greatness. Minas Tirith was not the center of Middle-Earth at his time, and even though it was crucial, Sauron could not be defeated by it alone, unlike Denethor might have seen the situation.
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