You go away for a week and what happens? They print a letter like this.
Letter parrots right-wing dogmaIt's damn good to be back, though. Damn good.
If ever I wondered whether this election was going to be more of the same garbage, then Richard W. Burridge’s letter, “Obama too liberal to be president” (July 22), gave me my answer:
Yes, yes, 1,000 times yes. Each and every one of his points is taken verbatim from far-right demagogues and recited without one iota of thought as to the truth of any of them.
First, Burridge refers to the senator as “Barack Hussein Obama,” a disgusting smear tactic that has been sworn off even by the Republican National Committee.
Burridge immediately lists a slew of stances Obama supposedly supports, without any evidence backing any of them. He uses the right-wing scare terms “partial-birth abortion” and “death tax” to try to evoke emotional responses instead of rational thought. He even goes so far as to demonize the idea of making the minimum wage into a living wage, as though the concept of someone being paid enough money to get by were some horrible evil.
To top off his screed, he repeats the far-right myth of Obama being “the most liberal senator,” a claim that has never been proven true, though the talking heads of the right love to repeat it breathlessly. At the end of his tirade, Burridge claims that the senator doesn’t share the Founding Fathers’ vision. That seems an odd thing to say, considering the very concept of rebellion against an unjust, authoritarian government is a very liberal concept.
DAMIAN HOOD Garrett
