22 April 2010: Letter to the Editor…

In the Peoria Journal Star

Some thoughts came to mind as I read Jim Bright’s April 17 Spotlight letter (“European model is far from ideal”) and the Journal Star’s coverage of Sarah Palin’s visit. In each piece, President Obama’s educational background was attacked. Since when is being the president/editor of the Harvard Law Review a bad thing?

Frankly, I like it that we have an intelligent, educated, and yes, well-traveled person as president of the United States. I want someone who is smarter, wiser and more successful than I to be running things. I like it that the president chose a Nobel Laureate in physics as head of the Department of Energy and the mapper of the human genome to run the National Institutes of Health.

I’ll close with two final points:

One, the president, prior to attending Harvard Law School, lived in other countries, traveled extensively and spent his first post-college years helping out poor people. It wasn’t as if he were born with a silver spoon in his mouth; he earned everything he got. It was the previous president who benefited from family connections.

Two, 69.5 million people voted for this president. We wanted the changes that he is bringing. The idea that many of us support these changes out of ignorance is absurd.

Ollie Nanyes

Peoria

Update: surf to the newspaper link; I am getting flamed by the Limbaugh-Beck crowd. That is fun!

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