Editor, The Herald:

This in response to a letter to the editor published on October 10:

I was quite impressed with the letter writer's implied brilliance and his extensive reading list. He might want to add The Wilson Quarterly and Foreign Affairs to that list if he desires to be more complete. In the meantime, his reading entitles him to form his own opinion but not to fashion his own facts.

I have seven-years of university education in business and understand quite well where remarks like his are going and whom he is directing them to. My understanding is broadly based. I'm a student of the literature of the Lake Poets and Shakespeare; philosophy and economics. I am also a student of the arts and music, so I can understand when someone is weaving a “tale”, giving illogical philosophy; presenting flawed economics; showing a distorted picture or playing bad music. The informed of us know that when the term “socialist” is mentioned in reference to an individual-such as our president-it conjures up bad vibes to the less informed. If the letter writer indeed reads history among his other readings, he would be aware of the fact that FDR was also referred to as a socialist but he was the one who engineered America out of the great depression. He should also note the fact that President Obama had to assume a similar role right after he took office. Are the Red Cross and the Salvation Army socialist? Is the Centra Southside Community Hospital socialist? Is the Rice Volunteer Fire Dept. socialist?

President Obama is no worse than any other and better than most who has held the position. History and facts suggest that he is among the brightest that have ever held the office, among which are John Quincy Adams and William Jefferson Clinton. No, he wasn't a “C” student that Harvard gave “A's” to and passed him on.

In addressing some of his other points:

1. President Obama didn't give 1.5 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood. The president can't give anything to any nation. The giving is decided by the Congressional Budget Committee and a Republican named Paul Ryan is the ranking member of that committee. Paul Ryan and his associates were responsible for any funds that went to the Muslim Brotherhood-not the president. Congress gave the funds to Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood happens to be the duly elected party running the country. America said it likes fair and Democratic elections. The majority vote elected the Muslim Brotherhood; just as the majority vote elected President Obama. We are not an isolationist country. We interact with various other nations for reasons that serve our well-being. We don't give money for naught. We give money for intelligence information; to fly through the air space of other countries; to land our planes on the soil of other countries; to set up defense positions in other countries and for a host of other unnamed reasons.

2. Those who are so concerned about the national debt should take note of the fact that the present budget deficit is the results of two unfunded wars; an unfunded prescription drug bill and tax cuts for the wealthy-all initiated before this president came into office. And no, the wealthy are probably not the job creators, because the Republicans are still asking “Where are the jobs?” After a $700-billion-plus tax cut for the wealthy, the jobs still haven't been created, jobs they said would be created by those who received the tax breaks. Those who seem to be so concerned about the future of America's children are unwilling to give one penny in taxes to help lift America's burden. The one running on the Republican ticket for president has a multimillion-dollar trust fund set up for each of his children and invests much of his money outside of this country. Does that appear to be an individual who has concerns about the future of your children or mine? Also, the talk about Social Security going broke is not true, because the fund presently has a two-trillion dollar surplus. The idea of privatizing Social Security is to give Wall Street more work to do and maybe more money to lose. Also, don't cry crocodile tears over the talk about cutting the military budget. The military budget has its roots in the “Military Industrial Complex”, which is embraced by the corporations that produce warplanes and other materials. Those with stock in these corporations benefit from the military budget. They have a vested interest in keeping funding for the military high, even when the military isn't asking for it.

3. I know that intelligent individuals, such as the letter writer, have a keen sense of observation and he stated his passion for the written word. This being the case, how did he ever miss the vow made by Republicans to stop any efforts made by the president to move this country forward? I believe that we are witnessing it at work.

4. Why is the letter writer so disenchanted with Democrats? Isn't America supposed to be a Democracy where one can freely support the party he chooses to support and do it without any hard feelings from the other side? That rhetoric he's spinning about supporting a group from Egypt is grossly unfair. Why not give the “majority opinion” a chance to speak freely and honestly, without posting untruths all over the landscape? The greatest lesson any of us as individuals can take from the turmoil of today is the fact the God looks at motive. I don't care how bad a situation looks or how wrong it seems to be, God looks at the heart and within the heart lies the motive. If the motive is wrong, God could very well turn the effort upside down.

Donald L. Gandy

Rice