Editor, The Herald:

Virgil Hamlin Goode, Jr. has accumulated a distinguished public service record spanning more than at least thirty six years, serving first as a Virginia senator and later as a United States Congressman for six-terms, four of which, as a Republican. He represented the Fifth Congressional district of Virginia during his last 2 terms until he lost his seat in the 2008 elections. Now, as a member of the Constitution Party, he is seeking election to become the president of the most powerful nation on Earth. It is anybody's guess why this erstwhile fine gentleman wishes to drag his name through the mud for a prize that is way beyond his reach even in his wildest dreams. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that it would be easier for a camel to go through the proverbial eye of a needle than for Virgil to succeed in this futile venture on November 6, 2012.

This politician of high intellect and talent wants to suspend issuing green cards to would be immigrants until we solve the problem of our current economic downturn in general, and the plight of the twelve and a half million or so Americans who are jobless, in particular. He also wants to bring home all our troops serving in foreign lands and ensure that any future military intervention is approved by Congress in advance. He is certainly entitled to his views in the manner in which this nation should be governed, but that does not translate into automatic victory for him at the elections. Instead, the most he and his Constitution party can achieve through this election is to diminish the chances of one or other of the other contenders for the job. And, because Goode was elected to Congress as a Republican three times in a row long before he joined the Constitution Party, it is logical to assume that he still commands the respect of a significant number of his former constituents. Accordingly, he would be siphoning away more votes from Romney than from Obama. In other words, as another writer to this newspaper correctly stated last week, he could be doing to Romney what Henry Ross Perot did to Senior Bush in 1991.

It is not too farfetched to conjecture that Goode has an ax to grind with Mitt Romney to go to such extraordinary lengths to sabotage the latter in this way. I think it is appropriate at this juncture to reveal that on Friday 15, 2007 I wrote an Op Ed in this newspaper strongly defending Virgil Goode against another writer who wrote a scathing article castigating him for stating unequivocally that we should vote into office at all levels only individuals who strongly believe in our tried and tested democratic system of government. I defended him because Goode was a good man of exceptionally high standing. Sadly, that sentiment I and many others no longer hold.

On another note, I think it is opportune for me at this juncture to bring to the attention of one and all who may have missed an article from the New York Times titled “So What If Iran Gets the Bomb” that appeared in this Paper on Friday, September 14, 2012. The author quoted a Middle East scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations who said, and I quote, “You would have a very unstable deterrent environment between Israel and Iran, simply because these two states tend to view each other in existential terms.” That statement, I believe, is totally false. When did any of the leaders of Israel ever say that they want to destroy Iran from the face of the Earth? They only said that they want to destroy Iran's capability to produce nuclear arsenal, period. The other side, however, has repeatedly said that they want to see the nation of Israel obliterated from this planet.

Mat Mathews

Farmville