LTE – Jeanne Herrick – 10-17-2012

Dear Mr. Editor,

I have come to believe that letters recently submitted to your editorial page have probably been based on information gathered from e mails and radical news/radio personalities.

Last week Dorothy Schwankl wrote a very inaccurate letter concerning many blatant untruths about President Obama. I would ask your readers (and you as a journalist) to please check their facts before writing. It is simple to go to a website such as Snopes.com and click on “politics” to check out the truth. If you do not own a computer a visit to the library will get you the facts. It is astonishing to see the list of “Myths” and eye-opening to see the origins of some of these untruths, especially concerning our President Barack Obama!

One such untruth “Obama cancelled the National Day of Prayer” because he is a Muslim. The Snopes.com website clears this untruth with the following explanation: “There is no official ceremony prescribed for the observance of the National Day of Prayer: it is a day on which the people of the U.S. are called upon “to turn God in prayer and meditation,” however they choose to do so. President Obama opted to issue the Traditional proclamation designating the National Day of Prayer in 2009 (as he did again in 2010 and 2011) while observing the occasion privately.

The status of the National Day of Prayer became uncertain on April 15, 2010 when a federal judge ruled in favor of a challenge brought by the Freedom from Religion Foundation and held that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional. The Obama administration was actually the defendant in that suit, arguing in favor of retaining the National Day of Prayer.”

It is sad to me that in this day we have to “research” the validity of what is printed or “blasted in our faces” on political ads. I would ask that you please do so to make your vote an informed one.

Jeanne Herrick
Colfax, Wisconsin