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Written by *
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Letter to the Editor
 Dear Sir:
At a friend’s urging, I read Paul Jackson’s December column, “Thunder on the Right,” and found a new level of egregious falsehood in publication. Jackson recites a list of accusations against President Obama, each one of which is a product either of ignorance or willful distortion. “Thunder on the Right” does not bother about objectivity or journalistic investigation, and one wonders whether the column is informed by messages from a lunar oracle.
Mitt Romney put out an ad that has Obama saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Romney lifted it out of context in an attempt to deceive the public. That statement came from John McCain, not Barack Obama. Obama was only quoting McCain. My mother taught me better, so to me it seems unbelievable that Governor Romney could do such a thing. Does this kind of lying represent Republican values these days?
Romney’s lying revives memories of the 2004 election when “swift-boating” became a verb meaning to smear a candidate. Ads accused John Kerry of betrayal and claimed he did not earn his medals, which amounts to an unpatriotic accusation against the US Navy for falsely awarding them. The ads cheapened military medals for everybody who was ever honored with such an award.
The mendacity of December’s “Thunder on the Right” mirrors the serial deception that is so often the salient feature of the lingua franca of conservatives.
Fred Mittag
San Pablo
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