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Criticism of president was fantastical

Reader Steve Morrissey's July 8 letter presents us with a fantasy astonishing in the depth of its paranoia and complete disconnect from reality. He implies that President Obama is an agent of the Taliban for doing everything he can to get us out of our insane and ruinous war in Afghanistan. This springs, he says, from Obama's history as a "community organizer" (read: he is black) and an "agitator" (i.e., he fought Jim Crow). He has no respect for the "familiar order" of American politics (read: he is not white and racist) and will not find "common ground" with Republicans (i.e., will not cave in to them like a coward). He has a "chip on his shoulder" and hates Americans (implication: he's not one of us! He's alien, sinister, dark!).

Above all, he doesn't believe that America is "exceptional," meaning that we have the right to rule the world and beat everyone up. I wish!

Sadly, this fantasy portrays the opposite of what Obama has really done. Like all American presidents, he has been sandbagged by the mob of generals and spies who surround him and has missed the chance to pull us completely out of the terrible imperial entanglements that are destroying us. Indeed, in the Ukraine he is making things worse by involving his administration in yet another bog of quicksand.

Don't tell that to the Tea Party, however. They are sunk so deep in their own bog of paranoid fantasy that they think up is down and common sense is treason.

Anthony Nelson

Rolling Meadows

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