To the editor:

For those who long ago decided to forego Dolph Simons’ Saturday “commentary” and/or that of his doppelganger, Cal Thomas, let me sum up the Oct. 11 columns: Although we can still not be clear about Sen. Obama’s “beliefs” we do know that he is a socialist with nefarious ties to terrorists and the “activist” ACORN organization responsible for fraudulent voter registration.

This is pretty familiar territory to anyone who has followed the xenophobic fear-mongering of the recent McCain campaign. However, Simons seems most concerned about newly registered voters who lack the knowledge to make an informed decision in the voting booth (i.e., to vote for McCain).

It is ironic that Simons should cite voter competence as a drawback to universal suffrage since this was the rationale used to disenfranchise black voters as recently as presidential candidate Obama’s childhood years. In fact, the majority of the newly registered voters have undoubtedly grasped that this is an important election and that they can play a part in ending a most disastrous eight years.

Simons should not question the judgment of others in exercising their democratic right to vote; if we could deny this right in cases of dubious understanding of the causes of and potential solutions to our country’s current mess, Simons’ name would be at the top of my list.

Mark Holter,
Lawrence