To the editor:

Readers of the Journal-World are accustomed to editorials that reflect what is at best a hazy and quite often erroneous portrayal of past events. However, Thursday’s editorial screed, “Promises pending,” may set a new standard for both petulance and misrepresentation.

Yes, we understand that the owner/publisher’s candidate did not reclaim the presidency for the Republican Party. I’m happy. He’s not. But to blame President Obama for the polarization of the past four years and the ongoing divisions within this country, given the avowed goal of such individuals as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (who famously said in 2010 that his top goal was to ensure that Barack Obama was a one-term president) to do everything possible to obstruct efforts to resolve our nation’s problems, is an astonishing distortion of recent history.

Ditto the claim that the Democrats reached some new high (or low) in demonizing Mitt Romney. Surely, someone recalls the “Swift Boat” campaign that contributed to sinking John Kerry’s candidacy in 2004? Ditto the assertion that President Obama did not receive a mandate since the “popular vote was relatively even.” A quick look at the past 20 years reveals that only former President Bush’s victory in 2004 (50.73 percent, which he claimed WAS a mandate), President Obama’s victory in 2008 (52.87 percent), and now his 2012 margin (50.4 percent quite probably adjusted upward when the Florida numbers are final) reached the 50th threshhold. In this fractured electorate, his victory Tuesday was a mandate in my book.