The Editor, Sir:

I suppose it is fair to say that Dawn Ritch is 'off the reservation'; her recent article titled 'Unspeakable Treachery' depicts Barack Obama as naive and lacking substance, but the truth is Ms Ritch's comments reflects a dysfunctional and myopic mind at work. First, black Americans are not obligated to vote for Hillary Clinton; the last time I checked, elections are an expression of an individual choice.

Second, Ms Ritch misrepresented the facts when she said Obama heavily supported the war in Iraq after getting to Washington. Senator Obama voted in favour of funding for the troops, which is ensuring that the young men and women who are there in Iraq are able to get supplies such as food, medicine and, of course, weaponry; but that vote is by no means an authorisation of the war.

Character vilification

The sad thing about Ms Ritch's remarks is that she represents what is wrong about politics today, her remarks about this man are steeped in character vilification and not about the issues Senator Obama proposes; yes, he lacks experience, but look at the current president of United States who had all this experience as governor, and let's not forget that Obama is naive because he advocates sitting down and talking to world leaders who are anti-American. Yet when Ronald Reagan did it during the Cold War it was not considered naive, nor when Nixon met with the Chinese premier in the early '70s it was not considered weak and ill-conceived.

Barack Obama is appealing to a wide cross section of Americans because he recognises that people want a new type of politics, which requires a change in approach by its leaders because if the electorate let the same old dinosaurs back in power doing the same things, its obvious they will get the same results. Oh, that final remark was plagiarised; Ms Ritch, please enlighten your arguments by addressing the positions Senator Obama represents rather than engage in nothing more than a tawdry attempt at writing a serious article.

I am, etc.,

ALFRADO VERNON

decassidi71@hotmail.com