Obama's Detractors Miss the Mark

Why am I not surprised that Michael Gerson ["A Speech That Fell Short," op-ed, March 19] was critical of Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race? As a Republican speechwriter, originator of the "mushroom cloud as smoking gun," he is hardly a disinterested analyst.

His bias against Democratic leaders was obvious in his spinning from the thrust and originality of Obama's speech to matters more suitable to the purpose of stoking controversy. Stoke it he did, with no higher purpose than advancing the cause of the Republican Party.

-- David Elliott Bell

Reston

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When Michael Gerson lauded Mitt Romney's speech in his Dec. 7 op-ed column, "Answering Critics -- and Kennedy," he did not take Romney to task for the failings of the Mormon faith and its violent past, exclusion of blacks and acceptance of polygamy. I understand that these are matters of the past. But to give Romney a free pass and then skewer Barack Obama this week is dishonest.

When Obama addressed race, Gerson went after the pastor of his church, not the content of his speech. Gerson demonstrated an incredible failure to comprehend the black church experience and the art of homiletics in the context of a congregation.

Particularly galling was his use of the HIV remark in one of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons and comparing this to Nazi Germany while turning a blind eye to the failure of the Bush administration's abstinence-only program, as evidenced by the report that one out of four teenagers is infected with a sexually transmitted disease ["STD Data Come as No Surprise, Area Teenagers Say," Metro, March 13]. This man is shameless.