After reading Suzanne McLain’s letter, Aug. 30, I felt compelled to write.

I knew someone would take the feature for Independence Day in the Sunday Parade magazine on Sen. Obama’s patriotism to heart about learning the Pledge of Allegiance from his grandfather, and sitting on his shoulders when the astronauts came ashore in Hawaii, but that he is a devoted Christian and not a Muslim is too much.

How Christian is belonging to a church for 20 years whose pastor preaches hatred?

How do we know Obama is not a Muslim? Because his spinmeisters and the left-leaning media tell us he isn’t, and imply the Internet is hogwash?

P.T. Barnum’s philosophy was that if you expound on a subject long enough, the marks will begin to believe it. For instance, Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler, covering the Democratic shindig, reported Obama is the son of an African immigrant.

That’s untrue. His father never applied for, nor immigrated to, this country. He came on an educational visa to learn ways for improving social and economic conditions to take back to his native Kenya, and, according to Obama, was inspired by the Birmingham march and the Kennedys to do so.

Being here on a visa for educational purposes does not qualify Obama’s father as an immigrant, nor referring to Obama as the son of one. There is too much misuse of the word “immigrant.”

Responsible journalists should know that and cease expounding it.

John R. Davis, South Paris