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October 31, 2012 12:10 am

Your Oct. 28 editorial "Obama for president," endorsing the president for re-election, could have been much shorter. It could have read:

"We recommend Obama because we believe everything he tells us, whereas we don't believe a word from Romney. The narrative constructed by our primary source, The Associated Press, for the last year, makes this the obvious conclusion."

Your endorsement lacks an objective contrast between the personal character, political leadership ability, and track record of the two candidates. Of course, an editorial reflects opinion. As your editorial illustrates, people can rationalize any viewpoint.

A thoughtful editorial could have crafted a coherent case for Obama and encouraged readers to positive dialogue. Your effort failed miserably. By lacking substance and seriousness, your piece merely promotes wasteful, heated rhetoric.

Payne Kilbourn

King George

A rational case

After all the hysterical shouting we've seen this election season, it was reassuring to read a rational argument in Sunday's Free Lance-Star making the case for the best candidate for president.

Your endorsement of President Obama for a second term makes a lot of sense and takes into account the myriad factors at play in our country and the world. I have no doubt there will be heated letters in opposition, but this is one voter who values your stand.

Stephen Anderson

Locust Grove

Lame arguments

Whoever it was who pirated The Free Lance-Star's editorial page recently, defacing it with an obscene endorsement of the president's four-year failure of leadership, please return it to its intelligent editors, who must have either been out sick or tied and gagged somewhere in a closet.

Surely, its stilted prose wouldn't have passed editorial review under normal circumstances. Not only did it need punching up, it should have been punched out. Its arguments were lame, its expressed opposition to Romney's candidacy sophomoric and canned.

Please issue an apology to your loyal readers. who had expected an endorsement far different--and coherent.

Ben R. Blankenship Jr.

Stafford

A relationship ended

As a youngster in the 1960s, I delivered newspapers in Fredericksburg's Hanover Street corridor. My loyalty to The Free Lance-Star began.

As a current resident of the Northern Neck, I now drive 14 miles to and from the local store, use $2 worth of gas, and pay $1.05 daily and $2.10 on Sunday for the newspaper. That is $1,166 per year. In spite of these costs and the elimination of Town and County, my loyalty to The Free Lance-Star continued.

The 2012 ticket of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is the most appealing in my lifetime. Your failure to recognize the value of Romney-Ryan is shortsighted. My loyalty to the Free Lance-Star has ended.

Paul M. Ventura

Kinsale

Re-election-worthy

I commend you for recommending the re-election of President Obama. Your reasons for this recommendation are pragmatic and based on fact.

What the president faced when entering office and what he has achieved via his domestic and foreign-policy accomplishments are notable and deserving of recognition.

His accomplishments make him worthy of another term in office.

Bob Straight

Stafford

How cute of you

Shocked! That's how I have reacted to your not-surprising editorial support for Obama. In your cute Democratic style of phrasing your argument, you overstate the positives, understate the failures, and ignore Obama's ideologies.

William Meredith

Loretto