Gov. Paul LePage is beneath contempt. The litany of vulgarities that spew from his mouth reveal nothing so much as a brimming toilet of a mind. It comes as no surprise that he is quoted as saying that the president of the United States “hates white people” (“Gov. LePage says Obama hates whites,” Aug. 20).

This of course is baseless and is a transparent projection of the lesser man’s own animus. The president needs no defense on this count. And if the governor’s sad statement was a lone howl in the wilderness, it would be easily dismissed like most of what he says. Instead, the governor’s entirely unoriginal smear is but a regurgitation of the poisonous invective that oozes from the badly infected right side of the body politic.

Racism is alive and therefore the nation is not well. But the president of the United States is a good and decent man, and a far better president than his defamers deserve. President Barack Obama is not perfect but he is a wise and temperate man. I am proud to have voted for him twice.

In the interest of self-disclosure: I am a late middle-age, white, working class male, and private sector employee in a nonunion shop.

Christopher McKinnon
Augusta