Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Remember when all the birther nonsense came about with Barack Obama being elected president? Remember that the president had to show his birth certificate to stop this nonsense talk? Remember that there was a lot of disrespect toward President Obama, but there was no proof that he wasn’t born an American?

Now there is this nonsense talk that President Obama isn’t really American. Or he’s not American enough, or he doesn’t know how to be American. His ideas are too foreign.

Well now there might be something to that kind of talk. Perhaps if President Obama had millions in the Cayman Islands and millions in Bermuda, he would be more American. Oh yes, and if he only had a Swiss bank account he’d really be an American in good standing.

By the way, didn’t George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father, run for president in the late 1960s? Wasn’t he born in Mexico? Where were the birthers then? Or did they just come out of nowhere for President Obama?

I was born in the U.S., graduated high school, served in the U.S. Army, had a lovely tour in Vietnam, went to college, but finished in a trade school and have been self-employed for 33 years, and pay my taxes.

Maybe I would be more American if I had money in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda and, yes, a Swiss bank account. But you know, all I have is right here in the U.S. All my investments are right here in America. My bank accounts are in the bank right down the road from my house.

Mr. Romney insulted 47 percent of the people in this country, because they will be supporting President Obama. I’m part of that 47 percent and I don’t sit back and collect a government check and I do pay all federal, Social Security, Medicare, state, real estate, personal property, business and sales taxes. I’m sure I must have forgotten some other taxes, but you can see my point.

I promise to try to be a better American and I promise to vote for the man that I feel will be better for America. God bless the 47 percent and God bless the other 53 percent, too.

Joe Mereness

Gloucester, Va.