A Generous View of President Obama from Canada

Twitter pal @NerdyWonka shared this, a pithy letter to the editor that was published in the Detroit Free Press, from Canadian Richard Brunt about President Obama, Americans, and Canada. Now picked up by other media like the Christian Science Monitor and the website Addicting Info, in only 175 words Brunt summarizes some of the accomplishments of the Obama administration and expresses astonishment at the disgruntlement of American voters with his presidency. As a measure of its virality, note below that Nerdy Wonka’s tweet including a photocopy of the letter has been retweeted more than 8,000 times, after it was earlier shared by a Canadian with the Twitter handle @RickStrandlof, whose message has itself been shared more than 1,000 times. I made a screenshot of NerdyWonka’s tweet, including some of the excellent comments below it. A transcript of the letter is just below.

Richard Brunt’s Letter to the Editor:

Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country’s adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there’s no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money.

America is leading the world once again and respected internationally — in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden.

So, Americans vote for the party that got you into the mess that Obama just dug you out of? This defies reason.

When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way?

Richard Brunt

Victoria, British Columbia