In his Jan. 31 letter, Barton F. Walker Jr. poses the question, "Who is Barack Obama?"

Mr. Walker then proceeds to answer his question with a smearing innuendo that Obama has a Muslim background which may conflict with his loyalties.

Mr. Walker states that Obama is a "short-term American resident with an important portion of his younger life spent in Jakarta, Indonesia." This statement is blatantly false.

Barack was born in Hawaii in 1961. He was in Jakarta only from ages six to ten and then back to Hawaii where he remained through high school. In l979, he enrolled at Occidental College in California where he spent two years before transferring to Columbia University where he graduated in l983.

In 1991, Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Obama has lived in the United States for 40 of his 45 years, hardly "short-term," as Mr. Walker asserts.

Mr. Walker then stoops to say that Barack Obama is "reportedly a member of the United Church of Christ, to remove the Muslim background." This is just as maliciously irresponsible as someone suggesting that President Bush embraced religion to enhance his political future.

In 2004, the voters of Illinois elected Obama to the United States Senate with a 70 percent landslide victory. Unlike Mr. Walker, they were not concerned about Obama's "Muslim background."

Bill Hay

Southern Pines