Among the more curious strategies practiced in politics is one that assumes that the same story repeated often enough and long enough eventually becomes true.

"Socialism" is the slander du'jour among the GOP these days. You hear it used regularly by people who should know better, most recently by local GOP Chairman Robert M. Levy (letter, March 27).

Levy writes, "They (Democrats) perceive that the banking and health care systems need to be nationalized." In fact, President Obama has assiduously avoided nationalizing banks. If you want to find a crazy left-winger who wants to nationalize the banks, you need go no further than South Carolina where Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on ABC's "This Week" last month, "I would not take off the idea of nationalizing the banks."

As to nationalizing health care, it's a pity when people's attention spans are so short as to forget just last year when (then) Sens. Clinton and Obama clashed on the issue precisely because Obama opposed a single-payer system.

Who else thinks Obama is not a socialist? Billy Wharton wrote in an op-ed piece that appeared in The Washington Post, "Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies." It turns out that the Socialist Party of the United States of America has its own magazine of which Wharton is editor.

Levy reminds us of wars in Korea and Vietnam to fight socialism. I thank men like my father for fighting in those conflicts so men like Levy can write whatever they want. However, a little more attention to facts might do more to honor their sacrifice.

Kevin Smith

Aberdeen