Regarding Steve Bouser’s opinion column “Lies You Find Floating About in the Web Sewer” (Aug. 15), which lamented the “rampant lies about Obama” that “seem particularly sinister”:

Fortunately for us readers of the newspaper, these examples of “twisted reasons to justify” hatred of the president were addressed to you, and thanks to your wiser editorial judgment did not appear in print, until you chose to publish them.

I can’t decide whether to thank you for your concern or to wonder about the selectivity of your notion of what constitutes lies worth disseminating and dispelling. Maybe I should test your roles as gatekeeper and public educator by forwarding some particularly scurrilous comments about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

I could tell you that he intends to kill the sick elderly by stripping them of their Medicare coverage and leaving them to die, or that he wants to eliminate all governmental controls over American banks and return to the good old days when they could rob us and bankrupt themselves with impunity.

And then I can wait to see whether that kind of offense rises sufficiently high on your offense-meter that you will publish it and so warn us against it.

To reprise your very striking analogy, there are many “viciously stinging scorpions” in the very large “bucket” of American public discourse.

David Nordloh

Pinehurst