A letter came in the mailbag this morning. It comes from an Amarillo man who said this: “As our President Barack Obama declared in his speech that America is no longer a Christian nation …”

What speech? When did he declare such a thing?

I’ve been getting a good bit of mail lately from folks who keep repeating this alleged statement. I’ve gone back through the record and I cannot find where the president said anything of the kind.

And this takes me to the point of this note: the innuendo and outright lies being kicked around about the president of the United States.

I am struggling to keep my sanity in the wake of all this hate. We’ve heard it said from the so-called “birthers” that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, that he is a closet Muslim (which in a pre-9/11 world might not have mattered as much as it does in this post-9/11 world), that he is a Marxist and heaven knows what else. Do you remember when the sanctimonious wing of the conservative movement clobbered President Clinton over his messing around with the White House intern? Given that no one has discovered even a hint of impropriety in that vein regarding the current president, his right-wing foes have glommed onto made-up stuff dealing with his birth and his faith.

I can understand why many Americans are upset with the president. The deficit he and Congress are running up are giving me the heebie-jeebies. I’m concerned that the president at times appears too reluctant to speak harshly enough to those who threaten this nation.

But I am going nuts having to listen to those who lie, who put words in the president’s mouth and who accuse him of being things he is not.

OK. I exaggerate. I’m not approaching clinical insanity. At least I don’t think so.