After reading the recent writer’s letter concerning the confusion surrounding President Obama’s religion, I have discovered that I, in fact, am the one who is confused. I’ve obviously been concerned with all the wrong issues.

What confuses me is 10 percent national unemployment, caused in great part by our own greed and willing usury of our own citizens. Also confusing to me is our apparent inability to provide reasonable health care for everyone, especially the disadvantaged and children. Throw in our role in two useless wars with their loss of our young soldiers, an impotent policy to reduce our fossil fuel use, the lack of any semblance of a concise and sensible policy for immigration, and I am left wandering in the dark. Then I look at my paycheck and see the federal taxes withheld, to pay the salaries of the very people we’ve hired to solve these confusing problems, and I am at my wits’ end.

Then, after all that, I am told that what I should be confused about is whether our president sits in a pew, or kneels on a prayer rug, wears a yarmulke or a turban, and by which name he calls his version of a Supreme Being. Well, OK. I’ll stop worrying about all the issues I thought were important, and start wondering just who the heck does that guy Barack Obama pray to. Thank … something … I’m on the right track now!

Richard P. Messer

Arlington