Editor:

I want to bring attention to the shameful way Hillary Clinton has allowed the character of Barack Obama and his endorsers to be smeared. Perhaps this should be no surprise, since she has taken a few less-than-honorable shots herself. Call me na’ve, but when I heard that the New York National Organization for Women had attacked Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement of Sen. Obama as the “ultimate betrayal” of women, I expected some kind of condemnation from Sen. Clinton’s campaign. Since none has been forthcoming, as a woman, I want to speak up and say that I believe that the ultimate betrayal of women is actually the knee-jerk endorsement of the first viable female Democratic candidate on the sole basis that she is a Democrat and a woman. By NOW’s logic, endorsers of Clinton’s own campaign, as well as that of Sen. Edwards, are “betraying” African-Americans, which no one has seriously suggested and is obviously absurd.

Clinton does a great injustice to her opponent by not firmly squelching such specious attacks with the strength and authority she claims she will bring to the presidency.

Alanna RowleyEnglish Teaching Major, University of Utah