School teacher wrote a letter to President Obama criticizing his actions on a 2009 overseas trip –Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded email containing a letter to President Obama claiming to be from a school teacher named Ms Kathleen Lyday. The letter is critical of the things that the President said and did while on an overseas trip during March and April 2009.
The Truth:
This Letter began appearing in email in baskets, commentaries and internet blogs shortly after President Obama’s 2009 trip to Europe.
Ms. Kathleen Lyday is a real person, works for Grandview Elementary School in Hillsboro, MO but told TruthorFiction.com that she did not author this letter.
We have not found who actually wrote this.
The letter opens with critical of remarks about some of what President Obama said and did while on his March/April 2009 trip to Europe. Obama took criticism, for example, for bowing to Saudi King Abdullah and telling the Muslim world that the US was not a Christian country.
Below is a CNN link about the President’s comments in Turkey. It was not the first time Mr. Obama made such a statement. On June 28, 2006, while serving as Senator of Illinois, Barack Obama was the keynote speaker at the “Building a Covenant for A New America” conference sponsored by a group called the Call to Renewal. He told attendees that the United States is no longer a Christian nation but a nation of citizens with different beliefs.
CNN Coverage of President Obama in Turkey
Released video from the President’s March/April 2009 trip showed Obama bowing while meeting the Saudi Arabian King Abdullah. The Whitehouse press secretary downplayed that and explained that the president was shaking hands with someone much shorter than him. In the past Presidents have been known to follow protocol offering gestures of respect to foreign dignitaries. In 2005 the Saudi King visited George W. Bush at the Crawford ranch where he was greeted by former President with a kiss.
CNN Coverage of the bow
updated 05/22/09