January 26, 2010 Ellie Light speaks
A letter defending Obama, over the signature of one "Ellie Light," drew some attention after it became clear that the same letter had been published in some 60 outlets, listing different, local hometowns in different newspapers.
The episode provoked various theories around the Internet, including that the letter writer was, in fact, Barack Obama himself. I first published he letter because it seemed to crystallize an argument that Democrats were struggling to make. Light wrote:
But today, the president is being attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off in the morning. He never made such a promise. It's time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can't just wave a magic wand and fix everything.
Well, the mystery may be over. A woman who said her name was, in fact, Ellie Light called this morning into the radio show of Michael Smerconish, a national talker based in Philadelphia who has been friendly to Obama, to clear things up.
"I'm only me," she said, identifying herself as a traveling nurse who works for 13-week stretches at hospitals around the country, and whose primary residence is in Southern California.
"I need to own up – I did misrepresent my home town in some places," Light told Smerconish. Her logic in faking the addresses is one familiar to advocacy groups: "If I thought it was written by a neighbor of mine, I would give it more credence."
Light mused on why the letter was so widely circulated: "My letter was pretty darn good. It took a long time to write. I took more interest in honing it than most people take today."
"I don't know why others are not making the observation that, Why are we all abandoning the president we so adored so quickly?" she said.
