I am responding to Tom Olson’s letter on Tuesday, titled “Think for Yourself,” in which he says college students “act like a herd of sheep” and cannot form opinions for themselves, but are rather influenced by anti-Bush propaganda and Michael Moore. Well, Tom, just because my opinion of the war in Iraq and President Bush is different than yours doesn’t mean I let some fat idiot who made a few movies influence me.

Here’s what I did. I listened to the President’s rationale for invading Iraq, which was almost exclusively for the purpose of finding weapons of mass destruction that could be used by a terrorist organization to harm Americans. I then watched as the President committed a hundred thousand men and women to Iraq for a full-scale invasion. Now, I see that as it turns out, there were no WMD’s or any links to Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Therefore, in my own opinion, I believe this war was a grand diversion from the true war on terror, which should have had an emphasis on capturing Bin Laden and disabling al-Qaida.

I view voting as a chance to hold the current President responsible for his actions over the past four years. I am choosing not to re-elect him because I do not like the direction in which he is taking this country. I am voting for Senator Kerry, not because Michael Moore tells me to, not because the majority of my fellow college “sheep” will, but because Senator Kerry is the candidate who best embodies the opinions that I hold, and I could care less what anyone else thinks or tells me about it.

Jim Monti

junior in LAS