Last weekend I attended a party that included solid Utah Republicans. Politics was the topic du jour, and I was stunned by the intense hatred and fear of President Barack Obama.

These good people really believed that Obama's plan is to turn America into a socialist country, that his proposals are a radical departure from America's values.

When I said that Obama is actually a moderate who is willing to compromise to pass constructive legislation, I was dismissed as uninformed. Yet it's correct.

Obama is willing to tweak the sacred Democratic entitlements of Medicare and Social Security to bring fiscal security.

Of course, his plan not only involves painful cuts but raising some taxes back to 1990s levels. How is that radical?

His health care plan was the Republicans' plan 15 years ago. Radical?

Obama is focused on directing our tax dollars to areas that will make a better tomorrow for America: infrastructure, education and research.

That vision is as American as the economy-boosting, government-built Erie Canal and the G.I. Bill, which educated a generation at government expense and radically improved individual incomes and America's wealth.

Obama is inside the American tradition: a moderate, compromising doer.

David Henderson

Salt Lake City