To the editor:

The long and short answer is no, Hillary Clinton is not the first woman to seek the presidency.

In my opinion, every reporter and television commentator needs to learn how to use Google. The media will tell us how smart they are and how hard they work at getting it truthful and correct. Just how hard is it to use Google? Not very damned hard, but all day long we have heard and seen in the media reports that Senator Clinton is the first woman to run for president. Now to be fair, some did say she was the first to be the candidate of a major political party, some, by no means all.

The first woman to run for president was Victoria Woodhull from the Equal Rights Party, in 1872; she was a trail blazer for suffrage, minority rights and women’s rights. She was one of the first women to own and operate a newspaper and to own and operate a Wall Street brokerage firm. She was a stand-up woman who was advocating for women and opening doors that were traditionally closed to women long before Mrs. Clinton was born.

We should wonder why the media chooses to disregard a woman who was a long way ahead of her time and a true feminist. Do our friends in the media think we are too stupid to ask questions? Are they too stupid or lazy to use Google? Are they so in the bag for Senator Clinton they knowingly lie to us?

A fourth choice of all of the above is my guess.

Robert M. Traxler, Dorr