On occasion Mr. Inwood tends to shoot from the hip. That firing position in less than optimal and usually results in missing the target entirely.

His recent letter concerning Elisabeth Warren’s use of her ethnicity to obtain a position at Harvard is a case in point. A simple check of fact-finding web sites would have disabused him of the authenticity of his assertion.

The (Boston) Herald has twice quoted Charles Fried, the head of the Harvard appointing committee that recommended Warren for her position in 1995, saying that the Democratic candidate’s heritage didn’t come up during the course of her hiring. “It simply played no role in the appointments process,” he said. “It was not mentioned and I didn’t mention it to the faculty.”

The Herald later quoted Fried, a former U.S. Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan, saying, “I can state categorically that the subject of her Native American ancestry never once was mentioned.”

Perhaps in the future, Mr. Inwood would rely less on political memes and more on reliable sources.

Paul Hunter

Wilmington