Sunday, December 12, 2010

Dear Mr. President,

Friday, I watched that little video clip called ALetters to the President@ that=s over on the right side of the Contact Us page of the White House web site. Suspicions confirmed. You=re never going to see any of my letters. According to the video, you get 65,000 letters a week, 100,000 emails a day(!), 1,000 faxes a day, and 2,500 - 3,500 phone calls a day. You>ve got a whole crew there working like beavers sorting through all of it and picking ten letters a day for you to read. Now I know you=ve got your hands full what with running two wars, an economy that=s in the toilet (unless you=re rich) and WikiLeaks trying to air our government=s dirty laundry in public, but still, seventy out of 65,000 is a pretty small sample and when you said on the video, AThese letters do more to keep me in touch with what=s happening around the country than just about anything else,@ well, that caught my attention. I don=t think so, Mr. President. I think what you read is pretty much cherry picked. Judging from the kind of letters you read aloud on that little six minute clip, your screeners select safe stuff, heart-tuggers and Great job Mr. President letters, not the kind of cranky-pants letters I write every day. But I did decide after watching the video that since you get 100,000 emails a day, and it=s not clear that anyone even looks at them, I=d increase my odds a bit by printing and sending you each week=s emails via the good old U.S. Postal Service. This past week=s batch is enclosed.