Letter #8 to President Obama | Subject: Superheroes, Cartoons and Foreign Policy

Letter #8 to President Obama | Subject: Superheroes, Cartoons and Foreign Policy

Dear President Obama,

One of your challenges as our President is to help improve America's image abroad. So far, I think you’ve been doing a pretty good job, but I have a few suggestions that might help our country in this endeavor.

During the last administration there was an assumption that if we exported democracy abroad that the world would see the freedoms inherent in our culture and respect us because of them. But that implies imposing one’s idea of what governance should be like upon another people, and as we’ve seen in the last few years, that stuff can be tricky. So instead of exporting political ideologies or abstract governmental frameworks, I’d suggest we use two of our existing well-known exports to improve our image abroad—superheroes and cartoons.

I suggest we use cartoons for two reasons. First, the government’s got a pretty good record on cartoons. We invented Smokey the Bear, who rocks, though I’d be lying if I said that we’ve haven’t had our share of clunkers. (Remember Bert, the “Duck and Cover” Turtle from that 1951 Federal Civil Defense Administration video?) But even there, Bert was only a little radioactive pizza away from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Secondly, it’s not like we’ll have to invent these characters; they exist already! The Transformers, Superman, He-Man, the Looney Toons—all of these could be used to our national advantage.

For instance, consider the Transformers and our current situation in North Korea. I don’t know about you, but North Korea’s government reminds me a lot of the Decepticons. I mean, every time someone at the U.N. even mentions North Korea, North Korea’s Central News Agency publishes half a dozen rambling, angry press releases. Worse yet, the letters are so intransigent and unyielding it’s easy to think that they were composed by an evil robot. I get halfway through one of these press releases and I’m like, whatever, Megatron.

Consider this excerpt from a recent DPRK press release about North Korea’s recent attempted satellite launch:

Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- The successful launch of the satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 precisely means the victory of the might of the DPRK's ideology and mental power, will and pluck and self-supporting economy and science and technology.

Huh? I’m pretty sure the DPRK official “translator” is actually Yahoo’s Babelfish software. In any case, the end result is hilarious, and it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for us to officially label North Korea News Agency as the Decepticons. In turn, we could refer to ourselves as the Autobots, and half of the work would be done for us. I mean, who are you going to support in the end, the Decepticons or the Autobots? It’s not even a choice--no one likes the Decepticons! (Except maybe Dick Cheney. Since his term’s over now, can you tell me, was he a Decepticon? I was always leaning towards yes, but I was never quite sure.)

In addition, not only would this improve our image, this whole endeavor would be marketable and it would seriously make C-SPAN a lot more interesting. As things currently stand, C-SPAN’s just a blur of boring old suits and ties, and the only bit of excitement is a bowtie now and again. But imagine a Senate Subcommittee filled with senators in capes and utility belts and crazy helmets. Now I know what you're going to say--you probably think that that'd be improper or unprofessional, but I don't buy it. There’s not much difference between a cape and a tie anyway. In the end, both are pretty arbitrary and pointless. Capes, at least, would add a little drama to those long, dreary Senate sessions. And they’d add drama, as they'd make escalators a moment of life and death.

And this isn’t just a national idea; each state could adopt or create their own superheroes to improve their image and drive tourism. Minnesota’s been really ahead of the curve on this—we’ve got Paul Bunyan and that guy means big bucks for cities that were smart enough to cash in on him. But why stop at a lumberjack and a silly blue ox? Consider my modest example—Midwestern Man. A resident of the Upper Midwest, he could ride a cow and use specially-hardened wedges of cheese as his shuriken-like main weapon. This would thereby highlight the area dairy industry, and he could be assisted in his good deeds by his fellow superheroes The Iron Range (featuring the iron-ore deposits in MN and MI) and his sidekick, Corn Boy. In fact, I was so excited about this idea I immediately began designing a costume for Midwestern Man. In fact, I’m wearing it as I write this.

I therefore like to encourage you to consider my proposal. If you take my suggestions, I think the world would be a better place.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #8 to President Obama. Brett's writing (almost) a letter a day, though he skipped yesterday. See www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html for the rest.

Letter to President Obama #7 | Subject: Clowns and The War on Terror

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing because I have suggestions that might help our country in The War on Terror. Up to this point, much of The War on Terror has dealt with overseas organizations like Al-Qaida, which seek to harm the U.S. at home and abroad, or domestic groups with similar aims.

Nevertheless, one dangerous and terrifying group has faced little scrutiny so far in the War on Terror, and that group unfortunately preys upon children, our most vulnerable citizens—of course, I’m speaking of clowns.

Let’s be clear—clowns are terrifying and children hate them. A recent study indicated that 100 percent of children were afraid of clowns. As a former child, I can attest that clowns are, in fact, terrifying. But that’s only the part of the study that was made public. Privately, that study indicated clowns also hate children and that clowns even hate clowns. Now you’re probably wondering where I’m getting all this inside information, and I’ll tell you, I’m not some armchair observer. I’ve been there—when I was a child, I attended clown college; I was a clown college child soldier.

In one sense, clown college was like any other terrorist organization; it was based upon a cycle of social distrust and self-loathing (this is probably why clowns paint their smiles on). The social network was tight (we all drove in the same, tiny car), and we attempted to strike society’s most vulnerable, at times of expected levity like birthday parties and circuses. When we arrived, children would do anything they could to escape. I remember one time visiting a church carnival and joining in for a game of “The Cake Walk,” in which music plays as you walk on selected tiles; the winner who is left standing on the specified tile when the music stops playing wins a cake. The music stopped playing for a particular game and a small boy was left standing on the winning tile. He was handed his cake, and I walked over, in full clown attire, to congratulate him. He screamed wildly, and in an apparent attempt to distract me and escape, he thrust the uneaten cake into my arms.

It was only then that I recognized the extent of terror that I had just inspired; Mr. President, children do not just give away cake.

Even though that story was terrible, it taught me a valuable lesson—clowns were so scary that they could prevent children from eating fatty foods. That’s why I’m not suggesting we ban clowns. Instead, I’m suggesting we use the terror they elicit to our advantage to prevent childhood obesity. After doing some initial research on this front, I realize that it’s been happening already.

I don’t know which administration forced McDonald’s to choose a clown as its main mascot, but this certainly must have prevented a significant number of cases of childhood obesity. I’d simply like to encourage you to expand upon this existing campaign. In short, I don’t think Ronald McDonald is scary, or prominent, enough. Perhaps if we could get the CDC or the NIH to require all McDonald’s doors to feature giant superimposed images of Ronald McDonald’s face, this would be a start. Of course, we’d need to make him more grotesque. Perhaps we could give him bloody fangs. And those really terrible dark circles under his eyes. And maybe some stubble too.

I’d also suggest updating a few of his friends in McDonaldland. Grimace already has a perfect name, but he looks a little bit too friendly. Maybe we could make him morbidly obese and put him in a wheelbarrow? This might prevent children from eating an extra apple pie. And as much as I love the name of the Hamburglar, what if he stole cute, adorable pets, instead of hamburgers?

Finally, I’d like to suggest updating the National Threat Level; right now, I think things are pretty vague. If there were corresponding stick-figures for each level, perhaps it’d be clearer where we stand. (An example: the “low” ranking would have a smiley face, the “guarded” level could have a stick-figure peering over the fence at his neighbors suspiciously, etc.) This could go all the way up to “Severe” which could feature a stick figure on fire or with bubonic plague or something like that.

In any case, that’s just an idea. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for your attention in these important matters.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #7. See the rest at www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html

Letter to President Obama #6 | Subject: Pirates

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with yet another pressing policy concern. I, like many Americans, was enthralled by the whole piracy saga involving Captain Robert Phillips and the Maersk Alabama last week. I’d like to offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to the Navy Seals and sailors who were involved in his rescue. I’m genuinely glad Capt. Phillips is safe.

In addition, given my experience with the strategy of naval warfare, I think I might have some helpful suggestions to help prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.

First, I’d like to ask the obvious question—why haven’t we sunk their battleship? I mean, I looked in the news for a headline like “Torpedo strike sends pirates’ main vessel to the Davy Jones’s Locker” or something of that sort, but I didn’t find anything at all.

I think this is somewhere I could help. Not to brag, but I’m basically the best Battleship player I know.

And given that I’m assuming that promotions in U.S. Navy are still determined on the basis of success in Battleship, I think it might be helpful if the Navy (or the Naval Academy) were to host a Battleship contest, in order to drum up some new strategies and ways to deal with the pirates. The winner could be declared Admiral and they would be put in charge of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which, as I understand it, is responsible for dealing with the pirates. (A related question: If I were to win, could you make me an admiral and give me a three-corner hat? If so, great. it’d probably be better if I were want to direct my forces from shore; I get sea sick.)

New naval strategies are one way we can fight the pirates, but like Ron Paul recently suggested, I think we need to go further. I was particularly intrigued by Paul’s recent suggestion that we arm our merchant vessels and send privateers after the pirates. To really discourage piracy, we should go even further-—using examples from 17th century piracy in the Caribbean—-we can assemble a counter-piracy dream team. This vessel and its crew would serve two purposes—first, it would strike fear into the hearts of the pirates and second, it would serve as a great recruiting tool for the Navy.

The first thing we need is a vessel, and I have the perfect ship in mind—to me, no other ship is scarier than the Exxon Valdez.

But of course we’d need a captain, and he’d need to be as scary as possible. Do we happen to have any admirals who are, say, over six and a half feet tall, with a ZZ-top-length beard and thick, long black hair? And if so, do we still have any cannon fuse lying around? (Do we still use that stuff?) If so, we could ask said admiral to wind that cannon fuse into his hair and beard, lighting it on fire before the inevitable boarding of the opposing vessel and voila—instant Blackbeard.

In order to make the crew truly terrifying, I have some other suggestions about crew members too—I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that Rob Zombie looks a little like a pirate, and if you’ve seen his movies, you know he’s really, really creepy. In addition, if you could contact Governor Schwarzenegger, I could probably get in touch with the Jesse the Body Ventura, as a friend of a friend knows him. (He was my governor, after all.) That makes three really tough, creepy guys, and given proper plundering and pillaging training, all three would make good pirates. I’d like to make an unorthodox selection for ship’s band, instead of including the standard string ensemble or anything like that, I think we need something a little more terrifying. I think the band Rammstein would a great fit for this project. One reviewer said they wrote “music to invade Poland to”—how’s that for creepy? Even better, they’re German and they reportedly love to set things on fire! Perfect!

Of course, the crew would need the proper uniforms and modern armament—but I’m also convinced that we’d need swords. I remember that the Marines have swords in their commercials; does the Navy have swords? If not, could we borrow a few from the Marines?

Finally, I know recruitment might be an issue for the Navy at this point—and I think our anti-piracy dream team would be a recruitment boon and it could help clear up some negative stereotypes about the Navy. For instance, in high school I thought about going into the Navy to fight pirates, but my guidance counselor steered me away from the idea. In so doing, he mentioned two spooky words—scurvy and eye patches.

I’m not going to lie—scurvy’s a little scary. But I think there’s an easy way around this problem, after reading a little bit about scurvy, I know it’s not an issue for Navy crews these days—so why not run a Navy ad featuring a well-known celebrity, Johnny Depp, say, about Exxon Valdez on the hunt for pirates. And while we’re at it, why not show him with all sorts of Vitamin C sources all around him, and maybe show Johnny drinking a big glass of orange juice or something. This could help clear up that misconception.

As far as eye patches go, now don’t get me wrong—I’m a pretty big fan of them. (I even wore one as a joke to my senior prom—it was on a riverboat.) But I certainly don’t want to wear one all the time, and until I did some research recently, I thought that it was required equipment in the piracy business. To avoid this stigma, perhaps our anti-piracy Navy ad could highlight the Navy’s excellent vision care plan and show lots of smiling (grimacing?) pirate faces in glasses, contacts, those light-to-dark prescription sunglasses and pirates waiting in line at the optometrist, that sort of thing.

If we were to adopt these suggestions, I think our fight against the pirates would go that much better.

Sincerely,


Brett Ortler

Letter #5 to President Obama | Subject: Revision of our National Symbols

Dear President Obama,

I’ve been thinking about your promise to change the culture of Washington, and I’m with you; I think we need to change how Washington works. But how can we do that if have the same old national symbols? I’d therefore like to propose a few revisions to our national iconography. I’m writing to now to get the first word in, as I’m sure this process, like anything else in Washington, will be inundated with lobbyists, special interests, and all sorts of other folks wanting to make their pitch.

First of all, I don’t think the eagle is the proper symbol of the U.S. I mean, with all due respect to the eagle, isn’t the eagle a bit of a jerk? I’m from Minnesota; every once in a while you’ll hear a story about a hunter out and about in the woods and suddenly an eagle will swoop down and steal the hunter’s hat, or his dog, and fly off with it. Mr. President, that’s theft. More than that, on The Great Seal the eagle is armed—it’s got a whole clawful of arrows! That means our national symbol isn’t just a jerk, it’s an armed jerk. That’s a little like having The Predator as your national symbol. (If we wanted our symbol to be an armed jerk, why not pick Ted Nugent?) Now I know what you’re going to say—I know the eagle has an olive branch in the other claw, but I’d be willing to bet that’s just a bit of avian sleight of hand, it’s probably got a knife bundled in there.

Now I can understand why we picked the eagle, it’s a pretty cool bird and we didn’t have many other options. I mean, as wise and sage as our forefathers were, they weren’t exactly prescient when it came to birds. I mean, Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird. That would have been ludicrous. I mean, imagine how that would have turned out: all the countries that don’t like would be having Thanksgiving at every protest, and their GDP would probably skyrocket, thanks to all the anti-American turkey and cranberry sales.

Even my home state of Minnesota made a mistake in choosing its state bird. Our state bird is the common loon. I’ll grant you that the loon is an absolutely beautiful bird, but Mr. President, have you ever heard a loon call? Having a loon as your state bird is a little like having a raving, wildly-cackling crazy person as your state bird. Or to use an example from popular culture, it’s a little like having Heath Ledger’s Joker as our state bird; loons make every tent-camping excursion a little like a horror movie. I think that’s why Minnesotans are so stoic, especially about winter—we’re not worried about the cold—we’re just worried the loons are going to come back. Loons are scarier than winter. (Thank goodness loons aren’t armed!)

And what’s with our national motto: E Pluribus Unum? That’s Latin for “out of many, one.” I don’t know about you, but that seems a little creepy to me. It sort of reminds me of The Borg from Star Trek and their line, “Resistance is Futile.” And if you take it literally, it makes it sound like we’re building something, like we’re all Legos or something. I have no problem with that metaphor (I love Legos!), but what we’re building is never specified. Maybe we should finish the thought. Perhaps it could be:

E Pluribus Unum, Unus Nex Astrum (Out of Many, One Castle)

E Pluribus Unum, Unus Moenia (Out of Many, One Death Star)

E Pluribus Unum, Unus Populus (Out of Many, One Nation)


Now granted, I don’t know Latin, so I had to use the Internet to get these translations. So you might want to get them checked first. Anyway, I suggested the first one because it seemed appropriate if we were continuing the Lego brick analogy. I suggested the second one because it’d really make our coinage a lot cooler, albeit a little creepier. And if we wanted to go to the creepy route, we could really amp up the creepiness. Perhaps we could put the national motto in a text bubble (like in cartoons) and have an artist sketch in Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone. This, coupled with the Death Star reference, would make things really spooky. Once the Treasury released these, we could send these coins to our enemies, and I think they’d get the point. And if that didn’t work, we could upgrade the armament for the tough-guy eagle and put him on our coins. We could give him an Uzi, or maybe put him in a tank, with a helmet.

With that said, I don’t think we need to change the national motto altogether; it just needs a little revision. But if we do change it, we should be careful; we don’t want to end up like Wisconsin. Its motto is apparently bibo ergo sum, which is Latin for “I drink, therefore I am.”

In any case, I hope you take these important points into consideration.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #5 to President Obama; I'm sending one a day. You can see the rest at www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html

Letter to President Obama #4 | Subject: Robotic Maids.

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with yet another pressing policy concern. I was watching a television program called The Jetsons and I was fascinated by many pieces of technology on the show, but one thing in particular caught my eye—the robotic maid. After the show was over, my cat walked out from using the litter box, throwing cat litter all over the place with each step. This meant I had to vacuum. Because of my cats, I have to vacuum about thirty-seven times a day. (If I were I vacuum company manufacturer, I’d send cats to all of my clients. Because if you have a cat, you need a vacuum. It’s a perfect marketing ploy. Or maybe there’s a conspiracy here, maybe vacuum companies are run by cats?)

Anyway, like most Americans, I have a manual vacuum, but its headlight scares the cats and I think my girlfriend’s afraid of it too (I don’t think she likes the noise), so she always insists that I vacuum. So I finally decided to get a robotic maid like on the Jetsons; I called up the local department store and asked them to send me the most advanced robotic maid they had. This seemed to confuse them a bit, but after I insisted that such technology existed, they acquiesced; a week later, there was a small box on my doorstep.

My robotic maid was a lot smaller than I expected, but that didn’t bother me at first. I had been thinking of what to name my robot ever since I called the department store, so I was pretty bummed out when I saw that it already had a name—Roomba. I hadn’t decided on a name yet, but I’d narrowed down the field. I wanted to name my robot after someone I didn’t like, because that’d make ordering the robot around a lot more fun. I had decided to name the robot either Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. I don’t like those guys. (I mean, how much fun would it be to yell, “Hey! Sean Hannity/Bill O’Reilly” go take out the trash! Yackety-Yak! Don’t Talk Back!”) And then the little robot would wheel away, doing your bidding. It’d be great!

So I thought about renaming it, but that didn’t seem fair. I mean, once something has a name, you can’t take that away. (This is why I was so mad about Pluto getting called a “dwarf planet.” I mean, imagine being Pluto, The Planet and having to change all of your IDs, your bank account; I mean, what if Pluto were on some sort of beer-league softball team and its jersey said, “Pluto, the Planet” on the back? Then it’d have to get it changed to “Pluto, the Plutoid.” How embarrassing (and redundant)!

Anyway, to alleviate my disappointment about naming my robot, I decided to dress it up in a maid’s outfit. This seemed appropriate, but it was a lot harder than I thought. I made a black and white costume for it, but it ended up looking more like a round nun than anything else. So I gave up on that, and I told it to start vacuuming. It didn’t move. So I read the instructions, and it turns out I had to use a remote control. This seemed a little archaic, but OK. Then it starts vacuuming, sort of. Actually, it just started driving in circles; I thought it was either drunk or broken. (My uncle was drunk once and then decided to mow the lawn; it looked a little bit like that.)

I called up the department store where I got it, and they said it wasn’t broken, that’s how it works, which I thought was outrageous. After getting nowhere with them, I thought about bringing the Roomba to a doctor; maybe it had vertigo or something. Before doing that, I decided to put myself in the Roomba’s shoes. I decided that if I had lived for who-knows-how-long in a sealed-up box, I’d probably be hungry. So I gave my Roomba a cookie. The transformation was amazing! First, of all, it loves Girl Scout cookies. After it had a snack, it did whatever I told it to! It’d vacuum in any pattern I wanted, even those intricate lawn patterns like you see at the Major League Baseball All-Star Games!

I’m telling you all this because I know the White House probably has a few Roombas and I bet you think yours are broken. They’re not! You just need to feed them cookies! I hope this bit of information helps you keep the White House clean, and I’d encourage you to adopt this technology for other areas with a lot of floor space. Perhaps the Library of Congress?

Thank you for your attention, Mr. President.

Brett Ortler


This is letter #4 to Mr. Obama. I'll be sending a letter a day.

Letter to President Obama #3 | Subject: Horses, The Big Three, and Robots

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing you with another pressing policy concern—I know GM and Chrysler have been going through a pretty rough stretch lately, and I think I know why.

First, I think the big car companies are going about naming their products all wrong. Generally speaking, I think too many of cars made by the Big Three are named after horses. For instance, consider the Dodge Colt. I mean, really, who names a car after a horse? When I think of what I want in a car, I don’t think of the common features available on many ungulates. (OK, I’ll admit it, the GMC Alpaca does have a nice ring to after it.)

After all, horses don’t have AC, they don’t have one of those cigarette-lighter adapter things, they don’t even have anti-lock-brakes! And I think I speak for the American public when I say that I generally would like my car to have more horsepower than 1, which is the standard amount available on your average horse. I know what you’re going to say—“but Brett, all Dodge Colts have a lot more horsepower than a horse!” I know they do, but the name already has me thinking of Mr. Ed and carrots, not speed and chic design. (For instance, if GM were to name a car “the StupidSlowmobile,” it wouldn’t matter how fast or cool the car actually was, the name would stick.)

I mean, if we’re going to name a car after a horse, then let’s go all out. Let’s amp up the giveaways and offer to give away a cowboy hat and a free year’s worth of oats with every purchase. Maybe a pitchfork, too. And if we could pull a few strings, perhaps we could get a test model of the new car in the running for the Kentucky Derby. This could drum up PR and who knows, it might even win. (But watch out, I’ve heard that the horse Vallenzeri is pretty fast.)

Secondly, I know that robots are an essential part of the automotive assembly line these days, but they also might the cause of some of our problems. Let me explain: I began thinking about this after calling up GM and Chrysler and asking them how much their robots were paid. Their answer astounded me; the robots aren’t paid at all!

From an executive’s point of view, I understand this; the robots probably don’t know any better, so why pay them? But what if someone else (representatives from Honda or Mitsubishi, say) snuck into one of our factories and made our robots a better offer? What if corporate spies bribed our robots with fancy Japanese electronics like the Wii and flat panel TVs? To wit, Mr. President, have you ever considered the possibility that there are robotic traitors in our midst?

Assume this is true for a moment—this would explain the American reputation for shoddy workmanship, and in turn, our flat-lining sales. Clearly we must offer our robots a living (sentient?) wage in order to prevent this problem.

I hope you take time to consider these points; I think if we were to make changes in these areas our automakers would be in better shape.

Take Care,

Brett Ortler

An Open Letter To President Obama About the Minnesota Twins (Letter #1)

Dear President Obama,

I'm writing you with a pressing policy concern—I'd like to question your policy of supporting the Chicago White Sox to the detriment of the Minnesota Twins.
I think such support is inconsistent with your economic policies. Now don’t get me wrong, I agree wholeheartedly with your handling of the financial crisis; it’s just that in the economic hubbub of the last few months, you’ve made it clear that we should be focusing on “Main Street,” not “Wall Street.”

The Minnesota Twins are Main Street all the way. For instance, we don’t play in some flashy rich stadium; we play in a stadium that looks like a marshmallow. The jumbotron at U.S. Cellular Field has a beer ad right next to it; the jumbotron at the Metrodome? It features an advertisement for sausage.

And the Twins are a small business, if you can call a team with a $65 million dollar payroll run by a billionaire family a “small business.” (And if that’s not Main Street enough for you, check the address of this letter; I actually live on Main Street.) The White Sox? They have a payroll of $95 million—that’s big business; in fact, some of that White Sox money probably goes towards lobbying.

More than that, some of the Minnesota Twins players are actually ‘little guys’; look at Nick Punto, He’s 5’9! We don’t have any of those Matt Thornton White Sox types on our team. Thornton’s 6’6; did you know that according to some sources, Goliath was 6’6? Coincidence? No!

Finally, the Minnesota Twins are more presentable and affable. I’m speaking particularly of Anthony John Pierzynski, who spent a good portion of last season looking like he had selected a peroxide-wielding primate as his hairdresser. (By the way, what is the White House position on peroxide?) And lest I open myself to criticism, yes, A.J. is an ex-Twin, but everyone makes mistakes. I think you’ll agree that Joe Mauer was an upgrade.

For these reasons, I’d like you to encourage you to support the Minnesota Twins, an American League Central Division team that is more in-line with your administration's economic goals and policies.

Sincerely,
Brett Ortler

Letter to President Obama #2 | Subject: Please Be Less Beautiful/Talented

Dear President Obama,

As you may remember, I wrote you a letter congratulating you on your election victory a week or so after your inauguration. As you didn’t respond, I came to the conclusion that you must have misplaced my original letter (and the one I sent you earlier this month).

My assumption is that it got mixed in with former-President Bush’s things when he was moving out of the White House. If so, I hope he doesn’t respond. That’d be a little awkward. (Then again, maybe he could get the Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton to sign a baseball for me.)

In any case, I’ve decided to write you again. While my original letter was entirely laudatory, it’s been a few months and I’ve now got a gripe to let you know about. As you probably recall in my original epistle, I complimented you on “your historic victory and your beautiful family.”

As it turns out, your family’s a little too beautiful. What I mean is, after seeing your beautiful family on television, in magazines, and on the front pages of the papers, it has some of us feeling a little frumpy. For instance, my girlfriend and I were in the grocery checkout aisle. Your wife, Michelle, was featured on a magazine cover, and my girlfriend commented on how well-toned and sculpted Michelle’s arms were. We both then looked down at the conveyor belt and the entirety of our grocery purchases for the day: Reese’s peanut butter cup ice cream, chocolate syrup, and hot fudge. Then, my girlfriend and I looked at each other, and at our (rather jiggly) arms. We frowned, picked up our items and got out of line. Long story short, we ended up eating sorbet instead. It tasted fine, but I don’t like eating things I can’t pronounce and I blame you, Mr. President, for this variety of grocery self-censorship.

It’s not just that your family’s photogenic. Your family is so accomplished. I mean, when former President Bush made his infamous “our children is learning” slip, I felt like a genius, like a regular Ken Jennings; I’d never have made that mistake. (For
once, I feel myself waxing nostalgic about the Bush administration.)

And you speak so well. Now, you should know something: I sometimes have trouble speaking. I speak quickly, and I often joke that I come from a long line of auctioneers. When I turn on the TV and hear you speak with that sure cadence of yours, I feel instantly dispirited. I mean, how do I compete with that? It just doesn’t seem fair.

Now please don’t think of me as just a critic. I mean, I’ve got constructive suggestions to offer. First, to make the rest of us feel better—please, stammer once in a while. (Sometimes, when I catch myself stammering, I’ll just keep doing it for ten or twenty seconds, and I’ll make up my own alien-like stammer-language. It’s fun; you should try it!) This will make the rest of us feel better about ourselves.

Secondly, it’d be great if you and/or your family could be photographed in a less-than-flattering outfit. Some options—buy an ugly sweater! Even better, get one of those Christmas sweaters and wear it to some non-essential function. No one looks good in one of those. (You could also multi-task; maybe wear it if you’re giving a speech at some AARP function? You’ll fit right in!) Or, write an executive order that requires you and the Cabinet to wear Hawaiian shirts for a day. The Hawaiian shirt is just like the Christmas sweater, no one looks good in one. (Additional hint: Don’t tell the Press Corp in advance; it’ll baffle them!)

Finally, think about making a really goofy face next time you’re in front of the cameras. You know, like Einstein did in that one photo? Sure, Einstein was better at physics than anybody else, but that photo made him so much more down to Earth, and everyone felt better about themselves when they saw that picture! (There’s also a presidential precedent here; President Bush did this for eight years!)

In conclusion, I’m confident these steps would help our national self-esteem. Please take them into consideration.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #2 to Mr. Obama. I'll be sending a letter a day. Check out www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html for more.