Letter to President Obama #11 | Subject: Predator Drones and the Microsoft Paperclip Guy

Letter to President Obama #11 | Subject: Predator Drones and the Microsoft Paperclip Guy

Dear President Obama,

I’ve got something of an odd request for you—I’d like to borrow a Predator Drone for a weekend. Now, don’t worry, I had a lot of remote-controlled cars as a kid, so I’m pretty sure I could learn how to fly it. To back my claim up, you should know that I’m really good at video games with airplanes. Especially Top-Gun for the Nintendo Entertainment System. (I wasn’t very good at Captain Skyhawk for the NES, but that shouldn’t be held against me. That game involved aliens and was pretty hard.)

First off, I know we’re using the Predators a lot, and I’m not asking to use an active-duty Predator. That’d be crazy. Instead, I know we’re building a lot of those things, and before they can be shipped overseas, they have to be declared flight-worthy, right? This is where I can help! I can test the Predator for airworthiness and then let you know how that specific plane panned out.

Of course, to adequately test the Predator to the satisfaction of The Air Force, I’d need the requisite camera gear and I’d especially need working weapons. That last part is very important. But I wouldn’t need a full complement of two Hellfire missiles; I’m pretty sure I can get by with just one. Like I said, I’m pretty good at video games. And when I think about it, I probably don’t even need all the camera gear. If necessary, I’ll just put my digital camera on video mode and tape it onto one of the wings.

Let me explain why I’d like to borrow one of the Drones. As you’re now probably aware, I’ve been writing you letters fairly often—about once a day so far. I use Microsoft Word to write my letters. If you’ve ever used Microsoft Word, you’re probably aware that every time you try to do anything in the program, an “assistant” immediately pops up. This assistant also happens to look like a paperclip. When he pops up, he says, “It looks like you’re writing a letter!” He does this whether you’re writing a letter, a paper, or just typing up a grocery list. He’s apparently obsessed with letters. (Rumor has it he’s an ex postal worker.)

What set me over the edge was that this—the whole time I’ve been writing you letters—clearly identifiable letters that begin with “Dear Mr. President,” our paperclip friend is nowhere to be seen, though this is the same version of the program and everything. This time around, he’s spooked. This makes me think that he’s a coward, probably afraid to talk to you, Mr. President. That makes me like him less, but Mr. President, I’ve hated that paper clip for a long time. I was an English major in college, and we had to write a lot of papers, and that stupid paper clip thought every one of them was a letter.

I’ve often wondered why; maybe he has a long lost lover and he writes all sorts of letters that he can’t send. I mean, we’ve already established that he’s a coward. Given he’s a piece of office equipment (and a minor, dispensable one at that), his “lover” is probably lame anyway—maybe a set of post-it-notes, probably a stapler. All I want to do with the Predator Drone is to put him out of our misery and save us all a little strife. It’d be doing a public service, Mr. President. Opinion polls should tell you that. I’ve conducted an informal opinion poll (involving me, my girlfriend and my cats) and all of us agree—Clippit, the paperclip, has got to go.

We think America would agree. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for your consideration.

Take care,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #11 in a series to President Obama. You can see the rest at www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html