Letters to the President

For nostalgic purposes, here’s a letter I wrote to President Obama on 3-29-09 (only 88 days after he took office)….

Barack H. Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Washington, D.C.

Dear President Obama:

Before being elected President you pledged to repeal the Patriot Act and the Bush Administration’s official policy of illegal wiretapping, renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT), and bring the troops home from Iraq on your first day in office.  Within your first 60 days in office you have instead announced that you might bring some of the troops home within 23 months, you’ve sent 30,000 Marines to Afghanistan, you’ve decided to move more missile systems into Eastern Europe to encircle Russia, you’ve voted for the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, you’ve legalized unconstitutional wiretapping, and your campaign has gone on record as saying that, in truth, you support NAFTA and GATT. 

Allow me to share a poem with you from one of my favorite mathematicians:

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

            Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

            And the mome raths outgrabe.”

--Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, 1871

Translated into English, this poem literally means:  What the fuck is up with you, Jim-Jim?  I’ve included a self-addressed stamped envelope for a response.  Thank you very much for your time. 

Lewis Carroll’s memory is kept alive by perpetual endowment of a cot in the Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Guffey