Dear Senator Joe Biden

Dear Senator Joe Biden:

Now that you've become the democrat vice presidential candidate, I'm contacting you to suggest that you avail yourself of the services of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities, known familiarly, especially in Washington, by its acronym – IMAGE. Since its clients are already known for their depth of intellect and honesty, the job of IMAGE is merely to tweak their images as accurately and effectively as possible for public consumption, translated, of course, as into votes in November. Proof of IMAGE's effectiveness is seen in its recent success in making Vice President Cheney appear humble, after he told Senator Leahy to commit a terrible act upon himself and actually shot a fellow hunter. Mr. Cheney followed the directions of an IMAGE agency, the Department for Understanding Propaganda Effects, known by its acronym DUPE. Check out his speech at that media-bash to see what DUPE can do.

Since you've been known – excuse me for mentioning it – to lose your temper at times, you might consider an arm of IMAGE known as the Emotion Manipulation Office for Tactical Effects, known more familiarly by its acronym EMOTE. You lost a bit of credibility, for instance, when you snarled at Chief Justice Roberts during his nomination-hearing before the Judiciary Committee, though you are to be commended for not frothing at the mouth like Senators Schumer and Feingold. EMOTE's experts have already noted that your smile was not authentic in that hearing and that it was so broad that it allowed you to bare your fangs, as it were. An automatic-smile-under-any-circumstances is always easy to spot, so EMOTE would teach you when and how to avoid what actually is a know-it-all smirk.

EMOTE will also teach you when to shed tears, a perfectly acceptable exercise in what has become a feminist society, when to pound a lectern, when to tell or laugh at (or not) an off-color joke, and – most importantly – when NOT to upstage your running mate by bragging about your law-school accomplishments…or anything else, such as beginning in the Senate when your running-mate was only 12-years-old or just recently visiting troubled Georgia while Senator Obama was titillating the teeny-boppers in Berlin.

There are some – present company not included, of course – who charge that you sometimes let out the clutch on your mouth before getting your brain in gear. It would be well, however, to consider an arm of IMAGE known as the Bureau for Labeling Accurately Bureaucrats, Blather and Erratic Rhetoric, known, as you might guess, as BLABBER. If you had been a client that day in the Delaware diner, you would not have characterized Senator Obama as clean, bright, and articulate, not that he isn't all of those things, as you noted, but because you made everyone else in his race suffer by comparison as being dirty, dull, and dense. In other words, you indulged in erratic rhetoric, an absolute no-no in campaigns, which the pundits parse relentlessly. Also, you made a mistake in the euphoria of the announcement-ceremony in Springfield by referring to Senator Obama as "Barack America," a penultimate example of blather and an absolute campaign-killer south of the Mason-Dixon line and even out west.

One of the most important consortiums in IMAGE is the Agency Wonk – Patriotic and Homiletic Outpourings, Objurgations and Evangelical Yammering, known, of course, by the shortened AW- PHOOEY. Since religion and values are big these days and since democrats have an acute problem with the so-called evangelicals, especially those millions who are so short-sighted as to consider fornication and adultery wrong, not to mention anal sex, you need to know when and what to say where. In Massachusetts and California, anything goes, so you need to "preach," for instance, on the sanctity of homosexual marriage, with or without condoms, at every opportunity. Try that in Alabama, though, and you will be ridden out of town on a rail since Baptists are known to play rough there. Don't try to identify with the snake-handlers in Kentucky and Tennessee, either, since…well, you guessed it.

If Senator Obama had come to us years ago, he would never have suffered through what many consider mutual escapades with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright in damning this country for dropping the A-bombs that ended WWII and foisting the HIV virus off on African Americans. AW-PHOOEY would have separated him from that windbag long ago, as well as advised him not to describe typical white people as leery of anyone different nearby (like his grandmother) or as paranoids grasping their Bibles and guns while sniffing out immigrants…at least in Pennsylvania. Since you and your running-mate will soon spend every Sunday through November preaching in black churches, AW-PHOOEY will not only write your sermons, but coach you on their delivery, especially helping you develop the black cadence and alliteration-techniques. Note: Plagiarism, a sensitive subject for you, will not be a problem since it's understood that politicians always speak what someone else has written.

These are just a few examples of what IMAGE can accomplish. We constantly stay in touch when aiding and abetting a campaign. For instance, our Idiosyncrasies of Debate-Department, known as ID, will prepare you for each debate, otherwise known as the "news-anchors" hour, since these are "gotcha games" the anchors use for reputation-enhancement but for which you must be prepared. ID will also warn you away from substantive exercises, like the recent "Warren Interviews," in which Senator Obama hemmed-and-hawed his way into inscrutableness, a campaign-killer. ID would have devised for him a pocket-teleprompter so he would not have strayed from his programmed image. As you can see, IMAGE is state-of-the-art and I hope to hear from you soon.

I.M Reverself, CEO
IMAGE