Dear President Obama,
First, a word of congratulations on your eulogy in the Tucson memorial service! Slated for a 20-minute delivery, you managed to turn it into a 35-minute exercise in eloquence, with the notable uniqueness of having people practically dancing in the aisles. Allow me to introduce myself as the CEO of the Institute for Modifying All Governmental Entities (IMAGE, for short). With all due respect, it’s the business of IMAGE to help a client appear to the public as the entity the client desires, not necessarily the entity he/she is. For instance, IMAGE would have helped Al Gore recently retain his image as the Jolly Green Giant, savior of the world, instead of appearing as a massage-proponent with a masseuse-addiction, but – alas – he declined our offer.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the subject of civility is front-and-center these days, after the mainstream media, your propaganda arm, accused talk-show hosts of causing the Tucson massacre, never mind that an insane person actually did the deed and apparently had never heard of Rush Limbaugh. Since you’ve made rather uncivil remarks during your tenure, such as when you accused policemen of acting stupidly, IMAGE has an arm that can help you be more civil in the future. The Council for Interdicting Venality, Inhibiting Libel, and Introducing Togetherness Yin/Yang, known in Washington by its acronym CIVILITY, is designed to help clients avoid slurs and racial remarks, such as your allusion while campaigning to the “typical white person” or your description of Pennsylvanians as Bible-thumping, gun-grasping bounty-hunters of illegal Mexicans.
CIVILITY will help you not be accused of venal mean-spiritedness, such as when you put out a directive last year to discover whose asses to kick concerning the BP oil-spill, not to mention possible libeling of people in both management and government, including your own energy department. The matter of introducing togetherness speaks for itself and involves when to shake hands, hug, back-pat, etc., and is enhanced by the Chinese yin/yang, very important these days since the Chinese own much of the nation. Rodney King of “can’t we all just get along” fame heads this department.
Since you’ve been accused of taking the country into socialism and since your opponents, especially Sarah Palin, targeted specific democrat candidates for defeat last year, the IMAGE agency designed to help you capitalize on these issues is called the Council for Ruling-Out Socialist Status and Hegemony Actuating Individual Righteousness, or CROSSHAIR, for short. This agency will help you explain the takeovers of banks and auto companies and mortgage-lending establishments and the health industry as not socialistic but in the best spirit of entrepreneurship, with the government as the greatest entrepreneur of them all, since it can print money and confiscate wages.
Righteousness and socialism seem to most folks not to jive, since there’s a freedom issue involved, as well as greed. CROSSHAIR will help prepare your teleprompters with biblical quotes, snappy one-liners, and sermonic utterances (with margin suggestions directing when to laugh, weep, etc.) such that in the upcoming state-of-the-union address you will appear as a saint. Caution: Whether you use CIVILITY or not, do NOT imply that the Supreme Court doesn’t own a full deck, as you did last year, notwithstanding your law-school professorship. The great unwashed hoi polloi does not appreciate your intellect in this matter and still sees the court as the last bastion of freedom, never mind your two appointees, who may not have found the bathrooms yet in the Justice Building.
Finally and obviously respecting your ability to speechify, the IMAGE agency that can help you with making your daily or twice- or thrice-daily speech-schedule effective, is the Bureau for Lying Altruistically and Testifying in Harmonious Erroneous Rhetoric, or BLATHER, for short. It’s been noticeable lately that your facial expressions do not comport with your claim that millions of jobs are at hand. That lie to the hoi polloi is justified in making everyone feel good – a solemn responsibility for any president – but you need to look more earnest so that folks won’t think you’re…well, lying. The same is true about the Gitmo-closing and the change of withdrawal-date from Afghanistan to 2014 instead of this year.
Erroneous rhetoric is just part of the job, as you know, but it must be used in a way to create harmony between the various factions and between them and yourself. BLATHER will help with this, especially as the campaigns get underway and folks are reminded that you promised to raise electricity rates out of sight in your last campaign. That formed a discord of immense proportions but folks weren’t paying attention then, just hating Bush instead. They are paying attention now, as evidenced last November and by both Conrad and Lieberman already throwing in the towel for 2012. You have to learn how to make them eat the unbelievable and like it. You can depend on CIVILITY to do the job.
Hoping to hear from you soon,
Respectfully,
I.M. Reverself, CEO
IMAGE
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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