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A girl doesn’t want her mum to be deported, and can the president please help? A guy finally admits to his wife that he’s gay, and now he would like to tell the president. A car dealer writes to say his bank is shutting him down, and thanks for nothing, Mr President. A vet who can’t stop seeing what he saw in Iraq writes a barely intelligible rant that makes his point all the more intelligible: “Help.” An inmate admits to selling crack, but he wants the president to know he is not a lost cause: “I have dreams Mr President, big dreams.” A man can’t find a job. A woman can’t find a job. A teacher with advanced certification can’t find a damn job. A lesbian couple just got married; thank you, Mr President. A man sends his medical bills; a woman sends her student loan statements; a child sends her drawing of a cat; a mother sends her teenager’s report card – straight As, isn’t that awesome, Mr President?
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I noticed that over by his desk, on a wall, he had hung the framed letter from Natoma Canfield; Obama had said she reminded him of his mum, who died at 52 of a similar cancer. The letter had stood as a reminder to him of his commitment to healthcare reform. “The only instruction I gave was that I wanted every packet to be representative,” he continued. “And understanding that it wouldn’t be perfect. It didn’t mean that, you know, out of every 10 letters, there had to be two positive and two negative and three neutral and one funny. It wasn’t formulaic like that. But that was the one thing I insisted on – that this is not useful to me if all I’m getting are, you know, ‘happy birthday’ wishes. And I think they did a wonderful job of channelling the American people in that way.”
More here
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