Dear President Obama,
It’s been almost forty-eight hours since you took the oath of office. I’m going to be lenient and count the time I saw on TV as the real thing rather than the do-over you and the Chief Justice shared Wednesday night. I’ll chalk the bungled lines up to the fact that everyone involved was just nervous in front of all those people. If I faced two wars, a tanking economy, and the prospect of at least four years without email, I’d screw up, too.
And I’ll give you the inaugural balls. You’ve been working hard the past few months; you deserve to get your groove on every now and again.
But, like in the “Footloose” town, the dancing’s done in D.C., and you’ve now had thirty-six hours to get down to work. What’s taking you so long?
First off, the economy still sucks. I’m going to be graduating in a few years. I’ll be looking for a job and trying to pay off student loans (by the way, do you think you could keep pumping liquidity into credit markets?). I’ll be off my parents’ health care by then, too. You’ve got four and a half semesters to guarantee me a starting salary of $150,000 and great medical coverage. It doesn’t necessarily have to be universal; I don’t plan on having kids for another ten years. But it should cover my future wife’s boob job.
Oh, and if I could not have to pay too many taxes to get it, that would be nice, too.
You also promised you would shut down Guantanamo. You ordered it closed yesterday, but it’s going to take a year. That means twelve more months of French dudes eating croissants and making jokes about us in their snooty accents. I hate French dudes’ snooty accents.
Most people think your cabinet picks have been pretty good. Inspired, even, to hear some folks talk. It would be really sweet, though, if you could invent an undersecretary for general awesomeness. I can think of the perfect ambitious student columnist to do it. Plus then I’d let you off the hook for the whole getting me a job thing.
Global warming’s an issue as well. The “let’s all save the spotty-throated West Indian polar bear” people say that rising tide levels are a bad thing. I, however, think it’s great. In fact, if you could speed it up, that would be awesome. That way, we could have a beach right here in Dallas. No one really cares about polar bears anyway. Sure, Houston might get screwed, but I don’t really see how that’s my problem.
I’d forgive your negligence in all those cases if it weren’t for this last one. The day you took office, we started a new semester here at SMU. Turns out, there’s this really cute girl who sits two desks ahead of me in advanced nuclear physics. I thought that she’d notice me by now, but so far she seems to think I’m a bit of a jerk. That isn’t change I can believe in, that’s just more of the same.
Not that I’m actually taking advanced nuclear physics, but I’d like to, which leads me to my last piece of beef with you: why can’t I do advanced nuclear physics yet?
In conclusion, your presidency has been a disaster. If I’d wanted four sexless, beachless, advanced nuclear physicsless years, I would’ve voted for someone old, boring, and stodgy: John McCain. I didn’t because I thought you were hip and in tune with the needs of today’s youth. I spent months waiting for you to take office confident that you could fix this whole mess we’re in.
Serves me right for believing in hope.
Nathaniel French is a sophomore theater studies and math double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
