Presidential Correspondence
Tuesday 07/15/2008 7:04 PM
This past spring, Alex wrote a letter to "President" Bush with his solution to global warming, high gas prices, and our involvement in Iraq. He suggested that instead of spending money on the war, we use it to invent flying cars that use solar and wind power instead of gas. All of this was his brainstorm after an alternative energy presentation at one of his school's town meetings. I wish I'd made a copy of it, but I didn't. I didn't coach him at all, except to point out that inventions cost money, at which point he said we should stop spending money on the war.
He wanted to write the letter to Obama, but I explained that Obama wasn't the president (yet) and was really busy with campaigning, so he wrote to GW instead. On Monday, we received a response from Bush, which Alex was very excited to open. The letter came on White House letterhead, but unfortunately didn't address Alex's concerns or even acknowledge the topic he wrote to him about. In some ways, I thought this was humorously typical for Bush ... but Alex was disappointed with the letter:
After he read it out loud, he looked at me and asked, "NOW can I write to Obama?" Bush also sent a photo of himself and one of Barney, the first dog. You can see which photo Alex finds most valuable:
I told him to hold up what he got, but he couldn't get all three up at the same time, so after fumbling around for a few seconds, he let GW fall to the floor, but you can see the edge of his portrait in this photo:
Alex taped Barney and the letter to his bedroom door, and an hour or so later, he asked for the tape again. When I asked him why, he said, "Well, he IS the president." So now I have to look at Bush everytime I walk past Alex's room ... until November.
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