Dear Prime Minister,
Allow me to express my condolences at your recent demise.
I've been feeling poorly and don't want it to turn into something (I don't want to join you), so I've decided not to attend your funeral. I'll be sending the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in my place. I'd send the There will be no shortage of dignitaries paying their respects. I'd send the vice-president but I want him close--in case anything happen. Also, why is he angling for the assignment?
l know all of world is grieving the passing of what journalists have called 'the man of the century.' It's only 1965. Perhaps they're jumping the gun; there's plenty of century left. Who makes that determination anyway? The press always has to pump up the most recent event, whatever it is, into the greatest, the most significant.
Your bulldog image is certainly burned on the imagination of the world, but if we're considering greatness, what about FDR, whose funeral you managed to miss.
I was just a congressman for Texas when that leader passed from the scene, the one who had been beacon of hope not just through the same war you earned your reputation in, but the depression that preceded it. At the helm of the greatest nation through not one but two of its greatest crises back to back when the outlook was, as we say in Texas, 'dark as the inside of a wolf': that seems to me as just as worthy, perhaps even more so.
And you couldn't find the time to publicly honor the one man who more than any other pulled you chestnuts out of the fire. Where I come from, you get back what you give.
Still, the press have been raising hell with me over this. The whole kerfuffle is a news reporter's dream, all pageant and not problems, and they won't allow anyone to stay away; and besides, they're out to get me anyway.
So have a good ceremony and burial. There's be a lot of time for rankings to settle out. And you won't miss my tears; I cried them all in '44.
Yours, POTUS
An epistolary exploration of an indirect 2nd person encounter. Was it interesting? History can be a straight jacket. Reply?
Dear POTUS,
I once thought FDR a comrade in arms and companion in aspiration. Later, I realized he didn't love my country as I did, or me as I did him. Our friendship cooled to cordial. I had a war to run and your people grieved enough for us all. He was a good partner, but at the end tired, unreliable. Still, perhaps I should have come.
Internal confict: more needed. Interpersonal sparring: ditto. Facts chasten imagination. Okay, let's look further afield.
Allow me to express my condolences at your recent demise.
I've been feeling poorly and don't want it to turn into something (I don't want to join you), so I've decided not to attend your funeral. I'll be sending the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in my place. I'd send the There will be no shortage of dignitaries paying their respects. I'd send the vice-president but I want him close--in case anything happen. Also, why is he angling for the assignment?
l know all of world is grieving the passing of what journalists have called 'the man of the century.' It's only 1965. Perhaps they're jumping the gun; there's plenty of century left. Who makes that determination anyway? The press always has to pump up the most recent event, whatever it is, into the greatest, the most significant.
Your bulldog image is certainly burned on the imagination of the world, but if we're considering greatness, what about FDR, whose funeral you managed to miss.
I was just a congressman for Texas when that leader passed from the scene, the one who had been beacon of hope not just through the same war you earned your reputation in, but the depression that preceded it. At the helm of the greatest nation through not one but two of its greatest crises back to back when the outlook was, as we say in Texas, 'dark as the inside of a wolf': that seems to me as just as worthy, perhaps even more so.
And you couldn't find the time to publicly honor the one man who more than any other pulled you chestnuts out of the fire. Where I come from, you get back what you give.
Still, the press have been raising hell with me over this. The whole kerfuffle is a news reporter's dream, all pageant and not problems, and they won't allow anyone to stay away; and besides, they're out to get me anyway.
So have a good ceremony and burial. There's be a lot of time for rankings to settle out. And you won't miss my tears; I cried them all in '44.
Yours, POTUS
An epistolary exploration of an indirect 2nd person encounter. Was it interesting? History can be a straight jacket. Reply?
Dear POTUS,
I once thought FDR a comrade in arms and companion in aspiration. Later, I realized he didn't love my country as I did, or me as I did him. Our friendship cooled to cordial. I had a war to run and your people grieved enough for us all. He was a good partner, but at the end tired, unreliable. Still, perhaps I should have come.
Internal confict: more needed. Interpersonal sparring: ditto. Facts chasten imagination. Okay, let's look further afield.
No comments:
Post a Comment