Telling Tales

Dear Barack,

To paraphrase I.F. Stone, all an informed citizen need remember is two words: governments lie.

Fortunately, for you, all the informed citizens in the country couldn't fill Yankee Stadium.

Most people expect their politicians lie because, to them, politics is a form of entertainment, and they are more interested in who can spin the best lie than in how their freedoms are slowly being leached away. This is why your predecessor was able to get away with the whoppers he told.

The truth is that we are neither a republic nor a democracy, and were the public to see the truth of this broadcast on the tube, they’d be so outraged by it they would switch channels and would pillory the unfortunate who forced them to face this reality.

This is because America is a fairy-tale country in which history is reduced to a story book with brightly colored pictures of square-jawed Pilgrims and their beautiful women sporting flawless skin and perfect figures. The successful leader is he who can maintain this illusion.

In TV land there is no hunger or sickness. It’s a “Father-Knows-Best” world in which only those with off-white skin suffer or die. It is a land that is as sanitary as it is uniform, where rebellion is little more than a phase the young pass through before they “pretend to be cheerful as they lead their fathers’ lives,” as the Jacque Brel song puts it.

So, your primary responsibility as president will be to spin tales, and the campaign showed that you're a master of this skill.

Of course, compared to your predecessor, even Jack the Ripper would look good. I guess that’s why God elevated him to the presidency.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones