Wonkette
Here is a heartwarming story: a little boy- or girl-child writes to Barack Obama to say, “Hey man whatsup I want U 2 B purznit” (that is how children write today, in America). And Barack Obama, a man with infinite time and letter-writing resources, pens a unique personal response to each and every one of these precious children and signs it with a nice blue pen! Barack Obama is a magical patron of youngsters — like Santa, only real! Except that he is a fraud.
Here’s what he wrote to 8-year-old Terrence Law of Willingboro, Pennsylvania:
“I leave you with three bits of advice that will make your life more full. Look out for other people, even when it doesn’t directly benefit you; strive to make a difference everywhere you go; and get back up every time you are knocked down.”
Hmm, sound advice! So what did he tell 9-year-old Karina Encarnacion of St. Louis?
Karina said, “He told me I should try to make a difference everywhere I go and to get up every time I’m knocked down and to look out for other people even if it doesn’t benefit me.”
Hey, wait a minute!
In her letter to Obama, Hannah [...] introduced herself and wrote, “If that name is familiar to you, it is because our name is in the phone book. My favorite color is blue. I am 7 years old. If you are elected, please take care of poor people.”
In his response, Obama thanked Hannah and two other classmates for their support, praised her interest in politics and gave the second-grader three pieces of advice: “look out for people, even when it does not directly benefit you; strive to make a difference everywhere you go; and get back up every time you are knocked down.”
[...] While Michael Gopin was concerned about the possibility of higher taxes, the letter to his daughter swayed his vote away from Sen. John McCain.
“When Hannah got her little letter, she twisted my heart to go the other way,” Michael Gopin said, adding “maybe (it was) that he was a more caring and compassionate person by taking the time to sign a letter to a young child.”
Ha ha sorry Michael Gopin, you have cast your vote for a CHARLATAN. Here is Obama’s awful secret: Every senator has a nifty little machine with a blue pen in it that signs form letters in the senator’s handwriting.
Naturally, it is still a very nice thing when a little kid gets a letter from the President-elect featuring sound advice for livin’. Just, he probably stole that advice from Deval Patrick.
Infinite thanks to Wonkette Washington Insider Paul “Michael” Vartan for unearthing this shocking tale of deception.
Oh my God. You mean there isn’t a Santa Claus OR a Tooth Fairy?
I’m pretty surprised kid’s would even think of using snail-mail anyway. I would have throught the internet savvy option is to have one of those Artificial Intelligence ‘Bots in an instant messaging program.
To the children of America, another piece of shocking news. Your letters to Santa Claus get opened and laughed at by drunk postal workers.
McCain’s form letter to kids: Goddamn kids! Get the fuck off my lawn!
He wouldn’t do that. I know the guy personally…..he and Ploofie have been emailing me since I volunteered for his campaign.
Would a guy who personally thanks a random volunteer in a swing state (via email)….ON THE NIGHT HE WINS THE PRESIDENCY….
would that guy send a robo-letter to a child?
How dare you, Sara.
How dare you.
here is what an example of our robot friend looks like… http://www.novaspace.com/AUTO/autopenmachine.jpeg
Whatever… I know the text messages I got were each typed out by Hopey’s own fingers on the Blackberry he’s giving up. I could just feel the authenticity!
FMA: All of my lawns! All 200!
Of course, the Wingnuts will hysterically shriek that this on the equivalency of Epic Fail Rummie Rumsfeld using a robo clerk to sign personal “So sorry that your _____, a ______ from the ______ is a) KIA b) WIA c) MIA” letters during the Mess O’Potamia.
Be like comparing writing letters to Santa to writing personal letters of Grief (which it is.)
The auto-pen is a great thing.
What a great uncredited photo. Isn’t that by Jonathan Ernst for Reuters?
Still, it’s better than telling them to look for differences everywhere they go; out people, even when it does not directly benefit them; and to go down instead of getting knocked up.
Senators have more important things to do than set up their auto pen to write letters to kids. Like receiving fish statues from lobbyists.
How bad was the McCain campaign that even hackneyed form letters to children can swing votes away from Mac? “Thank you little boy/girl for sending me a letter/e-mail. Remember that America is awesome and to stay golden pony boy/girl. Signed B.O.”
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
What’s wrong with that? Kids should get used to mild, mundane disappointment. It dulls the pain of the huge disappointments later on.
Willingboro is in New Jersey, a state with so much nothing going for it that all of its suburbs officially belong in different states. God, I miss it.
JERSEY REPRESENT!
Meh. Could be a lot worse.
My son, when in the 3rd grade wrote a letter to Bush warning him about Abu Ghraib, which alarmed my son after seeing it on teevee. In his letter, he basically asked Bush to find out which of our guys had gone rogue and stop them.
Bush writes a letter back, in his own hand, complete with an 8×10 color glossy autographed photo to sort of throw him off the scent. In that letter, Bush writes, “Fuck off and myob you little twerp, or I’ll send you a one-way ticket to GTMO.”
And my daughter got basically the exact same letter when she wrote him with her concerns about Darfur.
This is a true story.
Funny thing is, Hopey put the same message in with his gas bill.
ahh isnt that cute hopey’s holdin a little muslin baby. You know why he’s suprised , right? that baby just said “what up cracker”? True story i was there
monty: It looks like he is getting ready for some Baby Momma drama
Yes, Virginia, there is a Barack Obama.
Where can I get one of these autopen doohickeys?
TGY: Yes, we know, he got our electoral votes.
Getting ,make you puke , advise from adults is what growing up is all about. When Terrence grows up he can knock Obama down with a base ball bat and study the result.
If I had one of those machines, I would program it to write “Fuck” then watch it and laugh, all day long, the end.
I’m pretty hurt- Barack and David only wrote to me one more time after the election. I guess with 2 other people here getting personal messages and what with the transition and Puppy search, there just wasn’t time to write to me every day. I haven’t heard from Joe B. or Michelle anymore either. Maybe Rahm will start writing to me.
At least when I worked at the PA State House, Representatives responded to each constituent letter uniquely. Granted, I was the one actually writing them, but still! They had to take the immence effort of hand signing them before their LAs licked the envelope.
“Won’t somebody please think of the children!”
Blasphemy! Everyone knows the real Barack Obama can magically stretch time so that he can hadwrite a personal letter making completely different points and employing unique phraseology to each child that writes to him. He does this between 4:30 and 4:35 AM, when all the little boys and girls are asleep and least expecting it.
AxmxZ: *handwrite, even.
Dear Mr. President-elect:
Now that you’ve won the election, can we please have our goddam puppy?
Sasha and Malia
P.S. “Cute, adorable children” can become un-cute and un-adorable, know what we mean?
I once wrote an angry email to Michelina’s Frozen Dinners and got a hand-signed letter back. Can a seller of frozen manicotti do better than you, Barry? For shame.
ivenson: I agree. In fact, Obama emailed me just seconds before he stepped out on stage at Grant Park. We’re tight, Hopey and me. He wouldn’t jive these kids.
2 things, Sarah, why did you change the picture? you have just rendered my earlier comment pointless, conspiricy? and b)NoWireHangers: i think anybody that eats Michelina’s Frozen Dinners deserves whatever they get
Ahh, the Autopen. I hated that thing when I interned for a Senator!
Big deal. My 11 year old niece from Flagstaff recently wrote a letter to McCain asking him to make sure he looked out for struggling homeowners if he was elected president. His reply:
“You little pukes today make me fucking sick. You write to me with your concerns… bah. Home foreclosures?? Little trollop, I had HOUSING PROBLEMS for a few years there back in the 1970’s! I couldn’t leave MY house… because my house was a bamboo fucking cage in Viet-fucking-nam!”
NoWireHangers: Who of us has not raged against the manicotti or quietly cursed a Salisbury steak?
Politicians are like Penne Primavera. They robocall us when they want something, but are quick to abandon us with our little plate of congealed AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, DISODIUM INOSINATE, DISODIUM GUANYLATE, THIAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE, and TRICALCIUM PHOSPHATE.
Hey I just saw a sales receipt that indicated Santa Clause recently purchased the “Autopen 2009″ well, I am going to photocopy the receipt and send it out to all the little kids around the world. It is time to expose the truth behind the personal letter to millions of kids. We must not let them continue to believe with 24 hours in a day minus 6-8 for sleeping, 1 for personal hygiene, grooming and dressing, 1 - 3 for traveling, 1/2 - 1 for eating, 2 - 3 for family time, 6 - 8 for briefings, business, working and studying, 1 for personal reflection, prayer and worship, and with the little time left to split between thousands of letters to sit down and write a personal response to each one that it is humanly possible. How ridiculous!
LOOOOSER!!!!!
NoWireHangers: I ate so many of those in college and I am quite mad that I never thought to write them an angry letter.
I once gave a personal tour of Martha’s Vineyard to Bob Dole and got a nice signed letter of appreciation a few weeks later. Unfortunatly he signed it in the third person.
mistabrad: I don’t suppose any evil intern considered reprogramming the thing a bit? To add, you know, an interesting postscript, viz.
“Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Senator John S. McCain AKA WALNUTS!”
I’m sure it’d just take a nudge.
You say charlatan; I say canny politician.
Let’s call the whole thing off!
Teh chilruns, they is our only Hope. Yessir!
Signed,
Hopey.
But he does personally sign those emails to me, right?
Hopey is in Chumbawumba?
Even better is when you’re sending out hundreds of the exact same letter. They will actually print the signature on the letter for you!!
Or, if an office doesn’t have an auto-pen - some poor schmuck has to practice the forgery. Nothing like letting a 22-year old kid sign bills for introduction and amendments.
When he was governor of Texas, George used his handy autopen to sign execution warrants.
But now GWB uses an autopen to sign Presidential Findings and secret orders for the bombing of mud-hut villages on the Paki border. It’s called progress.
Is he BREAST FEEDING that child?
That ain’t right.
When I was kid I wrote a nasty letter to Reagan after hid did a reduction in force that resulted in both my parents being laid off. I got a letter back thanking me for my support. They probably didn’t have robo-pens back then, so I think the Gipper actually thought that I supported him.
That photo reminded of a site I came across the day before the election: http://yeswecanholdbabies.wordpress.com/
I guess there won’t be much baby-holding in the next four years, and that site will likely fall victim to the Baracuddle recession.
Hey, hey, hey, people!
Obama is a magical Prince (or Wizard, you decide) who is going to make everything all better.
Life will be like when you were 6 and your Dad carried you into the house because you fell asleep in the car.
Life will be like living in that sparkly MySpace page created by a 19-year old named Cheryl - where everyone is BFF!
Life will be like Paris Hilton’s navel. A little shallow, but pierced by a half-carat VVS diamond set in platinum.
And unicorns will dance on the White House lawn.
I think the wonkerrati underestimate Walnuts when they claim his advice would be, stay off my lawn. He would have more to say to little girls, everywhere: “Don’t ever, ever, ever have an abortion, no matter what. Not even if you’re giving birth to the Demon Seed.”
I just double-checked the postcard he and Michelle sent me, featuring their photo and a nice note thanking me for all my help.
And they each signed it, in black, not in the fake blue ink pen, they signed it, fuckers, and sent it personally to me! And don’t anyone try to tell me that my invitation to the Inaugural isn’t lost in the mail. I mean, if they personally wrote and signed a postcard to me for the first $25 I sent him, it only stands to reason the second $25 will get me an invite to Washington.
It’s real, people. I’m telling you, it’s all real. He is like Santa Claus. He knows what everyone wants and is everywhere, all at once, riding in his sleigh, pulled by unicorns. And not just any unicorns–flying unicorns–flying unicorns dancing through a rainbow filled sky!!
Altogether now: “There’s no one like Hopey, There’s no one like Hopey, There’s no one like Hopey…..”
The Anti-Christ? Is that who you’d be talkin’ about?
finallyhappy: You win.
My daughter and I wrote emails to Bush and Cheney in 2005 after Katrina, expressing our displeasure with the federal response. I received a letter from the IRS 3 weeks later, advising that I was being audited (for the first and only time) and that I had to prove that my daughter was my dependent.