President Obama Finds Letters Challenging and "Heartbreaking"

[bigtree]

from Eli Saslow at WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-letters-that-make-obama-long-for-his-community-organizing-days/2011/10/12/gIQAbu6ckL_story.html


. . . by the time I visited the president in the Oval Office earlier this year to talk about the letters, some of his aides had begun to wonder if Obama’s affection for the mail had outworn its usefulness. Gone were the post-inaugural thank you notes. Instead, Obama sometimes received letters addressed to “Dear Jackass,” “Dear Moron” or “Dear Socialist.” People wrote because they had lost their jobs, their homes or their relatives in the wars. Each day’s mail brought another deluge of hard luck and personal struggle, a wave of desperation capable of overwhelming the senses.

Most sobering of all for Obama, his self-described “direct connection” to Americans had also awoken him to a growing disconnect. People wrote because their problems demanded immediate attention, and yet the process of governing the nation was so slow that Obama sometimes felt powerless to help them.

A few times during his presidency, Obama admitted, he had written a personal check or made a phone call on the writer’s behalf, believing that it was his only way to ensure a fast result. “It’s not something I should advertise, but it has happened,” he told me. Many other times, he had forwarded letters to government agencies or Cabinet secretaries after attaching a standard, handwritten note that read: “Can you please take care of this?”

“Some of these letters you read and you say, ‘Gosh, I really want to help this person, and I may not have the tools to help them right now,’ ” the president said. “And then you start thinking about the fact that for every one person that wrote describing their story, there might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. So there are times when I’m reading the letters and I feel pained that I can’t do more, faster, to make a difference in their lives.”

Months after these people wrote to the president, when I mentioned their letters to Obama, he remembered the details of their lives. Their letters had shaped his speeches and informed his policies, but it was their personal stories that stuck with him. “Reading these letters can be heartbreaking,” he said. “Just heartbreaking.”


read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-letters-that-make-obama-long-for-his-community-organizing-days/2011/10/12/gIQAbu6ckL_story.html

sample of letters sent to the president from the American people and his responses: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/obama-letters/?sid=ST2010033004292

[dkf]

1. Someone unrec'd this? Unbelievable.

[malaise]

4. Not really

There are folks here with one objective - divide and rule

[bigtree]

10. frustrated folks

short-sighted tho . . .

[HipChick]

2. I can't imagine the burden on his shoulders everyday..

[bigtree]

8. every president

you really have to want the job.

I'll bet little boots couldn't wait to get back to Texas.

[SkyDaddy7]

12. True every Presidency is hard BUT...

President Obama is serving during the roughest time in our lifetime...And that is not an exaggeration at all! President Obama is not only faced with unprecedented problems he has a party completely dedicated to making things worse for political reasons.

Hell yes "W" could not wait to get the hell out of DC just as every thing was collapsing!

[Cleita]

3. K&R

[stillrockin]

5. Are you kidding me? Put your checkbook away and try

LEADING.

[bigtree]

6. I'm certain the individual who petitioned him is grateful for his effort

It isn't as if he expected that action to substitute for the rest of his responsibilities or make up for any of his shortcomings of his presidency.

[roguevalley]

9. agreed. Canceling bush's tax rip in 2008 could have saved

tons of suffering but then I'm a hater and what would I know about fricking eleventh dimensional chess as I sit here writing about an indefensible act while I divide and conquer.

[Downtown Hound]

7. If you're so moved Obama, then stop kissing Wall Street's butt

Restore our civil liberties, and reign in the military industrial complex.

[Magoo48]

11. Perzakly....

To put it in musicese.....get up, stand up and howl like panther in the middle of the night; where you gonna be when the volcano blows?

[Selatius]

13. He's a figurehead. He hasn't the power to do that.

His own Treasury Secretary came from Wall Street where the bankers wrecked the economy.

[Marrah_G]

14. If that's the case then I assume we never have to hear about the list again...

since he can't actually do anything.

Sort of like God.... something good happens and it's all due to the almighty. But something bad happens and all of a sudden people have amnesia about their wonderous God. Just once I would like to see a losing team, nominee, etc say "It's all God's fault that I failed"

[Downtown Hound]

15. Bullshit

All he has to do is make an effort. If he makes that effort and loses, and least he went down trying. But he's been a staunch supporter of the Patriot Act and other fascist policies that we elected him to do away with.

I'm tired of hearing all the excuses for him. He has a choice. He can come out and stand for what's right, or he can cower and pony up to the forces that are destroying this country and this planet. He's made his choice. And he's made the wrong one.

[Selatius]

17. Then it really doesn't matter what he is.

We're screwn either way. The man didn't fight the big battles when they needed to be fought.

[Downtown Hound]

18. We're hardly screwn

I don't know about you, but I don't put my faith so completely in one man that when he fails, I give up all hope. Take a look at all the citizen action happening, not only in America but around the world. If that doesn't inspire you then I don't know what will.

We have the potential to move beyond the need for one man to fix everything for us or to fight all our battles for us. We keep mobilizing and acting, and soon it won't matter what Obama does or any other politician does. We can fix this shit without them.

[Selatius]

19. I'm not giving up hope.

I just realized when I was pulling the lever for Obama that the only reason he got my vote was because he wasn't John McCain. I was under no illusion that he was the second coming of FDR. Far from it. Protesting is really the only effective measure we have left.

The only obstacle is getting Congress to do what's right because they write the laws and enact them.

[Maven]

16. Oh that is so touching.

I'm sure he and Tim Geithner spoke somberly about it over an aged bone-in filet.