I know it’s not just me, so what are the rest of you doing when you get these invitations to have dinner with President Barack Obama and George Clooney at Clooney’s house? I already donate to the Obama campaign regularly, and so far my real invitation must be lost in the mail. I don’t care so much about Clooney, but I would really love to have dinner with the president and his wife who, I just read, is campaigning in Arizona. (Michelle! Get out of that state, before they pull you over and toss you in jail!)
I would love to advise the president on a number of issues. Take the John Edwards trial: I wish President Obama would use his executive privilege and bring it to a screeching halt and save us the money it is costing every day. I know Edwards may not have the highest of morals, but come on. Who cares what he did with all that money — at least, the portion of it that Andrew Young didn’t spend to build that hideous “dream home.” And if anyone is going to be on trial, why isn’t it him? I don’t think he should be on trial either, but he did pocket 80 percent of the hush money. But it seems that it was just hush money and prosecutors are out to get Edwards to teach him a moral lesson, and that shouldn’t be mixed up with court proceedings. A lot of hungry folks could be fed with the money being spent on the trial.
I would also like to talk with the president about letting everyone out of prison who is not incarcerated for a violent crime. Again, how many hungry folks could be fed with the money it costs every day for a prison to house and feed someone who’s locked up for possession of pot? It’s ridiculous. There are roughly 50 million admitted pot smokers in the United States. Legalize it, decriminalize it, whatever. Just quit wasting money locking people up for it.
In fact, I would like to talk with President Obama about the entire United States prison system. It is not working. Inmates are left to fend for themselves, there is no shred of rehabilitation, there are as many drugs on the inside as there are on the streets, and people are regularly brutalized. What’s that, I hear you thinking? They are getting what they deserve? No, not really. And society is the main group getting shortchanged. Why not study violent criminals to find out what makes them that way and figure out a way to not make them that way. They could still be locked up, albeit in a different kind of facility and in a way that would not simply make them more violent. Maybe they could change. I don’t know, but I think it would be worth a shot.
And what about gay marriage? As intelligent and progressive as he is, you know Obama has to be completely in support of it but just can’t sign it into law because of the campaign and politics. Maybe he’ll do it in his second term. I still don’t understand why people think that gay marriage threatens marriage between a man and a woman. I wish someone would explain that one to me in a realistic way.
Education? College should be free. I don’t know how it would get paid for, unless we stop spending trillions of dollars on wars, but any high school senior who gets accepted to college but can’t attend because of lack of funds should get the money and not have to spend the rest of his or her life paying it back.
Arizona? Just let them secede from the country. I hope Michelle is okay out there. I don’t think I will ever go there in my lifetime.
Gas prices? I love the people who think high gas prices are the fault of the president. Have any of you looked at the earnings of the big oil companies? I guess Obama could try to pass a law that would put a maximum on what they are allowed to earn, but that still wouldn’t stop Iran and other Middle Eastern oil-rich countries from screwing around with the crude.
Exploiting the killing of Osama bin Laden for campaign ads? I know Arianna Huffington thinks it’s “despicable,” but I say go on with it. Who cares? If it had been a Republican president who took him out, his birthday would have been made a national holiday. All we heard about for a decade was the uber-dangerous Osama, and when Obama finally made the decision that got him, no one in the GOP was honorable enough to give him the credit he deserved. So I say, let him use it. And then send me my dinner invitation. I have much more I want to talk about with you.
