An Open Letter to President Obama
Mr. President, good afternoon and congratulations! You're the 44th person in history to be President of the United States and the 19th person in history to be re-elected President – that's quite an accomplishment, no matter who says it isn't. Well done.
I did not vote for you, and I still have doubts about you as chief executive, but I do not doubt that like me you want your children to grow up in a better world than you did. And like Benjamin Franklin as the Constitutional Convention closed wrote, I'm willing to suspend some of my own infallibility not for the sake of our founding document but for the sake of you for whom I pray.
None of us are infallible, which is why Abraham Lincoln could say in his second inaugural that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. (And he got THAT from the nineteenth Psalm, ninth verse.) Your kids Malia and Sasha are twelve and eleven as I write this, and my kids Sarah and Jeffrey are six and five; I don't envy either of us their approaching teenage years – Sarah's six going on sixteen, if you can believe that!
We're both dads. You're on a far grander stage than I am right now to make things better for our children and for their children – but to have meaning for us living now, it's got to be something that is wanted for us, not that is forced on us. I realize making those decisions can't always be easy or please everybody, and maybe it helps where you are to imagine if you were making this decision for just yourself and your family. Because that's who we are, the people of the United States of America, at our best and at our worst. A big family.
I did not vote for you, and I still have doubts about you as chief executive, but I do not doubt that like me you want your children to grow up in a better world than you did. And like Benjamin Franklin as the Constitutional Convention closed wrote, I'm willing to suspend some of my own infallibility not for the sake of our founding document but for the sake of you for whom I pray.
None of us are infallible, which is why Abraham Lincoln could say in his second inaugural that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. (And he got THAT from the nineteenth Psalm, ninth verse.) Your kids Malia and Sasha are twelve and eleven as I write this, and my kids Sarah and Jeffrey are six and five; I don't envy either of us their approaching teenage years – Sarah's six going on sixteen, if you can believe that!
We're both dads. You're on a far grander stage than I am right now to make things better for our children and for their children – but to have meaning for us living now, it's got to be something that is wanted for us, not that is forced on us. I realize making those decisions can't always be easy or please everybody, and maybe it helps where you are to imagine if you were making this decision for just yourself and your family. Because that's who we are, the people of the United States of America, at our best and at our worst. A big family.
And like all families, we squabble, we nitpick, we get under each others' skins because we know how. We don't want to hurt each other, and at our best (and even at our worst, if we're honest) we can bring out the best in each other. Maybe among the three hundred fifteen million or so people comprising our country's population now it's hard to see that, but there's a lot of “best”, not just good, to go around. And just as you often ask we see that in our leaders, so we ask you to see that in us. In me, and in you.
Promise me you will never stop trying, David
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