Sunday, August 15, 2010

What would you say?

OK, I copied this from the website for the Ed Shultz show.  I heard this when I was listening to the radio on my way to play some softball, and I found the idea intriguing.

You're downtown, in a major hotel. You step into the elevator at the lobby level. You press 7. The elevator stops at 2. The doors open. In step four tall men. Black suits. Crew Cuts. Earpieces. And behind them, The President of the United States. He's moving from a holding area on the 2nd floor, to his speech in the ballroom on the 10th floor. You're getting out on the 7th floor. The president smiles and reaches out to shake your hand.
And the question posed was this.  You got at most two minutes where you have the undivided attention of the President of the United States.  What do you ask him or tell him?

So I thought about for a while.  What would I say?  There is so much to say and two minutes are such a small amount of time.  So I settled on this.

Mr. President, when you took office, we were in deep shit.  The economy had been driven to ruin with a completely unnecessary war and massive deregulation, compounded by ignoring many of those regulations that remained.  It was a process begun by Ronald Reagan and continued by each successive administration.  The American people needed someone to kick ass and take names.  Instead they got a health care bill written to benefit the insurance companies instead of the people who elected you.  You backtracked on Guantanamo and the Patriot Act.  You have not reinstated the Glass-Steagall Act, and the loan modification program has been a dismal failure.  We needed FDR and you gave us Jimmy Carter.   Mr. President, if you intend to implement any meaningful change, you are running out of time.

So, there you have it, my elevator speech.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are screened, but you don't have to agree with me to get published. You do have to make sense though. If you are not sure what I mean by making sense, read this. Unless what you say is really, really stupid, and then I may publish it just so I can make fun of you.