White House Newsletter

1 September 2005
I get a copy of the White House Internal Newsletter e-mailed to me each week. Technically, it's classified, but after seeing a White House employee's password displayed on a post it on his computer during a TV documentary, I decided to use their own computer system to generate my e-mail.
The Newsletter profiles a different employee each week, and the last one profiled the President himself. Here's an extract:
White House Newsletter (WHN): What's it like to be the man in the Oval Office?
Pres: Actuary, I don't get to go into the Oval Office. It has an expensive carpet and they won't let me walk on it in cowboy boots.
WHN: But you're the President. You can do whatever you want.
Pres: That's true outside the White House. Not inside. White House memos have to be taken seriously.
WHN: You got a memo about the carpet?
Pres: Yeah, a two sentence memo. I studied it for a week and I think I got the gist.
WHN: Who sent the memo?
Pres: The cleaner, of course. I like him. Calls everyone the Infidel, for some reason.
WHN: Wouldn't someone who speaks like that present a security risk?
Pres: I'll ask him when he comes back from vacation.
WHN: Where has he gone?
Pres: Aff, Aff-something.
WHN: Africa?
Pres: No, longer than that.
WHN: Afghanistan?
Pres: That's it! You're good at this. How did you know that?
WHN: What led you to believe that Iraq presented a Terrorist threat?
Pres: Consider the four letter word: Iraq. A great mind like mine could see right away that Iraq was concealing terrorists. All you have to do is remove the last letter and you get IRA. It's not rocket science, is it?
WHN: Does that mean Iran is concealing terrorists too?
Pres: I don't follow.
WHN: Well if you remove the last letter from Iran...
Pres: No, you've lost me.
WHN: How did you end up giving the top job to Ms Rice?
Pres: I was discussing it with an old friend, John Major. He's partial to Ms Curry, I'm partial to Ms Rice. Quite simple, really.
WHN: Simple but not very funny. Tell me about that incident with the pretzel.
Pres: Oh, you mean, the French President? How did you know that's what I call him?
WHN: What's your favorite color?
Pres: I like that.
WHN: What?
Pres: The guy writing this is British, but because we're not, he used American spellings there.
WHN: What are you talking about?
Pres: Never mind. Where were we?
WHN: Your favourite colour.
Pres: Ah, very clever, you changed it that time. Now the spelling's wrong.
WHN: Actually, it's right.
Pres: No, he spelled it wrong.
WHN: No he spelled it right, for him.
Pres: No, you don't understand.
WHN: Actually, I do understand. You've made your viewpoint on the world very clear.
Pres: At last, I've made something clear. Anything else?
WHN: No, I think what you've just shown me summarises everything else I could ask. Thank you so much, Sir.
Pres: A pressure to talk with you.
More from this interview later.
There endeth this blog. Stay tuned!