Eli Saslow: "Ten Letters"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-11/eli-saslow-ten-letters
Steel Brooks
Heightened security concerns have created a bubble around modern presidents. As the first black president, governing in the age terrorism, with two wars continuing abroad, President Obama has felt increasingly isolated. In order to stay in touch, he asks the White House mail office to send him a sampling of ten letters a day from ordinary Americans. The Chief of Mail looks for three criteria: a representative sample of issues; originality and a powerful story; half must be positive, half negative. Washington Post staff writer Eli Saslow tracked down ten of these letter writers. He describes what their stories reveal about America today as well as the relationship between a president and the people
Guests
Eli Saslow
staff writer at the Washington Post.
Natoma Canfield
letter writer
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Program Highlights
Every day a thin purple folder is delivered to President Obama. Inside are ten letters from people of all ages,
walks of life, and political points of view. The contents often work their way into the president's speeches and policy decisions. Writer Eli Saslow's new book takes a look at the White House's sorting process for the letters; how
President Obama responds; and the power of personal stories in policy.
"The Bubble"
Saslow refers to the inevitable isolation a U.S. president begins to feel very shortly after taking office as "the bubble." President Obama became frustrated by the phenomenon very shortly after taking office. "It only takes a few trips with Obama on Air Force One to see that every movement is scripted, every person he talks to has been screened and vetted before they speak with him, and people get nervous before they speak with him, so they're not very candid and open, Saslow said. On on his second day in office, Obama called the mailroom to say that from every day forward, he would like to see ten unvetted letters that would allow him to get an idea of what is actually on some Americans' minds.
Some Letters Have a Huge Impact
One of the letters the President used to illustrate a policy point was Natoma Canfield's letter detailing her struggle to pay her healthcare bills during an illness. After reading Canfield's letter, Obama visited her hometown and shaped a strong message about healthcare reform using her experience to illustrate a point about skyrocketing costs and patients stuck shouldering huge bills. "This letter ended up being transformative, not only for Obama, but I think also for Natoma," Saslow said. "It's a good feeling to know what there is somebody in Washington that was listening," Canfield said.
An Appreciation of Narrative
Even the letters that aren't interlaced into policy agendas still inform the president's thinking. "I think Obama has always had a really major appreciation of narrative. He's a writer himself. He's a good writer himself. And I think he understands the power of stories. And I think sometimes the stories in the letters affect him more than policy briefings," Saslow said. The letters also provide a unvarnished voice that the president doesn't often have the opportunity to hear - a view that is different from that of most of the people who walk in to the Oval Office to speak to him face-to-face and may become intimidated by the power of the office.
The Pressures of the Presidency
Obama's aides told Saslow that they sometimes worry the letter-reading may not be very good for the president. Obama told Saslow about the sense of powerlessness he sometimes feels upon reading the letters. Obama said that when he was a community organizer in Chicago, he could often produce some very tangible results that would benefit the people he served. But as president, there are many things he can't accomplish because the act of governing is so slow, and many letter-writers he knows he can't do much for. "Sometimes he's been so moved by letters that he has actually called or written a check because he knows that's the extent of his power in that situation...which is a pretty astounding admission for somebody who has the most power of all," Saslow said.
You can read the full transcript here.
Read an Excerpt
Excerpted from Eli Saslow's "Ten Letters." Copyright 2011 by Eli Saslow. Excerpted here by kind permission of Random House:
Comments
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Who chooses these letters?
How do they censor or moderate the voices of citizens?
Or do they draw them out from a drum one by one,
picking winners and losers and fostering a jackpot mentality?
Why can't the President talk to the 99%?
Why must they be drowned out by the big money players?
If this country were an Occupy the President could walk the streets and experience conditions himself. He would not have to live in a noisy bubble
with his humanity drowned out by his talking points.
10 letters is an ugly tragedy and a shameful truth.
Our current president as a man has always enjoyed contact with the people. Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where this is not possible for any president. At least he takes the time and trouble to read some of them, other presidents did not and had no desire to.
Eli Saslow: Thanks for explaining the process of the President's letters being selected. The greater detail you gave me the more I was increasingly disillusioned. Your description suggests a process of manufacturing history or creation of anecdotes for biography, just cheap public relations rather than real listening. I find great value in what you have shared, Eli, because it illustrates how remaining at the pinnacle of hierarchical hegemony limits viable choices, and causes the best-intentioned of leaders to experience powerlessness. Such a truth illustrates that the concentration of power and wealth are counterproductive to general well-being, and perpetuate themselves in perverse ways. It shows how our society suffers structural and systemic problems for which authority figures can offer no remedies. Having said this I may still be forced by circumstance to vote for Obama in 2012. Voters' choices are severely limited too.
I'm a Progressive.... The Obama presently in office is not the Obama I voted for with the promise to end the Afghanistan war, to close Guantanamo, to investigate 9/11, to have an open administration, etc., etc. .... Hence, I have joined the Progressive movement in support of Ron Paul. Miss you Diane....
Most politely, I request that Mr. Saslow refers to our president as President Obama or Mr. Obama. I am grateful for President Obama's dedication and believe he deserves the use of his title.
Great program. I am hoping this note may somehow come to President Obama's attention and soon.
I am writing from Dekalb County, Alabama, the 2nd most ethnically diverse county in the state. President Obama's knows the story of the national attention our state is getting.
I am hoping President Obama can come to Collinsville, Alabama by next spring. It is my Mother's hometown, in the county where my Grandfather, a Lincoln Republican in the grand river of Judge Frank Johnson and the fictional Atticus Finch ran for School superintendent of County Schools in the Nineteen Teens. He was born in 1881.
Collinsville has been the subject of two documentaries shown on Alabama Public Television in the last 20 years. The first was an early work by Brett Morgen, who later was an Oscar nominee, and routinely is a big splash at Sundance.
The 2nd, circa 2002, was about the Hispanic influx into our area of the state.
I have many stories to tell him. And if he come to Collinsville, I promise to talk freely to him in confidence. There are many inspiring stories here, not only among my Hispanic friends, but several from the folks who go back many generations who have come to embrace them and share in their hopes.
For further reference see my comment at Methodist Bishop's Peculiar Prophet blog.
Great show. Will bring the book to the attention of area libraries
Stephen Fox
Collinsville, Alabama
Obama's head is comprised mostly of concrete at it's center is a walnut sized brain. Instinct and not much else occupy his thoughts and motivate his actions. Obama has missed his true calling of being the court jester.
I had no idea President Obama did this -- interesting to find out how it works. Unfortunately I did not come away with a positive feeling about the process:
1. Obama and his team use these people for their political ends, of course, and I have the sense they are manipulated to reinforce what they already want to do, rather than provide new insight or direction.
2. It seems ironic that Obama is biased toward hand-written letters rather than e-mail, since those who routinely use the Web, hand-held devices, and other electronic media, probably gave up hand-written letters long ago -- yet users of technology are very much the supporters he originally reached out to and relied on in his first presidential campaign.
3. Finally, there is another way that Obama can reach outside the bubble. The New York Times has an excellent system for reader comments on its articles, not the usual hate-filled stuff that you hear on venues like talk radio. Obama could just read those feedback comments on articles and topics involving the economy, the wars, etc. I am repeatedly impressed by the incisiveness and insightfulness of the top-rated comments, often much better than the original article.