Dear Mr. President,

Kudos to you for finally making page one of the Los Angeles Times! It's about time that paper learned what is and isn't news. Enough about plane crashes -- the Commander in Chief has had a birthday!

And to you, Mr. President, I wish the very happiest of 50th birthdays. Half a century! You're now a semi-centenarian!

In honor of your birthday, I've compiled a little bit o' history:

50 Years Ago Today:

1. Hitler is elected by a 99% percentile. (There's something to aspire to!)

2. Spanish Civil War begins.

3. Mussolini and Hitler form a pact.

4. Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan.

5. Hauptman is convicted of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.

6. The following people died:

Respighi (the composer, silly)
Pavlov (the guy with the dogs)
Rudyard Kipling (writer)
A. E. Housman (writer)
G. K. Chesterton (writer)
Federico Garcia Lorca (writer)

7. Dole was a war veteran living in Kansas
8. Bill Clinton was born!

1936 was a bad year for writers, wasn't it?

Anyway ... enough of that. I think you owe me a favor, Mr. President, because I talked one of my friends into voting for you! Her name is Debbie, and when faced with a choice between you and Dole, she said, "Looks like I'll be casting my vote for that campaign-money-grubbing, spineless shill."

Now granted, Mr. President, she's not exactly enamored with your, but who is? The fact is, SHE HAS AN EVEN LOWER OPINION OF DOLE! That's all you've got to be concerned about!

That's why it's such a good idea to have a mud-slinging campaign. The worse you make Dole look, the worse YOU can be and still look better! Americans are used to this, and frankly I think we secretly like it. We get the presidents we deserve. And if some Americans don't like it -- they can go try to vote in Russia. I hear you have to stand in line for hours to vote over there! We can't do that -- we have things to do! TV shows to watch!

I have another friend who keeps saying "Voter apathy is the worst problem in this country, so if you don't vote -- you're part of the problem." But I can only barely call him a friend because he says things like "the choice between Dole and Clinton is like a choice between two cancers." He's just showing his true colors: green, yellow, and black. green, for jealousy (who wouldn't want to live in the White House and be married to Hillary? Ooh La La!) Yellow for cowardice -- he's afraid to see the error of his ways, and Black for bitterness. Too many angry years have stolen his soul.

do you get my color pun, Mr. President? Any artist will tell you that the OPPOSITE of green, yellow, and black are RED, WHITE, and BLUE!

KILL THE ANGER!

My friend says he's voting for Harry Browne (The Libertarian candidate) and I always say, "a hairy brown WHAT?"

Ha ha! I'm such a kidder.

Regards,

Jim Etchison

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