WATERMARK

Re: Fireside Chats

Let's have these again. Minus the fireplace. (Maybe a solar-powered atrium. Maybe the Oval Office.)

Forget
the weekly radio broadcasts; or, don't forget them, but make them
weekly television programs and video podcasts. [I will confess right
here that I have never, not once, listened to the President's weekly
radio broadcast.] These should be long enough to contain substance;
perhaps one half-hour each.

You will be too busy to do one every week — at least, one worth doing
— but you could do one each month, and have
surrogates do the others. They might speak to whatever is timely, in
the economy, or foreign policy, or new programs for health care and education.

The
point would be to educate and update the citizens on what the
government is doing; what the reasoning is for such action; and the
anticipated obstacles and goals. The presentations must not be
partisan. They must be from the position of governance and information,
not persuasion.

Yes, tricky, I know.

But these
surrogates should not be experts in talking points; they must be
willing and able to present content, context, and transparency. Perhaps
they might even answer questions submitted by viewers; if not
immediately, then within a few days in writing. Pick, say, the five
major 'themes' of the questions, and respond to those, and perhaps the
occasional amusing outlier. I'm guessing that both Colin Powell and
Michelle Obama would be good at this, but I'm sure you have access to
many talented people who could pull this off, as a service to the
nation.

But you, as President, should speak to the larger and
more fundamental, issues. It has become painfully — dangerously —
apparent that much of our
population is almost completely unfamiliar with our founding documents:
The Declaration of Independence; The Constitution; The Bill of Rights.
And these, luckily, are your particular area of expertise, as well as
where we most, I think, need leadership and clarification.

What binds us together as a people (or should) is not
shared religion, or shared ethnicity, or even a shared language. What
binds us together is the ideas and ideals expressed in these documents.
These great achievements in idealism and pragmatism; structure and
flexibility. But when many of us do not know these documents, the
binding becomes frayed. We do not stand together; we fall apart; we are
easily divided.

What
I imagine is a real-time lesson on history, current affairs, and our
Constitution. There are no links to our original documents on the
CHANGE.GOV site; there should be. Maybe one of the first requests you
make of us should be to read them, even before asking us to change our
light bulbs or volunteer for service.

I am not suggesting a
dry course on early documents. I am suggesting that you present
whatever issue is most current, most insistent — and help us
understand how we, as Americans, might go about addressing them — with
reference to what makes us Americans. A sort of sneaky course on what
America means, has been, might become.

These presentations
should be so good — like the Edge presentations — that no school
feels compelled to require their use in classrooms. Students and
teachers will want to use them. Citizens will want to know what's in
them. Young people will send them back and forth on YouTube and
Facebook.

The government, and the governors, have drifted far
from the people. I believe this can change. I believe that you can be a
part of our lives, and we can be a part of yours in more than a
philosophical way. You have led me to believe this.

I think that this regular contact might be one way to accomplish it.

In admiration and respect,

Sharon Brogan
Citizen of the United States of America

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