(to be read aloud with a thick outer borough accent)

Dear Tommy,

So, I hear you wanna grow up to be President. This is good; I must get half my business this way. I want you to do as much dama- uh, BE AS SUCCESSFUL as possible, so let me help you get started with some inside information:

All is not as it seems. This democracy thing started off as a disgustingly noble idea, but with some artful misdirection on my end, it's now turning into a squalid shit-heap just like the rest of human history. My minions among the living, known to you as the 'Ruling Class,' are now in league with the Religious Right in such a way that the American Democratic Ideal has been reduced to a mythology.

Go outside and look around your neighborhood. See all the pretty houses with the fussy lawns? SUVs in the driveways; kids with too many toys; TVs murmuring in just-so living rooms. These people are slaves. A few of them know it, but most of them don't. Hell, they don't want to know it; the easy marks are always afraid of the truth. You need to pay attention to the lies these people are telling themselves, because wrapping yourself in those lies is the secret to becoming their master.

Notice the schmucks that go to church and put little fishes and shit on their road boats. Study them carefully. These boobs are telling themselves the biggest lie of all -- the one that will bankroll your every egomaniacal fantasy. I'm especially fond of these people for two reasons: 1) the herd instinct is their entire mentality; 2) they blanket the North American continent like flies on shit. With the proper handling, they can be made to unite behind almost any agenda, and their domination of huge numbers of voting districts means that when they do they become a terrifying political force. Thanks to the ambitions of people like you, my young friend, they HAVE and they ARE...

All of which leads to certain matters you should address before you begin your career in earnest. These suckers have all been told to 'value education,' and most of them imagine they do, but in fact they despise people who actually THINK, versus those who just mindlessly follow the Rules, like they do. If they see any sign that you're a person who actually thinks, your career will be toast, okay? All this is exactly according to my plan; keeps the goddamn Liberals in Never-Never Land, right where they belong.

So if you want your ambitions to be more than just a fading twinkle in Mommy's eye, you're gonna have to start living by these Rules, see, and I'm telling you this because already you're screwing this pooch:

Rule number one:

Presidents are born and raised in NormanRockwellville, USA.

Since you're NOT, you need to go there right now and whack some kid so you can assume his identity. And make sure it's not just any kid; lineage will be important to those who will rubberstamp your rise to power. It's too bad your dad isn't a CIA high-roller -- you could just point your chubby little finger at some rich kid and then Daddy would make him go boom-boom, big time. Ah well. Let me know when you find your new hometown, and I'll see what I can do.

For obvious reasons, the best states to be from are all in the Bible Belt, and this is where you should go. Don't go anywhere near the Northeast; all these chumps think it's one gigundo city, and view all Northeasterners as sodomites. That's why no president has come out of the Northeast for over forty years, which is exactly how I plan to keep it. Another thing: quit with all the big words and grammar and shit. These hicks want presidents who are veritable paragons of hickitude, so you need to develop a 'yokel from over yonder' kind of persona. Trust me on this. Also, collect guns. And start cultivating sneaky, disparaging opinions of commies, niggers, and faggots.

Don't worry too much about the Bible boobs -- once you have them believing you're an authentic product of the "American Heartland" and all that crap, they'll just gulp down any horseshit you hit them with. After all, these people's defining characteristic is they believe what they're told to believe.

That's about everything you need to get past this invincible voting block I've created. The other party you'll need to win over is a much harder nut to crack: the multigigabazillionaires who are your TRUE constituency. In the presidential role, these people demand a shallow mouthpiece with no ability to comprehend history or develop original ideas -- too threatening! Satisfying them will require more than just acting stupid; you must actually BE stupid. You have an advantage here in that, due to your tender age, your nervous system isn't yet fully developed. Instead of allowing that development to proceed without incident, you can easily derange and retard it by jacking yourself up with massive amounts of certain substances. Alcohol and cocaine are a proven combination. As for obtaining this stuff in large quantities, again I have to say it's a pity your dad isn't a CIA big shot...

Once you've entered the career phase, you will be more and more visible to the public, so put some effort into maintaining the illusions that got you there in the first place. First of all, you have to keep all the milling morons as convinced as ever that you too are a card-carrying superstitious imbecile. Fortunately, this is a task any shit-for-brains can handle: just keep a few Lordy-Jesus types on the payroll to represent the millions of boobs you're shystering, soak up as much of their biblical horseshit as you can stand, and regurgitate choice bits in the presence of as many people as possible, hopefully into lots of microphones. Piece a cake! In addition to puking religious homilies, you should build them into laws whenever you can. This is what the boobs want to see most, and what the hell -- they're only laws! It's not like these are ever applied to ANYONE WHO ACTUALLY MATTERS!

This Glory of God shtick is most of what's needed to satisfy your keepers, as well, especially if it's done earnestly, as if your brain really is a fried canoli. Never forget that the image you present to the people shoveling money at you is your only real priority. If they ever suspect that the victims aren't putty in your hands, or that you aren't putty in theirs, you'll end up like the Kennedy Brothers, and for the same reason -- commie faggot assholes!

Oh, one more thing: DO NOT FAIL to observe a certain bit of malarkey the Bible freaks take very seriously, though they never bring it up in public: according to a certain interpretation of scripture very popular among lunkheads, the zionist conquest of the Middle East is a key sign that all the Second Kingdom bullshit is about to hit the fan. In other words, the boobs all think Israeli tanks driving over babies and shit is simply God's will made manifest. Fuckin rubes, go figure! So if you were to, say, stand up and condemn the recent actions of Sharon and the IDF, all the nut-jobs would instantly KNOW:

Random nut-job #1:

Remember that shameless bible-thumping demagogue we voted into office last year?

Random nut-job #2:

Which one?

RNJ #1 (using a palmtop):

Uh ... number four thousand seven hundred and ... eighty three.

RNJ #2:

Oh yeah. The one with the sword.

RNJ #1:

Right. Well, it turns out he's been criticizing Israel!!
Yes! He isn't spellbound by the Glory of God's Word!!!!

RNJ #2 (brandishing a gun):

Please stop before I have to shoot both of us! That son of a bitch!!
When he goes straight to hell I hope Satan shoves a white-hot crucifix up his ass!!!

Again and again!!!!

THROUGHOUT ETERNITY!!!!!

See there -- they'll turn on you just like that, bing! And your prospects for re-election will fizzle. And the Forbes 400 will stop shoveling money at you. Now how will you continue to realize your every childish egocentric fantasy? No more hookers and cocaine?? Fuck that shit!

Don't take my word for any of this: go check out Senate resolution 247 ( www.ujc.org/content_display.html ) and House resolution 392. 94 of 96 Senators and 352 of 373 Representatives signed off on these pieces of shit. If there's one thing these people know, it's which buttcracks to slop their tongues into, so take a lesson.

The great thing about all this is that the Bible boobs, by clinging to their mealy-mouthed delusions, are actually engineering the total destruction of the planet! Ever since the Israelis got their own nukes, see, the Middle East has been like World War III all set to go, hair trigger style, so all these schmucks are really doing is pushing the whole enchilada right over the edge. I love it!

Okay kid, look, I gotta go. I been watching you steal money from your ma and shake down the little kids with a razor, so I know you got what it takes. You pay attention to this advice here, and you'll be in there, ya got it? If you ever need any help, like say some hippie rat-fuck liberal is giving you a hard time and you want them to disappear, you just say the word to your Uncle Lou -- I will be MORE than happy! And don't you worry about any crucifixes, white-hot or otherwise. I don't allow those down here.

Your Friend,

Lou C. Furr