-By Warner Todd Huston
In a strange exercise, CNN reporter Tom Foreman has written a letter to the president every day of his presidency and intends to continue doing so until the bitter end. Talk about obsessive behavior.*
Tom Foreman is one of CNN’s third tier reporters and is frequently seen covering a gamut of stories on “Anderson Cooper 360º,” “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” and other CNN shows.
Starting with his first letter on inauguration day in 2009, Foreman began his letter writing campaign congratulating President Obama and asking, “Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into?”
The creepiest aspect of this strange campaign is how Foreman ends nearly every letter pleading for Obama to give him a call. Thus far the President has not availed himself of that opportunity.
The Blog Poor Richard’s News amusingly characterizes this letter-wring campaign as something that might be expected from a “crazy person.”
I would expect this kind of thing from a crazy person or maybe a political activist, but not from somebody who works as a journalist for one of the largest news organizations on the planet. I suspect with Mr. Foreman, it might be some combination of crazy and activist.
But, reading over some of Foreman’s letter reveals plenty sycophancy, yes, but also a few tough questions.
In one, for instance, Foreman scoffs at Obama’s claims of increased government transparency and in another–his most recent–he essentially warns the President to stop being so arrogant as to think he is “the smartest person in the room.”
Foreman also scolded Obama over dumping the Rev. Louie Giglio for having stood up for traditional Biblical teachings against the act of homosexuality.
*In an update, the CNN reporter has decided not to continue the campaign into Obama’s second term.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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