An Open Letter to Josh Bolten from Lazlo Toth

[joemurphy]

Mr. Joshua Bolten
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.,

Re: Shaking Things Up at the White House

Dear Mr. Bolten:

My name is Lazlo Toth. I just got through reading a report in my local paper about how you’ve been hired on by President Bush to “shake things up” at the White House. As a long-time Republican voter and big-time conservative, I can only repeat what I said to my wife, Elzbeta Toth, when I learned of your appointment: “High time!”

Let’s face it, with President Bush’s poll numbers in the tank and gas prices hitting the ceiling, shaking things up is something that needs to be done. I’ll kind of miss Scott McClellan though. I admired his guts taking on that viperous White House press corps. I always made a point of taping his interviews. I loved watching him trading verbal jabs with that nasty old Helen Thomas and that snotty David Gregory. Whenever I am particularly sad or depressed, I throw on a tape. Seeing Scott wittily and adroitly deflecting their devious and defeatist questions always cheers me up. It saddened me a little when I read that as part of your "shakeup" you felt you had to replace Scott with Tony Snow. Personally, I would have gone with Brit Hume (fair and balanced) or Bill O’Reilly (gravitas), but all things considered, I think Tony’s a good choice too!

Anyway, tonight I was playing my weekly game of chess with my cousin, Sandor Toth. Sandor always takes about 20 minutes before he makes a move, so I had some time to reflect on your “shake up” and to try to come up with some other really radical ideas that might inject some life into the Republican Party. Let's face it, everyone’s been really down in the dumps lately -- what with Tom Delay having to step down, all those ex-generals ganging up on Secretary Rumsfeld, and today with all this new talk about Karl Rove getting indicted. I kept thinking, there must be some other things we could do to “shake things up” and get the administration back on track.

I was watching Sandor finger one of his chesspieces -- we have one of those Franklin Mint Commemorative Civil War Chess Sets that they used to advertise on TV – and, Eureka! Suddenly it hit me! Collectables! Collectables! Collectables!

So here’s my “shake up idea”. Why not get the Denver Mint to issue a set of coins commemorating our “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq? It occurred to me that if you marketed it right, doing something like that might reinstill support for our lagging military efforts there and, possibly, raise a lot of money for the war effort too. I was thinking that you could have the Mint issue a nifty looking commemorative coin--bronze, silver, or gold depending on who sent the most people -- for each country that sent troops to Iraq. For example, the one for Great Britain could be gold; Poland, Italy, and South Korea could be silver; and places like Tonga, Mongolia, El Salvador and Latvia could all be bronze. You could have a uniformed Ukrainian demolitions guy on the Ukrainian one, maybe a medic on the one for Moldova, or perhaps an infantryman on the one for Honduras. On the reverse side you could emboss the flag of each country or maybe have something appropriate in the language of each country, like:"Stay the Course!", only in Armenian or Icelandic depending on the country involved.

I’m sure that all true Republicans would flock to own a set of Coalition of the Willing Coins – especially if you had them all mounted in a mahogany display case or in some equally good plastic facsimile thereof. Something like that could be worth a lot of money someday on a future episode of Antique Roadshow.

I was also thinking you could spin owning a set of Coalition of the Willing Coins as a way for American kids to get to know all the important countries in the world – sort of a geography lesson and as a way of touting the President’s “No Child Left Behind” thing. I’m sure you'll agree that something like this could be worked from all kinds of angles.

Hell, we could even get the State Department involved! I'll bet a set of Coalition of the Willing Commemorative Coins would be a big hit in places like Belorus or Bulgaria.

Most importantly, issuing the coins would also be our way of saying “Thank You!” to all those Coalition members who lent us a helping hand in the important task of democratizing Iraq. They may be gone now, but a set of Coalition of the Willing Coins will insure that all those Coalition Partners are never forgotten!

No, you don’t have to thank me for this idea. Just think of it as one good Republican trying to help another.

So, give my best regards to President Bush and the best of luck on your continuing shakeup! Keep 'em hopping! We’re all pulling for you here in Hoosierland.

Sincerely,

Lazlo Toth

Voting for Republicans (both indicted and unindicted) since 1952!

(Inspired by Don Novello’s Lazlo Toth Letters)

[rfranklin]

1. Any word from Father Guido Sarducci?

I'd like to know whatsa wid dis new Pope? What is his position on young boys? Can we put this priest pedophilia thing behind us? Or are we gonna let them shove it down our throats?

[Syrinx]

2. Toth's first book of letters was perhaps the funniest thing I ever read

Waiting for a new edition.

Please send it and update us on replies. The replies were always the funniest part.