I decided to test my assumptions about the nature of this "convenient" webmail system at the White House. I sent a second message and this time indicated that I was sending a "differing opinion" but still related to school prayer.

Here is the letter I wrote:

Dear President Bush,

I wrote last week on the significant issue of truth-telling in government, and you responded by sending me a form letter on prayer in schools.

I suspect your webmail system is essentially automated, reading the menu responses and pumping out pre-prepared letters that seem to correspond to the profiles created by information I was asked to provide.

I am looking forward to your response to this letter. My prediction is that it will be identical to the one I received a couple days ago since the nature of the letter was so non-committal--it appears to be designed as a response to either a "supportive" or "differing" opinion. Should that be the case, it will be apparent that you really don't care about that issue (just the support of those on the right who assume you do), or any other issue, really. I hope I'm wrong and find that I am really able to correspond with someone in your administration. Otherwise, my perception of you as a cynic will be cemented.

As a citizen who really cares about the notion of democratic, representative government, I hope you are able to prove that you and your administration do care about what the electorate thinks.

PS: I wrote about my experience with this system on my blog at:
www.csus.edu/indiv/s/stonerm; click "Wspeak" and see what impression the webmail system has made on me so far. Let me know what you think.

The answer was less than satisfactory. Click here to view it. My prediction that this response would be identical to the previous one was wrong. However, I don't think any reader will conclude that the response does much to advance my understanding of why Bush takes the stands he does. There is nothing in these responses to forward debate about, insight into or even enthusiasm for any policy or position Bush supposedly has.

The White House webmail system is not a communication tool at all, but a kind of firewall to isolate the White House even more from the citizenry. In this day in age, I don't expect to have access like the citizens did in Andrew Jackson's day when everyday folks could enter the White House, talk with staff and even talk with Jackson on a regular basis. However, I do expect that given the ease by which all parties can communicate via email that I would have the freedom and ability to register my opinions on issues that aren't on W's menus. (For example, take a look at the topic, "Education" and note that as of today, there are NO subtopics. It's a rather complex topic to be treated as a monolith!)

Please do what you can to jam up the system with regular messages that at least make the 'bot work!

Yesterday the White House sent me its promised response to my letter. (See Friday, July 18, 2003 entry in the archive.)

Recall that I noted the new White House webmail system requires conformity to a series of menus that control the topics discussed. I identified my letter as "supportive" of the president because I felt admonishing him about his lying is as supportive as one can get. It is quite biblical, in fact. (See Chapter 18 of the Book of Matthew.) Since there was no topic about lying in office, I chose "Prayer in Schools" because it was the closest thing I could find relevant to what I wanted discuss with W.

As I suspected, the use of the menus allows an automated response and, no doubt, creates a data bank that has noted me as contacting the White House to support W's stance on prayer in schools. That was confirmed by the letter I received.

What is scary is that the response also controls what I can do with the message. The pdf file is scrubbed of all tools and when I open the file in Acrobat, it remains "untouchable." As a result, I couldn't copy and paste it here for you to read in html. This necessitates that I post it on my page, and make a link to it, but you won't be able to do any more than use my link.

So, I learned that that the White House now spurns all messages that are not received via the "convenient" webmail system. If you haven't read my entry for July 18, stop now and take a guess at the URL for the system. If you guessed something like webmail.whitehouse.gov (a seemingly likely address) guess again. No, don't bother, here it is:
https://sawho14.eop.gov/PERSdata/intro.htm Is it close to your first guess? Such an inuitive address clearly shows the desire of the Bush administration to really hear the people.

Take a look at the webmail system, but if you want your message to have a chance of being seen by a human being, send it by snail mail (President Bush, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20502) or fax (202-456-2461).
to our compassionate president. The man of the people. Boo yeah!!!