Reporter's Note: I write a letter to President Obama every day. Sometimes I give advice (which is dubious at best,) sometimes I tell stories (which are uninteresting at worst,) and always I invite him to call and chat it all over ( which is unlikely.)

Tom Foreman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Happy Monday! I hope your new week is off to a good start, and even if it is not, I certainly hope you are remaining good natured about it. Sometimes when things go bad I fly off the handle, the high point of which was the brisk sailing of a laptop computer across my office in Denver years ago. Oddly enough, it emerged unscathed. Go figure. But most of the time, I purse my lips, shake my head, and quietly laugh about the absurdities of life.

I was watching the ruckus last week between Sarah Palin and David Letterman and thinking what I have thought far too often in recent years: We are really losing our sense of humor in this country. And that’s a shame. Whether a comic makes a good joke, a bad joke, or an in-between joke, I’m not sure we should be getting so worked up about it. After all, didn’t a lot of us consider those riots over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons a bit over the top?

Maybe we’ve grown overly sensitive because we’ve turned into such an all-or-nothing culture. You either win the Superbowl, or you are nobody. You either become Miss USA, or you lose even your Miss California sash. You take the Oval Office, or you wind up as Secretary of State. I suppose that makes everyone afraid of looking weak or foolish even for a moment, so they feel compelled to strike back immediately and take down Carrot Top, Conan, and anyone in between. But it’s like watching Mike Tyson beat up a clown at the circus: Even if it were justified, it would just look ridiculous.

By and large, I think politicians look silly when they start debating comedians. (OK…admittedly, I’m not sure where Ross Perot fits into that equation.) You don’t like a crack that was made? Say you don’t like it. Ignore it. Whatever. But don’t get into some big discussion like it’s the Iranian nuclear program. I know it is a little tougher when you feel like a family member was insulted, but even then, I’m not sure anyone’s interest is well served by reacting in such a way as to get the video clip replayed a hundred times more.

We need a few laughs right now. I know different people find different things funny. I know plenty of people, for example, don’t find me funny at all. Fair enough. I probably wouldn’t enjoy sharing a pizza with them either. But I’m not going to book a ballroom at the Hilton and challenge them to a punch up.

Comics are here to make us laugh. Politicians, not so much. But when they get their feathers all ruffled over some late night crack. Well, that can be pretty funny and not in the way they want.

Here’s a Washington joke:

Knock knock.

Who is there?

Depends on what you mean by ‘who.’ As long as it is a gender-neutral, unbiased, bipartisan, non-religious, low-fat, security cleared, politically correct question…uh…it’s me.

Call if you can. I’m around.

Regards,

Tom

Find more of the Foreman Letters, here.