Reporter's Note: No doubt President Obama is excited about having the Saints to the White House for the traditional presidential congratulations to the Super Bowl Champs. Perhaps he will even invite his favorite(or at least most persistent) pen pal to be there for the ceremony! With that in mind, here is the latest in my continuing series of letters to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Neither snow, nor sleet, nor cold of night shall stop me from writing my daily letter, but I must say all three continue to challenge all my efforts to get home. As I write this I am sitting in the Indianapolis airport (which, as airports go, is really nice!) waiting for the first flight in days to threaten an actual departure for the DC area from here, and I’m having trouble typing since my fingers are crossed.

We’ve already been delayed by about two hours and I’m hoping it doesn’t turn into a cancellation, because if it does then we run into the new series of storms set to hit both here and there in the next 48 hours. I’ve told my elder daughter (who, you may recall, is traveling with me) if that happens we’ll just go buy a house and live here.

I can just hear the call to my wife. “Sorry, I’m calling to tell you our marriage is over. I still love you, it’s just that I can’t see when we’ll ever be in the same city again. Good luck. If spring brings a thaw, I will try to make it through…if not to save you, at least to know how you met your frozen end.”

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Reporter's Note: President Obama has not lost electricity, communications, or transportation during the great DC blizzard. And he calls himself a man of the people…sheesh. I have half a mind not to write my daily letter to the White House. But it is precisely my “half mind” that compels me to do so…

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

With some luck, my elder daughter and I will finally climb aboard a plane back to DC today, after coming to Indiana last Wednesday and being stuck here ever since we first thought of heading home. We may not feel so lucky even if we make it. At last report my wife says the house is still without power and ice cold now. Even the dog is complaining. Looks like we lost a tree or two as well. So once I get there I assume I will be cleaning up, checking for leaks, and of course shoveling, shoveling, shoveling, especially since we expect more snow this week.

That said the daughter and I had an excellent Super Bowl Sunday. We slept late then took a drive through Indianapolis, and after enjoying a lunchtime repast completely surrounded by Colts fans in their paraphernalia, we decided it was time to fight back. We went into a Walmart, scored some snacks, black and gold streamers, poster board and markers. Initially we just wanted to have a little Saints Super Bowl party back at our hotel room while we watched, but then we thought, “Why not spread the love?”

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Reporter's Note: President Obama is reportedly still getting around town in his special armored limousine. Me? I’m still stuck in Indianapolis waiting for the airports to clear enough back home to let me return…and of course, I’m writing letters.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

It is my understanding that you can still get around town, what with your super-charged limo and Secret Service escorts and all. If that is the case, please swing by my house if you can with some firewood and perhaps some words of encouragement.

The power has been off there for a couple of days now, and my wife and younger daughter are growing desperate, even with the phone still working. Well, I suppose that language is a little strong, but suffice to say after 48 hours of candles, and an indoor ambient temperature of about 51 degrees, the house is taking on the same cheery atmosphere of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. I have been talking to them on the phone every couple of hours, and the conversations are becoming ever more edgy.

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Reporter's Note: Yesterday I told President Obama of my plight, having stumbled into Indiana with my daughter on a college hunting trip with a major winter storm brewing. Today, I pick up the tale.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Another day, another hotel.

As I write this, I am sitting inside yet another Indiana hotel after one of the most harrowing six hour drives of my life. Seriously, I would rather be forced to watch a 24 hour marathon of “The View” than face such horrors again.

Here is the latest in my saga. As planned, my elder daughter and I spent most of the day on one of these college visits. Notre Dame, as legions of previous scholars have found, is magnificent. Really a lovely place filled with souls dedicated to education. Too bad none of them recognized my slack-jawed, dull-eyed failure to grasp just how deeply my logic was flawed when I said cavalierly, “Oh yes, when we are done here, we’re going to drive down to Indianapolis.” Certainly they could have called some sort of authority from the state hospital to come tie me up for my own safety and sanity, if not my child’s, but no.

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Reporter's Note: If there is one thing I really envy President Obama about it’s Air Force One. What a sweet gig. No lines, no security, and no schedules that can get messed up by winter storms leaving you stuck in some distant airport having read all the newspapers, eaten all the frozen yogurt with M&M’s you can stand , and…oh, I’m getting off track. Here is my letter for today.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Arrggghhhh! I have been traveling for decades now; leaping aboard planes, trains, and automobiles of all sorts, cutting untouched through the ranks of less seasoned travelers to scrape the very edges of space with my brilliant transitions from home-to-distant land-to-right-back-home-in-time-for-tea. Yet here I sit in a hotel in Indiana, having stumbled into a bush league, stone cold amateur, Brownie Scout trap: I ventured into the Midwest in February with a storm front approaching.

How could I be so stupid? Did those painfully weak little synapses in my pea brain finally rip apart like the last shreds of Mark Sanford’s dignity? I, who once wielded an OAG like a magical talisman, have been reduced to staring at the Weather Channel and hoping for a break. It’s pathetic, is what it is.

Here is how it happened. My elder daughter is in the college hunt, and I promised to haul her out here to visit Purdue and Notre Dame. (Yes, yes, I am a good father, and she is a wonderful daughter and an exceptional student. Thank you for noticing.) So I took a few days off, we hopped on a plane, and even as my wife called with regular updates on the converging weather patterns back home, we blithely tooled across the Indiana countryside.

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Reporter's Note: President Obama met with Senate Democrats at their retreat just as he did with Repubs a few days ago. Well, not exactly the same way…and that’s the subject of my daily letter to the White House.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Telling someone that he is making a mistake is never a pleasant task, neither for the teller nor the tell-ee. For example, I told my friend Carl back in college that he might want to reconsider his choice of Early French Poetry as a major, and from his reaction you would have thought I had accused him of a felony. Oh well, I guess it gave him something to discuss later in the unemployment line.

That said, I think you made a mistake today when you were talking to your Democratic pals. Remember just a scant few days ago when you lit into the Repubs in a similar setting for being obstructionists. I suggested then that it was a good start, but only if you followed up by doing the same to your own party. Need I remind you who held all the reins of power for the past year? For as much as the Republicans fought against your programs (and they did) the people who held up your legislation were the very Democrats you were talking to. Your party, with substantial majorities, controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. If something is not getting done, it is because your fellow Dems are standing in the way.

I know this sounds harsh, but for you to go stroke them and tell them it is all the opposition’s fault seems to me to be a strategic blunder. It’s almost like waving the white flag of “I’m so afraid of making you angry, I’ll let you undermine my Presidency and then help you blame someone else.”

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Reporter's Note: President Obama has once again raised the idea of changing the military policy on gay troops. I have written almost 400 letters to him since he took office, but I suspect that will be a drop in the bucket compared to what he’ll get over this issue.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Here’s an idea. Go ahead and repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell but make no announcement. Then when someone asks you about it just say, “Uh..I’d rather not talk about that.” Ha! That would be a good one.

Deciding whether gays should be in the military or not is your job, so I won’t weigh in on what you ought to do, but I’ve always thought that particular policy was a Grade-A cop out. I mean, Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell sounds more like a game show than the cornerstone of a decision affecting millions of American service members of all sexual inclinations. Or you could say it sounds like precisely the kind of wishy-washy nonsense we get out of politicians far too often; which, btw, is exactly what it is.

I will tell you that you can not address this issue without making some people unhappy. There will be a political price one way or the other. I suspect that’s what has kept DC paralyzed on this for so long. Sure refusing to address the matter has brought a little fire on the folks in charge, but I think they all feared that taking it on directly would make things really uncomfortable and so preferred to just let that sleeping dog lie.

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Reporter's Note: President Barack Obama has rolled out his latest budget for the United States of America. It’s a whopper, as such things usually are. So no doubt he appreciates that my daily letters to the White House come free of charge.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Well, that is quite a budget you’ve rolled out there! Maybe it’s just me, but $3.8 trillion sounds like a lot. Still, it’s a big country, so with weather stripping, repainting, mulching and fertilizing the lawn, maybe that’s just how much it takes.

My wife and I rode past a new house that is going up a few miles from where we live, and we were speculating about the value. It is an absolutely enormous pile of a building, and not very attractive in my book. I’m just guessing here, but I’d put it at anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 square feet. No kidding. It does not have so much of a garage, as an underground parking deck. I’m pretty sure they could invite the entire state of Wyoming to the housewarming and not be too crowded.

Anyway, it occurred to us that even if we were given that house as a gift, just the cost of the maintenance and taxes would put us into cardiac arrest. I wouldn’t mind meeting the people who are going to live there, so I could figure out exactly who needs or even wants that much space. I mean is this the kind of house you buy if you like hikes but hate going outdoors? Are they going to start an indoor soccer league? Do these people ever plan to vacuum their own place? (Ok, I’m just being funny there, because first I don’t think they do; and second, I suspect by the time you worked your way from the attic to the basement, it would be time to turn the old Hoover around and start sucking your way back…leaving no time for enjoying your own private Buckingham Palace.)

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Reporter's Note: President Obama is now entering his second February as leader of the free world. Which, when you think of it, is not such a milestone…I mean, it’s not like an anniversary, is it? Oh well. It’s cold. I think my brain is freezing. But not so much as to make me stop writing these silly letters.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Well, here we are with Monday upon us again. I got in a couple of runs over the weekend, despite the chill and I feel better for it. I tried some of that Wii boxing action too, but not terribly eager to dive into that again soon. My arms were so sore afterward I couldn’t get a can of peaches out of the pantry. Ok, it was not that bad, but truth be told, upper body strength has never been my forte. Of course, maybe boxing has just never been my sport. My brother and I used to box on the driveway of our house in Illinois, and he pretty routinely stood there just grinning while he smacked his gloves against my nose over and over again.

Speaking of punches in the nose, there has been a good bit of fact-checking over the comments made by you and your Republican pals late last week at that big meeting, and surprise…once again it turns out that each of you got parts right, and parts wrong. And yet, this happened in the middle of a debate which was, in part, about finding a way for you all to quit throwing false information around in your debates.

I’d laugh if it weren’t so depressing.

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Reporter's Note: President Obama’s dressing down of the Republicans continues to make news, as do their responses to what he had to say. It was a pretty unusual moment in presidential politics. And that’s what I’m writing about as I continue my relentless quest to write a letter every single day, to the man on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tom Foreman | BIO
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

I know I wrote about your big meeting with the GOP’ers just yesterday, but I really want to pick up on that theme again today. Only this time, I want to talk about myself. Or rather, me and a lot of people like me, who comprise the media.

As you made that call for a change of tone in the political debate, one of your complaints is that we media types focus too often on the bitter words, sharp exchanges, and what an old friend of mine used to call “chair throwing” fights. Fair enough. I’ll readily admit that my profession has an unseemly appetite for flamethrowers on both sides of the aisle. Sure, we could make room for moderates to chew over the fine details of a pending agreement, but it’s so much more fun watching a pair of grenade lobbers square off. (To be honest, I actually don’t find that fun at all. Usually when I hear strident voices from either the far left or far right I start looking for a snack and wondering what is on ESPN. That said it is a simple equation for grabbing quick viewers, and that is certainly part of the problem too.)

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