Mr. President: You've Got Mail

Every evening, when President Barack Obama gets his massive daily briefing book, tucked inside is a purple folder containing 10 letters written by regular American citizens. Given the bleak  economic times, many of the letters detail sad tales of personal hardships and woe. Some are congratulatory; some critical. Obama scours each one, sometimes turning to his wife Michelle to read a particularly poignant or powerful passage.

"He says reading those letter helps keep him connected and sane," Washington Post writer Eli Saslow told a crowd gathered at The Newseum today to hear Saslow talk about his new book 10 Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President.

Saslow said the process of culling the 10 letters daily is a quite involved, a task that has become even more involved in these days of Anthrax and other scares. "Essentially, it requires an army," he explained.

Obama receives almost 20,000 pieces of personal correspondence daily. Fifty staffers and 1,500 volunteers sort through the missives, narrowing them into 75 pre-chosen categories. From those groups, 10 letters representative of that day's concerns are then placed in the purple folder for Obama to read.

Saslow, who has been covering Obama since 2008, says the president definitely reads all the letters and responds back to most of them, even those critical of his job performance. "Now if you begin Dear Socialist Jackass you probably aren't going to get a response. But he has written really detailed letters back to some who questioned him," Saslow said.

For his book, which received endorsement from both Obama's administration and the President himself, Saslow said he chose 10 people whose letters indicated "action still to come."  He then spent at least a week with each of them so he could tell the story of their letters and their lives.

Like the letters themselves, some of the 10 stories are uplifting ... like the tale of a black Philadelphia teenager who was so inspired by Obama's ascent to the presidency that he turned his life around, won the top class office in his high school, and now is a sophomore in college. However others reflected "the relentlessly brutal deluge of heartbreak" that drove so many to reach out to the President. One such story concerned a Michigan woman who lost her job, saw her husband lose his job, had their health care cancelled, learned that she was pregnant with her second child, and then was diagnosed with cancer. In one of the book's revelations, the only way the beleaguered couple could keep going was to make their first trip ever to New York City, find a collector, and sell the President's letter for $10,000.

Responding to a question from the audience, Saslow said that all the 1st 10 people he asked agreed to be part of the book. "They were unbelievably honest and candid," Saslow said. "They wanted to believe somebody is still listening, their problems are important, and their lives do count."

Tales, Tidbits, and Traveling Tips:
If you do go to The Newseum, make sure you make at least 1 trip to the bathroom.  There you will find selected real errors and goofs in headlines and stories guaranteed to make you chuckle.