Dear W.,

As you know, the departing president traditionally leaves a note for his successor in the White House. Your father's letter to me, for example, listed what was in the refrigerator and directed my attention to a mayonnaise jar that may have been there since Carter. He also attached a schedule for garbage pick-up and recycling days, which I now pass to you.

But beyond that, I want to leave you a little advice.

I know you won't trust anything I say. And I did actually think about telling you to declare Jan. 23 to be “Lesbian Hippie Fun Day.” But when all is said and done, I want this country to be at peace. And anyway, you wouldn't have fallen for it. So instead, I will impart to you this profound truth:

They can smell fear.

I wish I'd known that sooner, myself. When I first became president, I wanted to integrate gays into the military — so everybody would know that back when my friends and I were sitting around in college drinking Jack-and-Coke until three o'clock in the morning, I meant everything I'd said. Every slurred, blind-drunk word of it. This was going to be a new world — a 1960s kind of world, but still, new.

Unfortunately, that's when I found out where everyone from the old world had gone: Into the military.

Now, the fact is that I should have stuck to what I said — because I was right. Homophobia is as sour a thing as racism, particularly with people who risk their lives for their country. But, well, I developed some compromise instead that only made things worse, and as a result, the first and most lasting impression I gave was that I do not believe in anything in particular.

But the one thing for which people now do give me credit is the way I forced my first budget through an unwilling Congress. I stared down a couple more Congresses after that. And by the time they nailed me on that Monica thing, I'd learned how to sit tight, smirk knowingly and claim that I do not speak English.

God they hated me.

So anyway, here you are. You lost the popular vote. You ended the election with a blizzard of litigation, viscious demonizing rhetoric against Democrats and a certain amount of Republican mob violence. And now everybody thinks Dick Cheney is in charge.

In many respects, you may not actually be president. You should probably tread carefully, right?

Hell no. Stomp around. Slam all the doors. Go on TV and say the queen of England needs make-up. Or pick a country at random and start bombing. Luxembourg, for example — they think they're such big shots. And Osama bin Laden could be there as well as anywhere, couldn't he?

If you don't want to go that far, then just start your first week in office by banning U.S. funding to international groups involved with abortion, and talk about pulling oil out of an Alaskan wildlife refuge. I'll personally find these things deplorable and shortsighted. But you're going to do them anyway. So do them early. Be shameless. Like me.

People might say you're a bad president, but they'll say you're president.

Sure, you spent the election talking about moderation and compassion. It's all right. No one believed you. And as for your inaugural remarks about “a civil society,” that idea contrasts a little starkly with the kinds of things that Republicans have been calling me since, oh let's just say approximately, birth.

No, you're up against it now, my dim-witted, jug-eared little friend. So for the sake of the country, start bluffing. Raise all bets to the house limit and don't trade any cards, even though every living soul knows you're just working with three cards to a straight.

You may not have the country entirely behind you. You may not be leading America where it actually wants to go. And you also may not be the brightest crayon in the box. But you are, perhaps, insane.

And sometimes that's enough.

Sincerely, Billy C.,
Rock-'n'-Roll ex-President

P.S. Socks had an accident on one of your contour sheets. But I'm not saying which one.