From 
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThisRead more memos to President-Elect Barack Obama.
The late Vice President Hubert Humphrey once said, "I'd give up two years of my life to be President of the United States for two weeks." With luck, you'll be President for eight years, but Humphre'’s philosophy ought to guide you anyway. Each week you serve is a precious gift only 42 other men have enjoyed. It is a civic sin to waste even a day.
On the other hand, presidents are tempted to try to do everything—a recipe for failure. Understand your limitations as a leader and a human being. At most, you'll get a few top priorities adopted. Choose them wisely and focus like a laser on them while you still have political capital. After your glorious victory, you imagine you’ll have capital for a long time. You are wrong, as your predecessors can tell you.
You thought the campaign was hard, but it was the easy part. The partisan crowds cheered your happy talk about new spending and more tax cuts. If you continue this folly, your Presidency will be wasted. Our country is virtually bankrupt, with a national debt exceeding $10 trillion, with another $53 trillion promised in entitlements by 2050.
Be brutally honest with citizens from the inauguration onward. They'll forgive you your excesses on the campaign trail. Tell people what they can't have, and what they must give up, in order to save their children’s and grandchildren’s future.
Ask for sacrifice and service.
Inspire the young, especially, to offer both. They are waiting for your call to a higher purpose. If you need guidance, just cite John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
If you steel yourself to tell Americans what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear, history will remember you as a great President. If you pander and play Santa Claus, you will be recorded as a failure. The 19th century belonged to Great Britain. The 20th was America's century. The 21st will be assigned to other, shrewder nations unless you act now to reverse the decline and excess we see in the United States of 2008.
Oh, one more thing. Keep a pocket Constitution in every jacket you own, and read this marvelous document—every word of it—at least once a month. After all, this is what you are swearing to preserve, protect, and defend. You should know it.
Advertisement 
