Re: Your Policy Questions

All right, all right, ALL RIGHT, people. All is forgiven, and you can stop sending me the gift baskets. I'm up to my neck in chocolate-covered pretzels and shrink-wrapped peppercorn salamis. I normally wouldn't complain, but I've been overindulging these last couple days, and now I'm hurting. If you're going to send anything, dial up this red-headed Betty and send me some TUMs. In the meantime, I'll shift some of the overflow to the workers, see if I can't buy myself a few "Excellents" on the surveys they're completing for the feds..

Some of you have asked what I intend to do once I've seized Absolute Power over the Geopoliticus. "What will you change, Phutatorius? How will you make life better for us?"

These are fair questions — complicated questions, and I'm not sure it makes a great deal of sense to try to answer them now. I understand that some of you are cautious types, and you don't want to put your eggs in a basket if you don't know what lies in the bottom of it. I also appreciate that you've been watching all these early Presidential debates (at least those of you in the States, anyway); all these candidates are getting hot and bothered about how they're going to fix the health care industry and save endangered whales and protect the American flag from forest fires. I get that a lot of you have come of age under democratic regimes, and you've been lulled into thinking you're entitled to ask these questions of your Would-Be Leaders. And maybe you do have that right (to be honest, I haven't decided that question just yet), but please understand, Brothers and Sisters:

I don't think these questions are very fair to me right now. I have so much going on, so much to do. An Ascendancy is an Ascendancy; I'll give thought to how I'll use my mandate once I have it.

Now I hate to resort to clichés, Brothers and Sisters, but I really do need to take this one step at a time, and I will cross the Bridge of Setting and Implementing Policy when — and only when — I get to it.

When you're playing a high-stakes game like I am, you just can't afford to get too far ahead of yourself.

So I apologize for leaving you in suspense, and I beseech you all to show some patience with me on this point. It's not that I'm trying to be secretive. It's just that I've got a bit of a one-track mind right now. My preoccupation at this moment is to get the Power. Once I've done that, I'll take a three-week vacation, sit on a beach somewhere, and sort through how I intend to use It.

Good enough?