Say what you will about his policies (and there are some that will say an awful lot), but there’s no denying that this is a classy President. Hard to imagine Obama wiping his hands on others’ shirts after shaking hands with the unwashed masses.
Early in the afternoon, a few hundred “sample” letters arrived in Kelleher’s corner office, and he spread them across a table to choose Obama’s 10. Kelleher, an Illinois native who once worked as the outreach director for Obama’s Senate office, had been instructed to remain unbiased in picking the contents of the purple folder. The president wanted not necessarily the best pieces of mail, or the longest, or the most encouraging, he told aides. He wanted a representative sample: letters complimentary and critical, elegant and hurried. So Kelleher made it his habit to look at the daily metrics of incoming mail — for example, 60 percent about health-care reform, 30 percent about jobs, 10 percent about Iraq — and reflect that same mix in picking the day’s 10 letters.