Forget the “fiscal cliff”: When it comes to the nation’s most pressing concerns, other matters trump financial calamity.
Several thousand Americans, for example, are calling on President Obama to nationalize the troubled Twinkies industry to prevent the loss of the snack cake’s “sweet creamy center.”
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Thousands more have signed petitions calling on the White House to replace the courts with a single Hall of Justice, remove Jerry Jones as owner of the Dallas Cowboys, give federal workers a holiday on Christmas Eve, allow members of the military to put their hands in their pockets and begin construction of a “Star Wars”-style Death Star by 2016.
And that’s just within the past month.
The people have spoken, but it might not be what the Obama administration expected to hear. More than a year after it was launched, an ambitious White House online petition program aimed at encouraging civic participation has become cluttered with thousands of demands that are often little more than extended Internet jokes. Interest has escalated in the wake of Obama’s reelection, which spurred more than a dozen efforts from tens of thousands of petitioners seeking permission for their states to secede from the union.
The idea, dubbed “We the People” and modeled loosely on a British government program, was meant to encourage people to exercise their First Amendment rights by collecting enough electronic signatures to meet a threshold that would guarantee an official administration response. (The level was initially set at 5,000 signatures, but that was quickly raised to 25,000 after the public responded a little too enthusiastically.)
Administration officials have spent federal time and tax dollars answering petitioner demands that the government recognize extraterrestrial life, allow online poker, legalize marijuana, remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and ban Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Network radio.
The last issue merited a formal response from the Defense Department: “AFN does not censor content, and we believe it is important that service members have access to a variety of viewpoints,” spokesman Bryan G. Whitman wrote to the more than 29,000 people who signed the anti-Limbaugh petition.
The “We the People” program emerged in the news last week when petitioners demanded that Obama block an appearance at Sunday’s “Christmas in Washington” concert by Psy, the South Korean “Gangnam Style” singer who is under fire for anti-American lyrics. The program’s rules require that petitions relate to “current or potential actions or policies of the federal government,” prompting the White House to pull down the petition because Obama has no authority over booking at the privately run charitable event.
As quirky — and potentially embarrassing — as some of the most popular petitions are, White House officials profess to be encouraged by public interest and participation. More than 94,000 petitions have been created, and they have garnered 5.9 million signatures from 4 million users, said Macon Phillips, the White House director of digital strategy. The administration has issued 82 responses.
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