The Presidential Seal

If I'm elected president you can take The Presidential Seal and cover it with dog poop and put it on your web site for all I care!!!

When I heard that President George W. Bush sent the Onion a letter demanding that they remove the Presidential seal from their web site I wanted a copy of it. I didn’t send a Freedom of Information request to President Bush because I figured Emperor Bush would toss it into the toilet. Instead I sent a request to Senator John McCain and asked him to send it thru the right channels.

Sadly Senator John McCain is a police state thug like President Bush and the jerk didn’t help me file a FOIA request to the letter. Instead asshole John McCain sent me this letter.

Dear Mr. Ross:

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your letter of November 7, 2005 regarding a letter to the Onion Magazine (which was a Freedom Of Information Act requesting a copy of the letter President Bush sent to the Onion Newspaper demanding they remove the Presidential Seal from the Onion web site).

Your situation is in the jurisdiction of the Onion. Therefore I have forwarded your letter to the editor of the Onion.

Mike I do hope your situation can be resolved favorably.

Sincerely

John McCain
United States Senator

If I new that asshole Senator McCain was going to just forward my letter to the Onion I would not have wasted the 37¢ to send the bastard the letter. I was very pissed off. It seems John McCain thinks of himself as royalty instead of as a public servant.

I figured that the folks at the Onion would toss Senators McCain’s letter in the trash where it belongs.

Several days later I was surprised to get a handwritten letter from the Onion. It said:

Mike

Senator McCain asked us to send you a copy of the letter the office of the W.H. counsel sent us. Here’s the text of it; the letter itself is framed and would be hard to photocopy.

Best

Peter Koechley

The Onion
America’s finest news source

He also enclosed a printed letter which included the text of the letter from the White House Legal staff. It said:
September 28, 2005

To whom it may concern:

It has come to my attention that The Onion is using the Presidential Seal on its website http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40121

I write to inform you that use of the Presidential Seal is governed by Section 713 of Title 18, United States Code and Executive Order 11649. In accordance with these authorities, the Presidential Seal is not to be used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any that suggests Presidential support or endorsement. While certain exceptions are applicable to these policies, an organization must seek approval from the Office of Counsel to the President. We have no record of your company seeking such approval.

Therefore, please remove the Presidential Seal from the website immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Grant Dixton
Associate Counsel to the President

 
A copy of the hand written letter Peter Koechley at the Onion sent me:

A copy of the letter President Bush’s lawyer Grant Dixton sent the Onion Newspaper.

The Presidential Seal that the Onion has on their web site.

Letter from Senator John McCain to Libertarian Presidential Canidate Mike Ross telling Mr. Ross to more or less f*ck off!!  

Letters

Mike Ross for President