From: j.p.balkenende@regering.nl
To: b.obama@whitehouse.gov
Subject: hello there!

Dear mister Obama. This is Jan Peter Balkenende from the Netherlands. Just to let you know that I am always willing to help you with politics. This from out of my experience as a political leader. I mean: today you are zeven days the leader of the United States. But I am almost seven YEARS the leader of the Netherlands!
That is why I was a little bit disappointed that mister Bush didn’t call me last week to say goodbye. When I visited him in 2003 (with my dear friend Jaap The Hoop Scheffer) he told me we were friends. So why didn’t he call me?

Mister Obama, this is not how we go om with each other. I hope you agree and invite me to the White House as soon as possible. Then I can tell you about our VOC-mentality (a sort of ‘yes we can!’). Did you know that the VOC transported your voorouders to America? So you could say that thanks to Holland, the United States now have a black president!! Toch?

I also heard you are a very good basketballer. But please do not challenge me in front of the press to play basketball. I have a better voorstel instead. You know sjoelen? It is a Dutch sport and when I visite the White House I will bring my sjoelbak with me. How about that? When we are playing sjoel, we can talk about the Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan. I promised the Dutch parlement that we will leave Uruzgan in 2010. But I didn’t say we would leave Afghanistan!! So we can stay longer in every region in Afghanistan, except Uruzgan dus.

Hope to hear from you soon, so I can tell the Dutch press you called me. Greetings to your lovely wife, also from Bianca.