Dorotheenstr. 84

10117 Berlin

GERMANY

Heil Frau Mrs. Merkel,

One of my hubby`s as-of-this-afternoon-unindicted handlers asked me to write you today, on account of you are now the first lady chancellor of Germany. But that can`t be right, because that`s a man`s job. (The West Wing staff likes to play with me and be silly after 11am, when they know I`m a bit tipsy.) So as a fellow First Lady, I wanted to the first to congratulate you and welcome you to the club!

As a token of good will to a country that shares our nation`s reputation for absolutely loving to start wars, I stand ready to introduce you to public gestures that pass for marital affection on camera, but are actually highly-effective fingernail lacerations that will let your spouse know that if he doesn`t shut his stupid salsa-hole, you are going to tell everyone why he keeps a mirror and a razorblade in his desk in the Oval Office!

I think you and I are going to be terrific friends – or at least look like it in the photo ops! Indeed, I look forward to having many snapshots taken by your side, because it is so exciting to know that I`ve finally found someone who will make me look slim in one of my size-18 elastawaist pantsuits.

I`m sure you must already be very busy, what with this being smack dab in the middle of your country`s famous ``October Festival.`` In our country we have a secret holiday devoted to drinking. It`s called ``The Second Term.`` But how nice it must be to have a formal holiday where one can PUBLICLY drink oneself into a vomit-splattered stupor – instead of having to keep cooped up in the family quarters every night! Honestly, they keep the windows near the wet bars in the private residence so blacked-out at night, you`d think we were having a nightly air raid by the Luftwaffe! LOL! (No offense!)

I would like to take this opportunity to extend a formal invitation to Washington. While our hubbies are busy dragging your newly theocratic country into that Iraq mess, we gals can keep ourselves plenty busy, as I have heard that there are drinking games specifically invented for more than one person to play! I have also been looking at the photos of you on the newswire, so I will make sure that the White House chef puts lots of starches and saturated fats on the menu for our state dinner.

Please extend my congratulations to your hubby on his victory over that awful Schroeder fellow. I shudder to think that he might be even distantly related to the star of my hubby`s all-time favorite TV show.

Yours Sincerely,

Laura B.