Pink-Dear Mr President Analysis

Pink wrote the song “Dear Mr. President,” on Martin Luther King Day in 2005. The song was released as a single in 2007 and became apart of her album I’m Not Dead. The song is a direct criticism of President George W. Bush and the policies of his administration. Pink addresses the major concerns of most Americans. The song begins “Dear Mr. President/ Come take a walk with me. Let’s pretend we’re just two people and/ You’re not better than me. ” By stating this as an invitation Pink is directly asking the President to listen to her opinions.
Through equalizing social standings, she is diminishing the respect that the President demands, Pink is stating that she will be truthful with him and not sugar coat Tanya Kaplan Song Analysis 03/10/09 her opinions. She will tell him the truth about what everyone is thinking but no one is willing to tell him directly. She states, “You have come along way from whiskey and cocaine,” addressing Mr. Bush’s tainted past, which the media seems to ignore. Pink asks Mr. Bush who he prays for at night. She also asks how he feels when he looks in the mirror and if he is proud of himself.
These statements address that Mr. Bush forgot to make good on his promises to help people. He had the power to change society and be a positive force for society but failed to do so. Pink then asks Mr. Bush to look her in the eye, this is a sign that she is aware that he is not proud of his own and is unable to face his own actions, she is challenging him to state that he is proud of his actions. She is also addressing the political corruption that is believed to have occurred in the Bush administration.

There are many policies, that were enacted, such as political detainees, which the President directly partook in, while the policy blatantly violated the principles set forth in our constitution. Pink addresses many social issues during this song. “How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?… Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away,” this is a direct attack on the President’s Iraq war policy. There are thousands of mothers who have lost their children in the war on Iraq; some are soldiers while others are innocent children who are ystanders. During the Presidential Election of 2008, the majority of people stated that they did not support the war in Iraq; however, when this song was written it was very uncommon to have a majority of the people not support the war, let alone discuss the destruction that we are inflicting on the residents of Iraq and their infrastructure. The media did not portray the mass destruction inflicted on the country of Iraq or report the effect that the war was having on military families.
There are additional hot button social issues that Pink addresses with the President through her song. She states “What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away? And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay? I can only imagine what the first lady has to say. ” Tanya Kaplan Song Analysis 03/10/09 These statements denote George Bush’s policy of anti? abortion, his attempt to refute the Rowe v. Wade decision and to take away a women’s right to abortion.
These statements also call into question the administrations anti? gay policies. Ironically Vice? President Cheney’s daughter is gay. It is near impossible to imagine how the President can instill his anti? gay rhetoric while his second in command’s child part takes in a homosexual lifestyle. One must truly wonder what the first lady does say to Mr. Bush, when such a close family friend is directly being affected by his distorted view of appropriate sexuality. Pink also address the non? action that was insinuated by the no child left behind act.
The President adamantly states that he is helping the education system in the country through this act, yet he fails to provide any sort of funding to instill his policy changes. How can one expect to implement new policies yet not provide any funds to do so, while billions of dollars are being spent to make war? Poverty is addressed when Pink explains that Mr. Bush has no idea what it is like to work from minimum wage and be pregnant, or how it would feel to sleep in a cardboard box. She states Mr. Bush knows nothing about hard work.
This is a very plausible assertion considering that his own father was the President and he was raised in a more affluent segment of society. The song “Dear Mr. President” did not get large amounts of play time on the United States radio, in fact it got very little airtime. Pink was quoted as saying that she wrote the song as an attack on the President and his administration to prove that she could and what a great country that we live in to allow her to do so. The song provides for a valid attack on the policies of the Bush administration and of President Bush himself.