This winter was especially cold. Three days before Christmas, snow fell in Washington. Outside the White House windows, huge flakes drifted down behind the new President during his first televised address. Clark Kent sat before the cameras in a Christmas sweater, responding to the Western world's expectations with remarkable ease.
"I'm very glad to meet with you today. Have you bought the food for your Christmas dinner? Have you brought the Christmas tree into the house? I know that everyone sitting so tensely before their televisions is certainly not here to hear these everyday greetings. But I still want to say that nothing is more important than the life you are living right now. All my efforts, and everyone else's, are only meant to help you focus on these quieter, more trivial daily concerns.
"The last time you saw me, I was only a Superpower User and a superhero. Today, I have become President, and I'm sure many people are not used to it. You may worry that I will become like most presidents, or perhaps even worse. After all, you did not vote for me, and I made no promises to you. That hardly seems democratic. You worry that I will not care about the group you belong to, that I will ignore and abandon some people.
"Perhaps you already know that I am not human. Precisely because of that, I do not belong to any particular human group. As an alien, I see you as a whole. No group among you is any more noble or lowly to me than any other. How I treat you depends on what the human race and human civilization need more.
"I believe many people already understand that we are currently facing Martian infiltration. To solve the problem of the activation towers,