New York, NY —

Want to have your say in our democratic process? So does WNYC's Brian Lehrer, and he says it's easy to do.

Brian Lehrer: Howell Raines may be gone from The New York Times, but the newspaper of the liberal establishment is still picking on President Bush. Right on the front page yesterday was an article about how the White House has made it harder to send e-mail to the president. Don't those nattering nitpickers have anything better to do than to carp about how you send e-mail?

I think the new system is an improvement. In fact, the old way wasn't a system at all. It was like sending e-mail to anyone else. You just addressed a letter to president@whitehouse.gov , hit send and off it went. That is not a fitting way to communicate with The President of The United States.

And the new system is easy. I tried it. Here's how - you can take notes if you want.

First, you go to the go to the website www.whitehouse.gov.

At the top of the home page are 13 buttons. Click on the one that says Contact . It's conveniently located on the second row, right in the middle, between Espanol and Kids.

Okay: on the contact page, scroll down past the snail mail address, past the section on how to send an invitation to the President, past the part about how not to send him food or other perishables as gifts (as much as he and Mrs. Bush appreciate your thoughtfulness), past the five non-toll-free White House telephone numbers, and you'll see a section called White House Electronic Communications. Conveniently located right at the top of that section is a link to White House Web Mail. It took my computer a minute and five seconds to load that page, but I just take that as a sign of how many people must be successfully contacting the President this way at any given moment.

Near the bottom of that page, right above White House Web Mail Frequently Asked Questions, click on Continue. That takes you a new page called White House Web Mail Greeting Requests. The first request is for you to choose the type of greeting you want to send: one supporting the President or one differing from the President. This might seem to discourage nuanced points of view, but remember that we're in a war on terrorism now, and the most important thing for the President to know is Are you with us or against us.

Then, choose any of the 19 policy areas that the page lets you select.

Then, go to the bottom of the page and click on Continue

Having indicated that I wanted to differ from the President, the title of the next page was: Write a Differing Opinion. The first thing that page did was to ask me for my full name and mailing address. I'm sure this is not to forward my name to Admiral Poindexter in the Total Information Awareness program, but just to know exactly who I am and where I live, so they can serve me better in the future. After entering your address, click on Continue to go to the next page. But remember: if you fail to enter your name and address, you will be sent back to do so, as these are required fields.

And that sends you with no waiting at all, directly to a blank page on which to write your letter, with the words Dear President Bush provided right on the top. I wrote:

Dear President Bush, I don't so much want to differ with you as to ask you a question. I've heard that with the deficit and the tax cuts and all, you won't fully fund your promise to provide training so all the teachers in America can be qualified. Is this true?

The form even signed the letter for me: Sincerely Brian Lehrer. I thought that was the end, but it wasn't. After clicking Continue again, I was shown my letter with my name and full address formatted right in, and given the opportunity to decide not to send the letter. This is really a White House that believes in choice: freedom, just like the President always says.

Well, I did submit the letter, which brought up one final page. It said, Thank you for your submission. A confirmation message will be sent to your e-mail address. You must reply to this message within 72 hours for your request to be processed.

Well, I'll be checking my Inbox a lot the next few days. I'll be sure to set aside enough time to process that reply. And when I do, I'll add a PS to thank the president for giving me the opportunity to have so much access to the White House site. Stupid New York Times.