August 27, 2009

Inside the Mind of Our President: ‘It’s All About the O’

Don’t these people know that “I won?”

I talk a lot about “what the last election was all about.” And of course everybody reads into it what they want to. The tax cut for everyone making under $250,000. Health care. A kinder, gentler foreign policy. Getting out of Iraq and stepping things up in Afghanistan. Addressing climate change.

Whatever.

Because we all know what it was really all about.

Me.

My mellifluous baritone. My soaring – if intentionally vague – oratory. My post-racial, candidate-of-change positioning. An aura of “cool” no one had seen since JFK, and a sense of urgency untouched since FDR. Even my hot body.

And here I am. President. Outtasight.

So why am I suddenly getting all this pushback from every direction? Right. Left. Old. Young.

Dagnabit, those loonies on the right are pesky. Can’t even express an opinion without them jumping in my face. Everyone knows that cop in Cambridge was in full brain lock. What, he thought his white rear end could clap the cuffs on a frail, limping, world-renowned black Harvard professor who had already accused him of racial profiling and not raise a fuss? Hello! It was stupid.

But I can’t state the obvious without Rush Limbaugh going off the deep end and Glenn Beck dressing up in Lederhosen and implying I’m some kind of Fascist or Socialist or Communist, depending on which day of the week it is. Anyway, it’s a good thing that cop found me a way out: I stepped in it good that time, but ended up getting a bounce on the Beer Summit. For a minute there, I thought it was the Beer Hall Putsch.

Not to mention those ridiculous town hall meetings. Man, after the whole McCain debacle, I didn’t know those conservatives had it in them to pull it together so fast and mobilize such a ruckus. Heck, you’d think they were ACORN, the DailyKos and Moveon.org all rolled into one.

Meanwhile, all these goofballs at the DNC and in the MSM – yeah, I call it that too – are completely missing the point. It doesn’t matter whether these town hall shouters are Astroturf – of course they are – or that they look and act weird. What, Cindy Sheehan was June Cleaver? Code Pink was the Miss Middle America pageant? Kos was Andy of Mayberry? All that mattered was that our side continued to raise a stink and keep the Republicans on guard and off-message. And now they’re turning the tables on us.

But suddenly I’m also getting it from the left and the media. So we floated a few trial balloons on ditching the public option and middle-class tax hikes. And what’s with these old people? After all we’ve done for them, they’re freaking out about the prospect of trimming their precious Medicare a little. Everybody also knows we have to get all that end-of-life health spending under control. But talk some common sense and all you hear is “death panels.” That simplistic Sarah Palin and her friggin’ Facebook. I have to remember to have Geithner check her tax status.

The media’s even piling on about my granny jeans, Michelle’s short shorts and that “wee-wee” remark. By the way, where the heck did that phrase pop into my brain from? I don’t even know. The last time I used that phrase was when Sasha was potty-training.

It’s all this pressure, and I don’t believe the flack I’m getting from my own side – the left and the media. Don’t they remember what the goal is here?

Winning. Specifically, my winning. I’ve got to start tacking for advantage.

Nancy, Harry, Barney and Henry Waxman have performed a useful service. They’ve pushed the envelope so far on cap and trade and health care reform that I can pull things back a bit and score some victories while seeming reasonable.

So we’ve made some of these Blue Dogs walk the plank, and they are going to bite the big one next year. Big whoop. Their election wasn’t “historic” like mine. We only got the bunch of yahoos elected so we could have huge majorities to push things through, and we’ve done that. The stimulus and General Motors alone will ensure big government for years, no matter what happens with the other bills, or, for that matter, who wins in 2010.

Because 2012 is where it’s at, and what Dick Morris said about Bill Clinton in 1996 holds true for me today: I don’t care if one Democrat in Congress is re-elected – as long as I am.

So now I gotta do what Clinton and Morris did: Moderate, triangulate and regain control of the message. And uh, oh – that had better start right here:

“No, Michelle. Of course those shorts don’t make you look fat.”