Obama's Diary

Honestly, I thought today was Valentine’s Day. Michelle was not too happy. First I forgot our anniversary last fall, now this. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse– it got worse.

This afternoon I called Michelle on the phone. “Hi, sweetheart. How’re the kids doing? Did you get the package and card I sent?”

When Michelle is pissed about something there’s an eerie, growing silence which follows any question. This was one of those moments. I figured the package was late and she was upset. I figured right, but for the wrong reasons.

“Barry,” she said, “Do you know what you gave me for our 15th anniversary? Do you even remember, Barry?”

Uh oh. Using Barry twice in the same sentence is not a good sign. “Honey, it was chocolate,” I stammered. “You love chocolate. I always get you chocolate.”

“Chocolate? This isn’t real chocolate, Barry. This was a boring box of Whitman Sampler chocolates. Another box of the same cheap-assed chocolates they sell at Walgreens. Except this time the chocolate covered cherries were broken and that sticky-assed syrup was all over everything. Sasha got in her hair.”

Uh oh. How did she know I got those at Walgreens? Is it possible that I got her the same thing for our anniversary, too?

“Listen to me Mister I-Wanna-Be-Leader-Of-The-Free-Freakin’-World, this is four times straight you’ve given me chocolates for this or that or whatever and not once have you managed to do any better than cheap-assed chocolates from Walgreens. Not once. Do you even know how to spell G-o-d-i-v-a Chocolates?

She was right. I don’t put a lot of thought into gifts or anniversaries or holidays or anything of those things that women think men should think about. I can’t say that I agree with Bill Clinton, or that I approve of what he did with Monica Lewinsky in the White House.

But I understand.

The Democratic presidential campaign is nearing the end. I know because I can hear the fat lady singing. And whining, screeching, blubbering, and shaking in her pantsuit while shaking a finger at me. I don’t know much about opera but this soap opera is officially worse than The Bill and Monica Show.

Speaking of fat ladies, I honestly thought Hillary would stop digging her nails into my back since playing the race card blew up in her face last month. Now she’s playing the experience card. Maybe she figures that if it worked for John McCain, it could work for her.

David Plouffe clued me into the fat lady analogy. He came up to me in the plane tonight with the latest edition of The New York Times and said, “Guess what? The fat lady is singing.”

I said, “Oprah?” David smirked, then laughed, then withdrew the laugh because he wasn’t really sure I made a joke or just didn’t understand what it means when the fat lady sings. “No, not Oprah,” he said. “Hillary. She’s singing at the top of her lungs accusing you of this and that or something else. It’s like the fat lady singing at the opera. It’s over. She’s on the run.”

“Oh, Hillary. She’s the fat lady? I really hadn’t noticed, but now that you brought it up…”

Someone has to explain all this to me. What does a fat lady singing in an opera have to do with finishing something? All the women that sing in an opera are fat. Except Anna Netrebko. She is one hot opera singer. Anyway, I have to assume that a fat lady sings at the end of the opera, and somehow that became analogous to the end of a game, which is now being used to signify the end of Hillary’s presidential campaign.

Fine. Whatever. That works for me except for one thing. Fat women cannot be trusted to do they say they’re going to do and what you want them to do or when you want them to do it. Sure, Oprah got all gushy on television and came to Iowa and helped me score a great victory over Hillary, but I haven’t seen her since.

I feel so used.

Muhammad Ali was the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. ‘Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee.’ I like that.

Today was my day to sting. The war in Iraq? I take the high road. The slumping economy? I take the high road. After all, I didn’t have anything to do with either one. Taking the high road means I get to roll a few boulders down on Hillary and McCain.

Pinning blame on bad situation is child’s play. Both McCain and Hillary voted to go to war in Iraq and now almost everyone who can vote hates the war and anyone who had anything to do with it. That would not be me.

Now we have an economic malaise bordering on a full-fledged recession. Oh, what should I do? What should I do?

I know. Let’s go visit workers at a General Motors plant and blame their woes and the company’s woes on a failure of leadership in Washington. After all, Washington spent a few hundred billion of their taxpayer dollars on a futile and unpopular war in Iraq, right? So I blamed the whole shebang on Clinton and McCain-Bush. Anyway, Hillary got all upset and stated telling anyone in Wisconsin who would listen that I’m good at speech making, and rhetoric, but totally afraid to debate her face to face because I don’t have any depth, details, or plans to offer.

Good point. But, then again, that’s what ‘float like a butterfly…’ is all about.

Tonight we received a call from David Wilhelm, Bill Clinton’s campaign chairman back in 1992, and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He’s ready jump ship and endorse me. He’s also a super delegate so I get to add another delegate to the stack. Bill and Hillary will be pissed.

What made Wilhelm defect? He said it was the victory speech I gave after winning Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The speech was pretty much the same I’ve used elsewhere, so I said, “David, there’s more to it than that. You know I’m preaching to the choir in that setting.”

He said, “Yeah, I know, but I saw John McCain’s victory speech on television about two minutes after yours. You can beat McCain. You can win this thing.”

Kind words from a defecting Clintonite, or sugar cubes from a Clinton mole who wants to be on my team? We’ll see. I asked David Axelrod to get me a tape of McCain’s speech and a tape of the last five minutes of my speech. I played them each, back to back, again and again.

First, my speech. It looked like a choir behind me. Then John McCain’s speech. It looked like a photo shoot from Gentleman’s Quarterly: The Mortician Edition.

That’s why Wilhelm defected.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why people are so worried that I might want to talk with our enemies. I won’t say it in public, but I tell people the same thing. “We’re not in the 4th grade. We’re adults. We can have differences and still get along.”

Besides, talk is cheap. And free. What will it hurt to talk to world leaders with a different view from ours? We do it all the time. Look at the leaders of France, Germany, Japan, China. People seem to think we talk all the time and agree on everything. It’s just not so. There’s too much money involved.

I sure don’t agree with Michelle on everything. It would be a strange world if we agreed on everything, but I cannot see how it will hurt to listen.

The best example I have today is Hillary Clinton. She wants to debate with me all over the place. I tell her the same thing every time she calls. “Hillary, I’m busy. I’m running a campaign to be President. My time is valuable. What will people learn about me in a debate that they don’t already know?” She hates that question. But I listen to her.

I think listening to our enemies might be enlightening. So, listening to Hillary is simply good practice. And cheap. And free.

I’m glad that 60 Minutes interview is over. Every time I do an interview like that I have a vision of Mike Wallace exposing some deep and dark secret of mine to tens of millions of viewers on national television. Clearly, the hardball days are gone.

Steve Kroft was positively slow pitch softball. Thankfully, he wasn’t looking for dirty laundry and I don’t have any more to air. 60 Minutes is a dinosaur viewed by dinosaurs. In an odd way that’s what my campaign is all about. Herding dinosaurs into the 21st century.

Bill and Hillary were on 60 Minutes in the early days of their first campaign and came off looking pretty good. It didn’t last. Things change. Except for 60 Minutes. They’re the Buick of television journals. Everyone who watches that show is old or getting there. Or old and working there.

While Steve Kroft was blathering on about experience and qualifications I was thinking to myself, “Good God, I’m barely half Mike Wallace’s age.” The man is 89. So is Andy Rooney. The average age of a 60 Minutes reporter must be over 70.  Less if you count their new generation eye candy, Scott Pelley and Katie Couric.

If everyone in the U.S. lived as long as some 60 Minutes’ reporters, we’d bankrupt Social Security before the end of my first term.

People compare me to a faith healing preacher when I give a campaign speech. Why not? I can heal people. I did it again today.

The first time it happened we were at a campaign rally and I stepped into the crowd. This woman came up to me and said she’d been blind since an accident at a factory she worked in two years ago. She grabbed my arm and said all she wanted was to shake my hand because she just knew it would help her.

I leaned forward, looked her in the eyes, and then grabbed both sides of her head with my hands. I touched her forehead with mine and mumbled something to her. I don’t even know what it was. Some kind of energy left me and went to her.

The woman fell backwards and starting crying and shaking and wiggling around. It was strange. Spooky. I turned and walked away as quickly as I could. All I could hear was that woman yelling, “I can see! I can see! Obama cured me.” Strange.

It happened again today. I grabbed a woman who reached out to touch my hand and she started convulsing and groaning, then cried out, “Obama cured me! I can taste again!” Strange.

They say that people with heightened charisma can do such things. I don’t know. It’s a gift. I must use it for good.