Obama's Diary

Michelle warned me about Pastor Wright years ago, so this whole affair is mostly my fault and I take responsibility. Most of us in the congregation simply attributed Pastor Wright’s fiery diatribes to old age. His old age and the age of the liquor he enjoyed so much. Put the two together and give a preacher a television camera and the rest is YouTube history.

Michelle seems to figure out very quickly what a person is really like, deep inside their souls. She thinks Hillary Clinton is an evil conniving witch with delusions of grandeur. She thinks George Bush is the stupidest President in U.S. history. The next stupidest President is his father, the other George.

I asked her what she thought of Tim Russert, the host of Meet the Press. Michelle said Tim is an evil conniving warlock. “How about Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, one of my staunchest supporters?” Michell said she was an evil conniving witch with delusions of grandeur.

That’s just the quality we need in a Vice President.

It was Michelle’s idea to start selling Obama t-shirts to bidders on eBay. It’s been a year and so far she has raked in about $390,000. It’s very easy money. Those people will buy anything.

She orders thousands of black and white t-shirts. I think they’re Hanes. The good kind, with thick material and a nice, tight neck that doesn’t stretch out when I pull it over my ears. She has some company in Chicago print a logo on the front and back of each shirt, ‘Worn by Barack Obama.’

The rest is easy. When I’m at home I take a t-shirt out of the box and put it on. Then I take it off. Then I put on another one. Then I take it off. Then another, and so on. She gets bids for $50 to $100 and sometimes more for each t-shirt she sells on eBay. Outside of campaign contributions, this is the easiest money we’ve ever made. The shirts are good quality. And each shirt was actually worn by me, Barack Obama.

Is America a great country, or what?

Now I know how the Clintons felt about the Whitewater investigations back in the 1990s. The Republicans spent about $50-million to dig up dirt about Clinton deals in Arkansas and came away with much ado about not much.

Tony Rezko is my Whitewater.

What is it about land and politicians and developers? Mix them all together and someone makes a lot of money, someone goes to jail, and someone gets hounded by the press and maybe even dogged by a special prosecutor for years. Tony Rezko was a developer on the South Side of Chicago. He helped me buy some land. He raised some money for a few of my campaigns.

That’s it. What else is there to tell besides my 13 page interview with the Chicago Tribune. What more do people want?

Apparently, more. Alright, so Tony roughed up some people a few times. He’s a developer in Chicago. It happens. Alright, so Tony had a few local politicians in his pocket. That doesn’t mean I was in his pocket.

If there’s one thing a young politician learns in Chicago it’s that you don’t turn down an offer to help your campaign from a guy in a black stretch limo whose name is ‘Tony.’

If there is one thing I can’t stand it’s a friend with an opinion and an audience. My longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah White, whom I both loved and trusted, has too much of both.

Preachers are really just politicians with a smaller electorate. But turn on the video cameras and you’d think they were preaching to the whole wide world. Pastor Wright said some things he should not have said. Sacramental wine before a sermon will do that to a man of the cloth.

What makes this sad event even more sad is that Pastor Wright is retiring. Instead of going out on a high note as a beloved preacher, and personal friend of the next President of the United States, he goes out on a limb, it breaks, and he crashes into the harsh light of reality, right in the middle of my presidential campaign.

I married Michelle in his church. My daughters were baptized in his church. Now I have to reject and repudiate and vehemently disagree and strongly condemn what he said.

Let this be a warning to all preachers with an opinion and a pulpit. Drink the wine after the sermon.

It does not take long for a career politician to learn a few dirty tricks in a campaign. One of the all time best political dirty tricks was just pulled on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

We let it leak to her campaign that I have a plan to run as an independent for President if I am not nominated by the Democratic Party at the convention.

The scenario is simple. If I win more states in the primary election, and win the popular vote, and win more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton, but the SuperDelegates give her the nomination at the convention, then I’ll run against both Clinton and John McCain as an independent candidate for President.

I can only imagine what the leak did to Hillary’s campaign officials. They know what will happen. Just as Ralph Nader cost Al Gore Ohio and Florida in the 2000 general election against George Bush, the same thing is likely to happen in 2008 if I run as an independent candidate.

In fact, there’s even a chance I could win a few states and prevent either Clinton or McCain from winning enough states in the electoral count, so the whole election goes into the House of Representatives.

Who says I’m not experienced or tough enough to play hardball in a presidential campaign?

There are two Marks in my political life, and, from what I can tell, they both hate me.

The first is Mark Penn who works for Hillary Clinton. He’s one of two attack dogs on Hillary’s campaign staff. If Terry McAuliffe isn’t available to beat up on me, they send in Mark.

Today he complained to reporters and told them that I can’t win the November election against John McCain because I can’t win the big states against Hillary. Fair enough. She won California, New York, Texas, Ohio and a few others. What Mark can’t figure out is that in all likelihood some of the Democrats who voted for Hillary in those states will also vote for me when I’m the Democratic nominee for President.

Duh, Mark.

The other Mark against me is one of the Secret Service agents that President Bush has assigned to me. His name is Mark. We never know their last names so we just call him Mark. Everywhere I go, Mark goes. It’s like a black man walking with a white shadow. I can’t go to the bathroom without Mark dogging behind me. I can get a stall to myself, but he hands me toilet paper under the door. One square at a time. He says regulations require it to be examined first. I carry my own toilet paper now.

It’s been two weeks since he gave me any toilet paper under the door. I’ll bet he thinks I stopped wiping.

For a chubby, wrinkled white woman, Hillary Clinton is the ultimate moving target with all the deft and cunning of cornered mountain lion. Either that, or she suffers from some kind of political multiple personality disorder. I suspect it happens frequently to rich white women who move to Arkansas.

We’re never sure which Hillary will show up for a debate, which means I have to prepare for any one of half a dozen known Hillary personalities. There’s the Hillary who implies that I’m so green in politics that I wouldn’t know how to answer a phone in the White House at 3:00 am. If I’m the President and it’s 3:00 am then I’m in full on delegate mode. I’d let Michelle answer it. Once whoever calls has been given the third degree by Michelle, they’re not likely to call back again.

Then there’s the Hillary Clinton who says she’s ‘open’ to having me on the Democratic ticket– as vice president.  Funny. If I’m not ready to be President then why would I make such a great vice president? Frankly, we’re baffled by Clinton’s chutzpah.

And there’s the Hillary who boasts about her experience from her husband’s White House years, but refuses to release any records from her time as first lady. When we ask her where her tax returns are and when she plans to release them, she snipes that I’m acting like the much beloved Ken Starr on another Clinton witch hunt.

It’s a witch hunt, alright, but the woman is on a fast-moving broom so she’s not easy to bring down.