My fellow Americans, as I stand before you this evening, the state of the union is… well, it’s not very good. I know many of you bought into all that “hope and change” we were pushing in the campaign more than a year ago now, and I’m going to admit to you right off the bat, that it just hasn’t worked. Our policies have just made things worse.
We had such huge Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, that we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. Rather than working together as I’d promised during the campaign, I gave a green light to Speaker Pelosi in the House and Leader Reid in the Senate to cut the Republicans completely out, and push our liberal agenda on America full speed ahead. (Of course our polls tell us we shouldn’t call what we’re doing “liberal” so we now say it’s “progressive”, and I want to thank our friends in the media for so willingly adopting that term, but since I’m being completely honest this evening, I’ll admit that, liberal, progressive, it’s the same thing, and as we learned in one of my favorite states, Massachusetts, just last week, my fellow Americans, you’re just not buying it. )
When I was sworn in as your President a little more than a year ago, you’ve got to admit, we faced some pretty daunting challenges. I should have focused like a laser beam on the economy, and getting people back to work again. Instead, I got distracted with side issues like global warming (my advisors say I should call it climate change now), trying to get our enemies around the world to like us better, and every liberal’s dream, taking over everybody’s healthcare and running it out of Washington.
Then came Massachusetts last week; fine, I heard you. Although I don’t have to run again for another three years, (and maybe things will be better by then), a lot of my friends in Congress have to face a very angry public in just nine months, and let’s face it, unless we change things dramatically, it could be a bloodbath.
So Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, here are your marching orders. First, we’ve got to stop this out-of-control spending. That $787 billion economic stimulus package we passed a year ago – let’s admit it, it just hasn’t worked. It was supposed to create jobs, but unemployment has about doubled since we passed it. I know we’ve tried to spin it that we can count “saved” jobs, and we argued that it would have been even worse if we hadn’t passed it, but even sympathetic press coverage hasn’t convinced the American people that all the spending has worked. Besides, that damn FOX Network and all those conservative talk shows seem to drown out anything the major networks say in supporting our side. It’s really frustrating.
Next, we’re dropping the whole healthcare thing, now. What we really wanted anyway was to out-and-out nationalize healthcare – a single-payer system, the whole nine yards. We knew from the start that the public would never buy that, so we tried to muddy-up the language with terms like “public option” and “co-ops” and such, but it never really worked. We tried to spin it that the public didn’t understand what we were trying to do (it was too complicated for them) or that our “messaging” was off, but let’s face it, they got it, and they just didn’t want it. So Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid, you’re to go back to the drawing board, include Republicans in the process (even they might have a good idea once in a while) and let’s even let the public in on what we’re doing. We might even want to put it all on CSPAN like I promised in the first place.
Perhaps my most important responsibility as your President is to keep the American people safe. Thank God we’ve been lucky during my first year in office; I have to admit, probably in spite of what my Administration has done, not because of it. I deferred to the head of my Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, too much. Her refusal to call terrorism terrorism, and instead insisting on calling it “man caused disasters”, well that was just wacky. And then came her claim that “the system worked” when we nearly lost an airliner over Detroit, when it clearly had not. Secretary Napolitano, thanks for your service, you’re fired.
And I’m reversing a few other calls I made. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind September 11th, we’re going to try him in a military tribunal, rather than in a civilian court in New York. I am not going to give that terrorist, there I said it, a soapbox to trash this great country of ours and recruit even more terrorists, there I said it again. And forget about closing Guantanamo Bay. If we bring those dangerous radical Jihadists to U.S. prisons, their hatred for America will inevitably spread to some of the other inmates they come into contact with, and further endanger Americans. I’m just not going to take that risk.
And finally, let me speak directly to my fellow Democratic colleagues serving in the House and in the Senate. I know Massachusetts scared a lot of you, and you’re thinking, “I could be next.” Let me pick one of you out as an example, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Driehaus. You’ve done exactly what Speaker Pelosi told you to do. Your very first vote was to make Nancy the Speaker of the House. You voted for the budget we concocted even though it was out of balance by $1.4 trillion, the worst in history. You voted for the stimulus package that, let’s face it, has only stimulated more government and done nothing to create jobs in the private sector. You voted for our Cap and Trade scheme, even though we knew it would be a job-killer, and hurt people in your own district and state. You co-sponsored the card check bill, which was nothing but a payoff for the unions’ support of you and me in the last election. And you voted for our healthcare takeover, even though your own constituents made it pretty clear in your town halls that they were against it. And I understand that those pesky tea party folks are pretty active in your area.
Well Steve, since you’ve been what Politico called “a reliable backer of party leadership”, in other words, you’ve done what you were told, your party leadership will be there for you. My advisors tell me that according to an independent poll done last week, you’re losing to your Republican opponent by 17 points – 56% to 39%. Well, don’t worry about it. You just keep doing what Nancy and I tell you to do.
So in conclusion, my fellow Americans, I heard you loud and clear; I’m going to do better. And, oh by the way, it’s all George Bush’s fault.