My fellow Americans. Well, I’m back again. I know almost half of you who are watching this tonight didn’t vote for me last November. I know you probably don’t trust me because in my first four years as President I made a lot of promises that I didn’t keep. And I spent most of my time campaigning; and demagoging my political opponents instead of truly uniting the American people. For that, and for many other things, I’m sorry.
Sitting behind me, as is the tradition, are two of our Nation’s other leaders; Joe Biden, my Vice President, and Speaker John Boehner. Good evening, gentlemen. I owe you both an apology too.
First, Joe. A couple weeks ago I went on 60 Minutes with the person who is likely to be your chief rival for the Democratic nomination about three years from now, Hillary Rodham Clinton. I know, neither one of you has officially announced that you’re running, but everyone knows that you will. Anyway, I knew that the press would spin the joint appearance on 60 Minutes as virtually an endorsement for Hillary, but I did it anyway. No doubt it drove you half-crazy, as you’ve been a pretty loyal Vice President to me. Although, I have to say, you’ve said some awfully dumb things from time to time; well, actually, a lot more than that; and man, Paul Ryan really kicked your butt in that debate. Of course I don’t have a lot of room to criticize you when you consider my first debate performance. Where was I going with this?
Oh yeah. Sorry if I made your challenge with Hillary any tougher, but I owed her big time for not throwing me under the bus on Benghazi, and a lot of other things. Plus Bill saved my you-know-what when he said that even HE couldn’t have done any better with the economy than I did. And that’s after I basically called him, the guy who considered himself the first black President, a racist, during the 2008 primary battle with Hillary. Anyway, sorry if I gave Hillary a leg up on you, Joe. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
And, Speaker Boehner. Where do I start? I guess with this. You’re a man of principle. And I guess you assumed that I was too. Time and again you and I would enter into negotiations. We’d give each other our word on something. Then I’d go back on what we’d agreed on, and leave you hanging. This hurt you with your fellow Republicans, and with the American people in general. You eventually caught on, but not before it hurt you greatly. I would totally understand if you no longer believed a word I said. All I can say is I’m sorry, and I’ll try to be an honest negotiating partner from here on out.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, let me address a few issues. Let’s start with spending and the debt. Even though one of my chief acolytes, Nancy Pelosi, said just a few days ago that we don’t have a spending problem and in her defense I guess I’ve said pretty much the same thing for some time now, not only DO we have a spending problem, but it’s probably the biggest problem we have. And since I don’t have to run again, I might as well admit this while I’m at it – I’ve only made it worse – a lot worse.
My Stimulus package, for example – it’s really hard for me to say this, but I’ll just say it – it didn’t work. Just dug us deeper into a hole. I know, some of my most ardent supporters, like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, continue to say that the only problem with the Stimulus was that it wasn’t big enough, but I know that isn’t true.
We really do have to do something about the spending. And the first step is to come up with a budget. And I’VE been the biggest problem with accomplishing that. I should have known something was wrong when I’d send my budget over to Congress, and not only would it not get any Republican votes in the House or the Senate, but it wouldn’t even get a single Democratic vote either. I promise to do better.
And, to Harry Reid. Let me make this perfectly clear. It’s completely unacceptable that you haven’t passed a budget in the Senate for four years now. You’re supposed to pass one every year. PASS A BUDGET. I know you’re trying to keep your Democratic colleagues in the Senate from having to take any tough votes, but it’s your responsibility. I have to agree with what Republicans in the House passed recently – No Budget, No Pay. If you can’t perform one of the most basic functions of holding office, passing a budget, you don’t deserve to get paid.
And even though I got a lot of mileage out of blaming George Bush for, well, virtually everything that’s gone wrong over the last four years, I’m done with that. The buck stops with me – I think Harry Truman had something like that on his desk. I’ll have to ask the White House archives guy if they have that in storage around here somewhere.
And you know how I “evolved” on some issues? For example, I was all over the Bush Administration for allegedly torturing al Qaeda-connected terrorists, and swore I’d close Guantanamo Bay, and I’ve greatly expanded targeting terrorists with drones, so we never take custody of anybody in the first place; and I decided to keep Gitmo open. And I evolved on gay marriage; I used to be against it, now I’m for it. Well, I’ve evolved on another issue too. I was sitting in the White House a few weeks back, watching on television as hundreds of thousands of mostly young people marched through Washington asking that we stop abortions in this country. Well, I’ve had a change of heart. They were right, I was wrong. I’ve made a big deal about defending the little guy, the weakest among us. Who is more defenseless than an innocent little unborn baby in his or her mother’s womb. If I can “evolve” on other things, I can evolve on this one too. So tonight I call for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. From here on out, I’m going to stop appointing virtually only pro-choice federal judges – and that includes the Supreme Court. Maybe I can undo some of the damage I’ve done.
Well, that’s enough for one State of the Union Address. I was only able to scratch the surface of the many changes I need to make if I’m to be a successful President. I hope it’s not too late. I look forward to working with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and with the American people, to make this an even greater country. God bless the United States of America.