The Hank Harwood Reality Show will not be seen today. We bring you instead, a special message from President Barack Obama.
Here he is now, looking quite calm, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Shhh. He’s starting.
Camera pans in on the podium.
Folks, I want to apologize. Usually, I know, I’m apologizing on your behalf, to other countries. You’ve heard me do it. But today, I want to apologize to you. I know it’s been hard on you, what I’ve been trying to do. I know a lot of you don’t like what I’m trying to do anyway. But now even the ones of you who do, are suffering because of it. That’s why I want to apologize.
I hope you’ll stick with me, because I’ve got a lot to apologize for. Take Obamacare. Good name for it. I didn’t pick that name. I called it The Affordable Care Act. Well (chuckle) it turns out The Affordable Care Act is not affordable. I’m sorry about that. I know how much it costs, because Congress got into such a snit about it, I have to pay their Obamacare bills. And their aides’ and everybody else’s who works for them. Well... it’s not exactly me who’s paying. It’s you. So I apologize there, too.
But that is not the worst thing about Obamacare, a more appropriate name (it is my fault). The worst thing... there are so many; where to start... First, I apologize to all you old people who are going to die because we can’t afford to treat you, if we’re going to pay for things like sex-change operations for convicts, and birth control for everybody, and abortions, and oh yeah, mental health – could eat up the whole health care budget. I mean really, who among us is sane? Who among us does not need shrinking? Thinking you’re sane is about as crazy as thinking you’re Napoleon.
It’s no news that you can’t keep your old policy. Even now that I’ve given you permission to, your old policy doesn’t exist anymore. Obamacare made it illegal. Now you’re finding out you can’t keep your doctor. For some of you, your doctor doesn’t exist anymore. He’s quit his practice because of all the paperwork, and over-sight, and interference. Can you blame him? If I have my way, he’s going to get less money, and have practically no autonomy. His professional life is going to be hell. He’s not going to be able to give his patients the treatment they need. Well, there are plenty of other people, who aren’t so sensitive, who want to be doctors. All we have to do is lower the standards, and they’ll flock. Just like they do to teaching.
Something else I want to apologize for: Some of my policies may be choking out capitalism. You know, making it impossible for the free market to work. Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t like those words – “capitalism”, “free market”. I like words such as, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” But folks, let’s face it, capitalism works. Everybody’s trying it now. We’re becoming a backwater nation because I’ve been trying to make Marx work, and... well... once again, I’m sorry. It just doesn’t. Never has. But it sounds so good, you gotta try it when you get your chance.
It’s like this. If you leave people free to offer things to others, and you leave the others free to buy those things, or not, as they choose, well, the folks doing the offering will have to give the others, the buyers, what they want, or the buyers won’t buy their product. They’ll buy some other product.
What you don’t understand is, money has to keep moving. If money moves, it reproduces. It makes more of itself. Every time a dollar bill is spent, that’s like a new dollar bill being born. Somebody got something for it. Somebody’s life is better. And somebody else got a dollar he didn’t have before. Each dollar bill can buy hundreds of dollars worth of goods. What you’ve been thinking is that there’s only a certain amount of wealth to go around. But folks, that’s not true. The more things we create for people to buy, the more the money is moving and the more wealth we have.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking all the money goes to the people who create the product, and they take that money and hide it away and nobody ever sees it again. Well we see people putting their profits back into their business, because that’s how they stay alive. And if there’s any left over, they spend it. On what? On seeing your daughter in a Broadway show. On buying a yacht that was built by your son. On a vacation at a hotel where your niece is at the front desk. On sending their kid to the private school your wife teaches in. On eating out at the restaurant you own. You see what I mean? If the rich do well, everybody profits. It doesn’t “trickle down”. It flows down like a flood. It swirls and churns, touching everything and everybody, bringing huge fortunes, to the most unlikely, down in the valley of the many, where most of you-all live.
So I want to apologize, because we who are running the government have stemmed this flood by diverting these fortunes to us, so we can give them out the way we want to, mostly to ourselves, in one way or another. I’m sorry to say we even did this with a bunch of taxes in the Obamacare bill. Oh, yeah (the president runs a hand over his forehead), plenty of taxes in that bill. Some people say the taxes were the purpose of it. Don’t you believe it. We just wanted to run things. Part of Marx, you know. We’ve got the banks, the big businesses, education. Moving well on food and shelter. Gotta get control of health care. Get them by the... (the president looks back over his shoulder for who’s to blame for what his teleprompter almost made him say – a head is going to roll – and does not finish the sentence.)
All right, now it gets personal. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bully. (Raises hand to ward off objections). No, no, don’t deny it; I’m not denying it; why should you? I’ve been a bully. I’ve been too impatient. I want to make the world the way I think it should be, and I don’t care what anybody else thinks or wants. Well, I’ve always been like that. From the time I was this high. (Raises his hand above his head and purses lips as if inhaling) No, no, I’m kidding (puts his hand at knee level and waits for laughter to subside.) I’ve been acting like a dictator, and I know it. But it’s so much easier than trying to convince the Republicans, not to mention those Democrats who spend too much time listening to their constituents. (laughs) That’s you.
No, seriously. I should not have forced Obamacare down your throats. I know that now. Look. You were right. It isn’t working. There are more people uninsured now that when I started the whole thing. Nobody’s happy. Every day I have to excuse more and more groups from more and more parts of it, so now it’s nothing like what it was when it started. Now it’s nothing. Nobody can get insurance, doctors don’t know what to do, hospitals don’t know what to do... You’d think all these young healthy people who voted for me would be happy to support the old sick guys. That’s what it takes to make it work. And I gave them a free ride with their parents until they turned 26. But no-o-o. I called it wrong and I’m sorry.
People are getting scared now. They see what’s coming. Soon your doctor won’t be able to write prescriptions for anything. You’ll have to go to a specialist to get whatever meds you take. More tests, more appointments... and you know, maybe you won’t get them, because a lot of them are expensive and we can’t afford them under the system. But I do keep changing it. By myself, of course. Anyone who complains loud enough gets a change. Made by me. Personally, for them.
You know, (snicker) it really isn’t right that I’m going around making all these rules and regulations by myself. Congress is supposed to do that. But hey. Nobody stops me. I’m free to do anything I want. Never saw anything like it. Nobody has. We never thought it would be this easy. We thought you’d put up a fight.
But it’s all my fault. I know that. I made you love me. And now you can’t doubt anything I say or do. It’s like I’m omnipotent. Believe me, sometimes I’m shocked that I’m getting away with it. I’m not going to stop, because I do have a mission. My mission is to equalize things. America has too much. Too much money, too much power, and way too many rich folks. I want America to be more humble, and more fair, like Cuba and Venezuela, where the government makes sure that nobody has too much. And I have another mission, a sort of side mission, and that is to take care of my people. (Uncertain, but building applause) No, not those people. Not blacks. Muslims. Don’t you get it guys? I apologize if I’ve pulled the wool over your eyes. But it was so easy. You should really look out, you know? You’re suckers.
Don’t you know that I was taught in Muslim schools? I was brought up over there. Under Allah. You know how it is, what you’re taught when you’re young, that’s you. Even if you want to fight it, you can’t. Ask a Catholic. Okay, you’re going to bring up Reverend Wright, and his church. Yes, I belonged to that church. Yes, I heard Reverend Wright say, “God damn America.” Yes, I know he meant it. Yes, my daughters went to that church. But here’s what you don’t know. I didn’t want to join that church. I was afraid to. I was afraid it would interfere with my Muslim beliefs. But Reverend Wright assured me that it wouldn’t. And Reverend Wright turned out to be right. It did not interfere at all. Muslims, too, can say, God damn America. (murmuring in the audience, which is becoming uneasy. The President addresses it.) Go ahead, get out your phone and Google it. The Reverend told you all about it when he was mad at me. I heard it myself. Rush Limbaugh played a clip. Yeah, I listen to Rush; gotta know the enemy. And also, gotta know what’s going on – The New York Times doesn’t tell me. Flattering, just like my staff, but hey, in my position I gotta know.
Somebody out there is holding up a sign “Ben Ghazi.” Okay, okay, I knew someone would bring it up. Of course I’m sorry. You think I wanted that good looking ambassador to be raped and murdered? Does that look good for me? Of course not. I’m sorry about blaming the video. It was a cheap trick, and except for the elite liberals on the east coast, nobody believed it. Everybody wants to know where I was when it was going on. Well, I’m going to tell you. I had sneaked out for a Big Mac, and things got all confused, and I couldn’t get back to the White House without Michelle finding out where I was, so I went to a movie, and then all hell was breaking loose, and all my 3AM phone calls were routed to Hillary anyway, so... I don’t want to think about it. I really and truly am sorry.
And also, the IRS business. I am not sorry they did it, but I am sorry they got caught. Doesn’t look good, but it doesn’t matter. I won the election. Remember how mad the Tea Party was? Remember how bad things were going for me? Everything was against me. So they didn’t give the Tea Party a tax-exemption for their donors, and guess what! They had no donors. (Slaps his thigh). If they’d had the money they should have had, I wouldn’t be standing here apologizing. Mitt Romney would be standing here. And none of the above would have happened.
Now that’s something to contemplate, isn’t it?
Oh. I almost forgot. This business of collecting every word you ever said to anybody in your whole entire life so I can use it against you if I ever have to.... come on now... you don’t really think I’d do that, do you? You don’t have anything to hide, do you? Because if you do, you know, maybe you’d better stop using your phone. And your computer. Start sending letters through the US Mail. Like Jimmy Carter’s started doing. Because even though a committee that I myself appointed, told me to stop doing it, I’m not going to. Once again, sorry.
And for all you guys who liked your incandescent light bulbs because they worked, and you didn’t have to call HazMat if one broke, and they gave off heat in the winter when you need it, and who cares about the summer when you don’t even have to turn on your lights, sorry, all you guys. I know a lot of you stocked up and have a closet full. I did too. Hate those damn little twisty things that take forever to warm up. Don’t work with my dimmers either. And some farmer wrote me that all his baby chicks died when he replaced his old 100-watt brooder bulb with a pigtail one. Sorry to him and them too. I love Buffalo wings.
What else. Let’s see. What else do I want to get off my chest? Oh, yeah. My vacations. Look. I’ve got to do it. Michelle is pissed at all the gardening she’s got to do in the organic plot out back, she’s pissed that she had to fire the White House pastry chef because she’s always talking about fatties. (He looks both ways and leans into the camera). Woo! She’d put on quite a bit on her own back forty, but it’s gone now. Wasn’t easy. Michelle, well, you can imagine. What she wants she wants, and if she wants a mile-high stack of pancakes, that’s what she’s going to have. So anyway, she hates Americans because they’re making her do all this, so for spite, she spends as much of their money on vacations and clothes as she can. That five thousand dollar dress... didn’t even like it. But listen. Leave it alone. That’s not my fault.
And it’s not my fault that the businesses of all these friends I give money to, fail. I do not know what is the matter with them. They’re perfectly good people, with good brains. They just don’t have a lot of experience. Hmmm.
Well, let’s leave that alone, too.
I’m sorry I ruined higher education. I had no idea when I took over the student loan business that colleges would just up their tuition because the feds are paying the bills. Because that’s what happens, you know, when the students default. How can they pay off the loans – they can’t get jobs. Yeah, I’m sorry about that too.
And I’m even thinking maybe it’s not such a great idea for everybody to go to college. I needed a lot of help, so I know that everybody isn’t suited for an academic career. Some people prefer doing things. Even working. Now that everybody’s going, I hear it just isn’t the same, that people go there to drink and have sex, and most of them don’t know how to read or write when they get there.
The public schools are no good. Okay, that one’s not my fault. We’re trying to fix that. But please accept my most humble apology for this thing they call the Core Curriculum. I had nothing to do with it. If I thought they were going to spend all this money messing with math, I would have put my foot down and stopped them. I don’t see any use for math. I was never good at it. Can’t tell a billion from a gazillion, and never could. And I’m the President of the United States. So where does that leave math?
And I’m going to take care of reading and writing by starting it earlier. We’re going to have universal Pre-K, and that will become compulsory Pre-K, like the rest of school. (He leans confidingly in at the camera.) Do you know, when education was first made compulsory, a lot of parents didn’t want to hand their kids over? So they fined them, and if that didn’t work, they took the kids away. (He shudders.) But now everyone wants to hand their kids over – especially those little tykes who are becoming such a pain at home.
I know some of the old-fashioned experts say that if you try to teach a kid to read before he’s ready, you will ruin him forever; he’ll learn to fake it and never be able to do it right. In fact, they say that’s already happened to the kids who are in college now.
But I’ll take my chances on that, because it’s important to get all the kids together as young as possible, and teach them to be loyal to their school, to their government, and not so hung up on their families – all of whom are different. And some of whom are even hostile to the government. We have to teach them what’s right – which is, left. (He laughs.)
I’m doing okay internationally – no apologies needed on the overseas front. Iran’s coming along just fine; they’ll get their bomb. I’m squeezing Israel every which way I can, and... you know, I don’t get it... why don’t American Jews complain? Weird. Jews are weird. But I guess everybody knows that.
Not doing too well with the Western powers, but who wants to? Remember, I gave back that bust of Churchill when I moved into the White House. Some people think it wasn’t mine to give back, but I don’t care. I hate the Brits. Don’t much care for the French either. Not crazy about anybody over there, really. Bunch of old white guys living off the old white culture. Luckily they’ve all turned socialist, so they’re going downhill fast. As is the USA. And that’s all to the good, because the only way to get equality, the only way to have complete fairness, the only place everything can be equal, is at zero, and that’s what we’re aiming for. Nobody should have it any better than anybody else.
Except, of course, for those running the show. I’m sure you’ll agree that those of us who are responsible for all of you, should be well recompensed for taking the trouble.
But finally, I want to apologize for transforming America. I transformed her into a dung-heap. (holds up an admonishing hand) No, no, it’s true. I forced the auto industry out of existence by making them meet standards nobody could meet – I didn’t even understand them myself. I’m doing the same thing to the clean coal industry, where a lot of you folks got cheap heat. (laughs.) No, really. You know what I made them do? Well, not “me”, exactly – my EPA. Environmental Protection. That’s a laugh, isn’t it? How many of you know that line from the King and I. “… might they not protect me out of all I own?” That’s what I did for autos, and I’m doing it for coal. I’m telling them they have to install things that haven’t been invented yet. So what are they going to do? Go to jail, or get out of the business... that’s their choice.
I’m sorry to say I caused more inequality that I cured. Have you seen how my buddies on Wall Street are doing, while you’re on food stamps? Well, I didn’t intend that, but that’s what happened. I didn’t intend a lot of things. Well, some things I did intend. I did intend to break down the economy, because, well, if you’re going to make an omelet, you have to break some eggs. What I want is to transform America into something more like the Soviet Union, or Cuba – states that are for the people, you know? Well, you didn’t know that’s what I meant by Hope and Change. I told you, folks, you’re suckers. It’s not all my fault. You fell for a pretty face. (By the way, you should see me when I’m not botoxed. You wouldn’t recognize me. Michelle screamed the first time she saw it.)
But listen folks, it’s not all my fault. You should have known better. I can’t help it, but you can. My mother turned me over to Frank Davis to tutor. Ever hear of him? Google our images together. Some people think he’s my father. Quite possible, quite possible. I have no objection. Frank treated me like a son. Frank was a Communist – by the way, a colleague of Valerie Jarrett’s father-in-law. Yes, yes, we’ve got quite a tight little family going here. Bill Ayres? You know him? Started my political career in his living room. Worked for the cause. Blew up some buildings and said he’s sorry he didn’t blow up more. Well, we don’t have to do things like that anymore Bill. Now I just sign executive orders. Gets the job done cleaner.
But where was I? I was apologizing, not bragging. Apologizing to you, not to Bill Ayres. I have nothing to apologize to Bill for. But to you, folks? Well, I just couldn’t help myself. I had this great opportunity to make the world right, and I did. I had to give a lot of your money away to foreign countries without asking you – that’s true. But you had more than they did, and it just wasn’t fair. They needed it, and you... you really don’t.
My final act of transformation will be to take down the border between us and Mexico, flood you with foreigners who will go right onto the welfare rolls, so you’ll be paying for them. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But listen. These folks are going to vote Democratic. There will be more of them than there will be old, fat, white, males, all of whom are Republicans. The Republicans will be outnumbered forever, and we’ll be able to take our place among the rest of the socialist countries, and be proud of it.
So, not so good for you, individually, maybe, but fair.
Well. It’s been nice talking to you, but I see my golf cart coming to get me. Gotta go. (Waves). Now don’t you take any wooden nickels!
As he leaves, we pan to Michelle, planting peas in the organic garden. She’s wearing jeans and an old jacket, and cursing, cursing, cursing, almost loud enough for the cameras to pick up.
If I told a lie, if I made you cry
… I'm sorry
From the bottom of my heart, dear
I apologize
