Hillary War Room: Resistance Is Futile

 REPRISE 

BILL: Ya gotta move now, darlin.’  We can’t count on a brokered convention anymore.  Biden’s toast, Bernie’s ticker is tuckered, and the rest are midgets.  Warren’s unstoppable--unless you act.

HILLARY: I don’t…cough-cough-cough-cough-wheeze-cough-cough-cough- cough cough . . . .

PAUL BEGALA: He’s right, my queen.  Declare your candidacy tomorrow.  I’ll instruct our media familiars to gush in approbation as they cover it live, with a five-minute tape delay to edit out stumbles, falls, respiratory episodes, brain freezes, and bathroom emergencies.

BILL: Good thinkin.’ Let’s put her whole campaign on a five-minute delay.

HILLARY: Shuddup, Bill.  Damn!  I’d hoped to avoid retail politics in Podunk coffee shops.  Maybe Lizzie will bow out once I throw my pantsuit in the ring, and I can skate to the nomination.

What, Serpenthead?

JAMES CARVILLE:  That dog won’t hunt, Missus.  She ain’t stayin’ on the leash.  She got the scent and she’ll run it down and get her teeth into the mudbugs in the gumbo pot before the moon rises over the bayou.

HILLARY: So, how do I supplant the Wicked Witch of the East and become inevitable within days after I announce my candidacy?

BEGALA: First thing, Sensei, make a short, powerful statement that you’re running for reelection against the usurper, Trump, and everything you do as president will be For … the …Children.  We can flesh it out in the fall, or not.

BILL. To lock you in, Honeybun, we saturate the airwaves and social media with the ad you wouldn’t let us use in 2016 against Trump.  Remember?  Your takeoff of Peggy Lee’s “I’m a Woman.” *

HILLARY: Only did it because Streisand persuaded me.  I thought it made me look tawdry, and why risk it because I was supposed to win big anyway.  

DAVID BROCK: Different times, Excellency.  It shows a side of you nobody ever sees, including us.

BILL: I just previewed the spot, Sugarlips .  It’s perfect!  Blows away your robotic persona by taking a page from Trump’s book. The rubes will see an in-your-face Hillary who’s PC-free, bold, brassy--and even a little sexy. And we did finally get a take without a coughing jag.

HILLARY: All right. Show me.  Better be the one I appear mostly from the waist up.

BILL: Run it, Paul.

I'm a Clinton *

[On the monitor Hillary stands next to a piano chatting with John Legend at the keyboard.  She is rouged, red-lipped, and wearing a white pantsuit ensemble with three inch black pumps.  She turns and puts her hands on her hips. When the intro begins, she smiles suggestively and starts tapping her foot. The camera zooms in.]

I can BleachBit my e mails and laptops then flip a bird at the FBI
I can rake in cash as I please through my Foundation until the day I die
I can order the nets to sow talkin’ points like seeds across the land
Take a month off the trail, schmooze the rich in the Hamptons, return when I’m flush to beat the band
‘Cause I’m a Clinton! C-L-I-N-T-O-N, I’ll say it again

I can spew out a dozen lies and make you think they’re all true
Cuss an agent, rank my staff, and beat on Bill so he’s black and blue
Party with Cher on Saturday night, head home and drink til 3:00 a. m., and then
Get up at 10:00, eat steak and grits, go to church and screech “Amen!”
‘Cause I’m a Clinton! C-L-I-N-T-O-N, hear me say it again

If you come to me beggin’ you know I’m gonna make you pay
If you come to me with bad news you know I’m gonna ruin your day
If it’s pity you’re wantin’, I’ll slap you and shame you, you snivelin’ twit
‘Cause I’m a Clinton! C-L-I-N-T-O-N, hear me say it again

I can break every rule in the book from now to End of Times!
I can laugh at Congress skirt the law commit a host of crimes
I got a history of payback that proves there’s nobody I can’t screw
I can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear but I can make dupes outta you
'Cause I'm a Clinton! C-L-I-N-T-O-N, hear me say it again
'Cause I'm a Clinton! C-L-I-N-T-O-N, and that says it all

HILLARY: I like it. Where’s Huma?

BILL: Off pouting somewhere. She wanted to include a verse extolling female genital mutilation and subjugation to Sharia, but we thought those issues could wait until after you’re elected.

BEGALA: Reverend Sharpton on line 1, your Eminence.

HILLARY: What’s up. Al?  I don’t care what Jackson told you. You will be my Secretary of Reparations.  Yes, a Cabinet position.  Contingent, as we agreed, on your guarantee of 70% turnout and 95% support in designated black communities.  Well, better get busy. [hangs up]
Ah, Huma.  Where have you been?

HUMA ABEDIN: Arranging for Anthony to be kidnapped and taken to Saudi Arabia to be stoned to death for unspeakable acts, my Liege.

HILLARY: Probably best, my dear.

BROCK: The Post is reporting we have a good chance at picking up the Senate and keeping the House, your Grace.

HILLARY: From your lips to g-d’s ears, if he exists.  Absent congressional obstructionism, I can do a better job of chipping away at the Bill of Rights.

BILL: Sweetheart, we’re seeing some softening in a vital demographic: one-issue abortion righters.

HILLARY: Troubling.  I’ll issue a statement next week supporting abortion up to six months after birth if the woman complains of sleep deprivation.

BROCK: We’ll have expired Democrats voting in sufficient numbers to put you over the top in Pennsylvania and Ohio, your Worthiness.  By a simple stretch of the imagination, they’ll qualify as absentee voters.

HILLARY: No argument there.  Let’s do more outreach to the disembodied. Huma, channel Betty Friedan.  Ask her to found the League of Dead Women Voters.  Brock, order up ten million Johnnie Cochranized bumper stickers: “If you’ve gone and died, don’t be denied.’’ Bill, use your mojo and book a rally at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on All Souls’ Day.

BILL: Precious, I don’t think . . . .

HILLARY: Shuddup, Bill.  I don’t care what you think.  Do what you’re told or I won’t let you vet the interns.

*This is an adaptation of an earlier piece.

I’m a Woman

Original lyrics by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller

Song of Myself: Imagining Obama Dropping His Mask Reprise

 I'm standing here about to deliver a "farewell address" full of spin, and I'm thinking, I've been spinning my whole life, and I'm sick of it.  With only a few weeks left on the big stage, I feel . . . liberated. 

Look, I'm tossing my prepared statement.  Josh, turn off the teleprompter.  Time to share the real skinny about who I am and where I tried to take the country.  

Hint: I'm a divider, not a uniter.

But first, a tip of the hat to the folks who pegged me from the get-go, although you don't know the half of it.  And a "thank you" to the gullible millions who never figured out that for eight years I worked hard and played them for fools.

 

Twice I swore an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."  In fact, the lip service I paid the yellowed document and the dead white men who wrote it obscured my real objective: transitioning America to a Nordics-style socialist state that would be free, free at last from the shackles of the Founders' prescriptions.

Imagine!  A government guided by a rule of law guaranteeing not equality of opportunity but equality of outcome, not freedom to speak freely but freedom to speak responsibly.
 
To get us to there, I had to convince you I was a good guy doing my best within a broken system.  I needed you fearful, uncertain of the future, and open to another way.  So I ordered my apparatchiks to devise policies and executive orders that weakened the military, screwed up healthcare, retarded economic growth, promoted civil unrest, and incited racial division.  Naturally, I was above it all, and blameless.

The unraveling began well.  But my efforts to turn the American dream into a nightmare and then into a nanny state stalled when Republicans took the House in 2010 and added the Senate in 2014. For the last six years, congressional obstructionism forced me to scale back my administration's assault on the biggest impediment to America's transformation: the Constitution.

Frustrating.  More than once I considered doing a "reverse parliamentarian"-- declaring a vote of "no confidence" in Congress and ordering its dissolution.  I regret not making the attempt.

Amazing how many never tumbled to a key element of my real agenda: to redistribute wealth so all might live in harmony and with dignity?  No!  No!  No!  I wanted to redistribute misery, not wealth.  I wanted the "haves" and "have nots" to become the "have somes" and the "don't have enoughs."  I wanted fiscal and civic chaos to spark public rejection of capitalism and representative democracy. ObamaCare was supposed to be the tipping point to a progressive revolution.

How ironic the post-election update from HHS suggesting millennials were beginning to enroll in numbers perhaps sufficient to save the private insurance industry from insolvency.

That was never my intent.  If you were between the ages of 27 and 45 when this turkey passed, maybe you didn't receive the memo: you're immortal. You don't need insurance, so don't enroll.  The fine is a joke.

I repeat: ObamaCare was meant to crash and burn.  And the process is well along.  Despite the uptick in enrollment, insurance companies are going belly-up, along with the "co-oops," as I like to call them.  I never intended to come to their rescue.  And now it's too late, even for the new administration.  Repeal and replace?  Don't make me laugh.  Are you ready for government healthcare?  You're welcome.

Not the game changer I'd hoped for, but a win is a win.

On another subject: I am happy to report the number of Americans who have given up looking for employment is approaching 100 million.  This eases the competition for our fifty million undocumented guest residents who need work until they are naturalized, register as Democrats, and are on the public dole.

I encourage the long-term unemployed who are unhappy with me to seek out opportunities in Honduras and Nicaragua. 

The Second Amendment remains a bone in my throat.  Recently, I realized the need to be creative in expelling it.  At my request, the United Nations has listed the U. S. a state sponsor of terrorism.  This designation will cut off the foreign markets of American firearms and ammunition manufacturers. The Donald will be a while untangling this knot.

I was disturbed to learn of the newly discovered shale rock deposits in West Texas and the 200 billion barrel oil field straddling North Dakota and Canada.  Exploitation of the latter, in particular, could drive the price of gasoline down to one dollar a gallon, threatening the sale of plug-in autos and the development of windmobiles.

Tonight I declare the entire state of North Dakota a national monument.

Yes, Canada will try to flood us with cheap fuel from their reserves. To thwart the predatory under-pricing of gasoline that would result, the EPA, which I'm today designating an entity independent of the federal government, will order refineries to produce costly new eco-friendly formulas for all grades.  Thus the price of gas will remain high without tax hikes that would hurt the middle class.

On international matters:

Last summer, at my urging, the World Health Organization declared American imperialism a contagion.  I asked State and Defense to look into the charge.  They identified the USS Stennis, Reagan, and Truman as carriers.  All three are now back home and in indefinite quarantine.

Good news from Ramsey Clark, my Special Envoy to Iran. The Iranians are so focused on building a nuclear weapon, they've cut back on mischief-making in Iraq and Afghanistan.  To encourage such behavior, I've offered to share "clean nuke" technology with Iran's military, and they appear receptive. This may be a breakthrough.  After all, neutron bombs are good for the environment.

Oh, a shout-out to Ayatollah Khomeini: should an Iranian attack on the Zionist state appear imminent before the inauguration, I will order a preemptive nuclear strike on the Israeli resort city of Eilat.  Iran would of course abort their action, and Israel would not then have cause to vaporize Tehran, saving millions of lives and denying the mullahs and ayatollahs their martyrdom.

On a personal note: people sometimes ask me if I am humbled by commanding the mightiest military on earth.  I am not. I've grown in office.  The bin Laden raid, troops in Syria and Libya, drone attacks in Pockeestan, DNC agents disrupting Tea Party rallies--I'm comfortable using force to advance a progressive agenda.

Russia.  Everybody says Putin ate my lunch. Wrong.

Through a combination of bluster and pusillanimity, I tricked the thug into going all in on Syria with ships, armaments, and troops.  The adventure is costing Putin dearly.

True, certain Eastern European allies now doubt our commitment to protect them from the waking Bear.  As well they should.  I want Putin to start thinking about reconstituting the Warsaw Pact and extending Russian influence to the Atlantic as we pull back.

Understand, I'm playing the long game.  The only way to check a new Russian Empire is to encourage one resembling the old Soviet model.  Two years from now the country is bigger, bloated, and hidebound again.  More territory to defend, obscene military budgets, restive populations.  The USSR 2.0--a lumbering, doomed giant.  Meanwhile, we're sitting pretty on the sidelines, a no-threat former superpower watching it all go down.

To help things along, tomorrow I'll announce U.S. participation in Putin's proposed economic initiative to ease the transition to Russian hegemony on the Continent.  He's calling it the ´´Greater European Co-Prosperity Sphere.´´

A few more domestic notes: 

At Michelle's urging, I've ordered food stamp distribution kiosks established in every Walmart. This EO has been marked "unrescindable." Also, the permanent bureaucracy at Commerce will begin enforcing the First Lady’s edict prohibiting the transportation of junk food across state lines.

I'm done.  Ten minutes from now I'll be on Air Force One, heading back to our vacation compound in Hawaii.  Michelle likes her space, so she'll follow in Air Force Two with her mother and the girls. Accompanying us on several military transports: family friends, staffers and their families, loyal donors, and my favorite media familiars.  We're going to spend the last ten days of my presidency on the beach, with taxpayers funding a blowout lasting through the inauguration.

I offered to Skype in during the swearing-in to show some virtual respect, but Trump wasn't interested.

For those watching and listening who would like to be part of my permanent government-in-exile, e mail me at imstillD1@obama.com.

Ciao, and may God help America.

Author's note:

  “Song of Myself: Imagining Obama Dropping His Mask” is in part original and current and in part a retrospective that incorporates some favorite lines recycled from my book and blog.