The Obama Channel

[from 12/23/09]

Obama has made it his goal to be the first former president to be a successful stand up comedian. Remember how he handled the heckler during his health care speech to Congress? ("You lie!" "Hey, do I go where you work and interrupt you? Oh, yeah, I'm the president, this is Congress, I'm doing it right now.") It was such a rush for him, he finally decided that's what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Of course, anyone starting out in stand up needs to find his own style. That's just what Obama has been struggling with in recent public speeches. You probably haven't heard about it, because the mainstream media doesn't want to help Obama make it, but thanks to some interested YouTube users I've been able to find the snippets that the networks cut. You can tell he starts out channeling some favorites.

In Oslo, getting the Nobel Peace Prize, he warmed the crowd up with, "Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world: HEY! Stop the God-damned band, I'm working here! Just kidding, you all know I love you. Well, maybe not you in the front row. Look at these folks here. I'm working a beer party at a funeral parlor? You! What's your name? Harald? Harald what? Harald V of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg? So that's not your wife sitting next to you, then! It's OK, 'Harald', you're not under oath. By the way, ditch the babe, you can do better."

Then he got to the issue that was on everybody's mind. "OK, I know what you're all thinking when you see me here. You're thinking, I thought we were getting Nelson Mandela. This guy is no Nelson Mandela. Don't I know it! Ask Michelle, she can tell the difference! And she reminds me every night! I tell you, I get no respect... "

"Um..., I'm commanding a war now..., you might have read about it in the papers. I think this brings me to my main point..., well it's actually two wars, to be technical about it..., let me tell you how this happened. I was moving into my new house, and as I was looking for a good place to display my collection of Hummel figurines of Homer strangling Bart Simpson, I found plans for an Afghanistan surge underneath a bag of pretzels, dated 2003. The plans, not the pretzels. Imagine my relief, having had nothing but buttered toast all day."

"So. These questions are not new. Since I'm the Peace Prize winner, and I have your attentions, let me tell you the entire history of war, from beginning to now, and why we have wars, and, huh, what are they good for, uh huh."

"War, in one form or another, has always been with us. At the dawn of history, wars broke up the monotony of those begats, dynasties, and dates. Wars enabled civilizations to make up for not having TV, American Idol, and British football."

"Over time, codes of law sought to control international violence, as philosophers, clerics, and statesmen called for regulation of the destructive power of war. Well, no they didn't, but we lawyers have to say they did so we can get paid. The concept of a Just War emerged, to put a name on what we were charging for."

"For most of history, this concept of Just War was rarely observed, and history has spanned -- let's see, there was Thanksgiving, when I pardoned that turkey, and my inauguration, and my election, and some stuff that happened before that -- a bunch of years. There has been a lot of really gnarly stuff going down in all that time."

"But hey, you know, Martin Luther King Jr said it best: 'Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.' Just so long as we keep having wars, let's all dig on that."