"Good evening.
"For many months now, actually years, there has been a debate raging. As many of you know, I feel strongly about this issue. So this has been a difficult decision for me to make, and one I reached after much thought, deliberation and, yes, prayer.
"Therefore, I am announcing tonight that I am joining the Tea Party."
"I did not come to this decision lightly. An epiphany at a boisterous event has led me to stand before you and to announce my decision.
"I vividly remember the first time I decided to get up close and personal to what I then called the Teabaggers. I asked my Secret Service detail to get me some appropriate Revoluntionary War-era garb to wear to a Maryland rally. We would all be as low key as possible and try to blend the best we could.
"I was horrified when my disguise involved chains and a tattered shirt. I almost called it off, and was incensed that the three guys assigned to guard me could have been the leads in HBO's "John Adams." But I swallowed my pride and we hung back to listen and watch.
"What I heard made a great deal of sense. There were many legitimate complaints about staggering deficits and massive debt. You can only imagine my surprise when that was pinned on me. I had been in office less than forty weeks at that point. But my disguise allowed the folks there to talk candidly. The downside was when people kept asking me to start cleaning up the place, but I let that slide. The other downside was the constant shouts of "the Tea Party Express rolls on!" That probably was the most annoying aspect of an otherwise illuminating night.
"When the talk turned to taxes, the first speaker droned on for about 20 or 30 minutes about Constitutional principles, Special Needs children, and caribou stew. The high rhetoric was bereft of substance or specifics, but the crowd responded enthusiastically. My security detail assures me that was the real Sarah Palin that night and not a parody. I look forward to her endorsement this fall.
"After six or so folks gave animated, angry, impassioned, and essentially empty speeches about federal taxation and the elimination of the estate, excuse me, death tax, I had a revelation. Most of these people earned so little they were in the ten percent bracket.
"So if they wanted Wall Street billionaires to qualify for the EIC, who was I to ask the wealthiest among us to pay their share fair?
"And that is how I have arrived where I am tonight. As I look over this sea of mostly white, mostly Republican faces, I am pleased to announce I am firmly committed to the flat tax now. As my good friend Steve Forbes told me just the other day, it's just this side of getting paid to be rich.
"Thank you."
---Barack Obama, SOTU address, January 2012