Hi, my name is Barack Obama. You might know me better as the President of the United States, but those in the know call me the Gladhander-in-Chief. The reason for this is because I feel the incessant need to have everyone like me! Everyone.
I swept into The White House riding high on a wave of boundless enthusiasm as ordinary Americans projected their optimism as to what this country could once again accomplish onto me! That felt really good, let me tell you. Definitely a major ego booster.
But once I started governing I couldn't get over the fact that there were some people who still didn't like me. How could this be? I became President being a relatively nice guy. I smiled a lot. Hung out with the fam. Called John McCain a war hero whenever I got the opportunity. I didn't even mock that birdbrain VP nominee of his, despite being really, really tempted to. I kept on Bush's Secretary of Defense in my cabinet - despite the fact that this furthered the impression that Democrats were weak on national security. I continued with the TARP bailout program and did really, really nice things for Republican bankers on Wall Street. But Republicans still called me Che Guevara, and that's when they were being polite. When they weren't being polite they called me an Arab, a commie, an Islamic Extremist, various types of primates, a liar or a terrorist seeking to destroy the country from within. But all these names just made me want to make them love me all the more!
So when it came time for my first major action as President, the stimulus package, I bent over backwards to make everything bipartisan. That became my modus operandi; bipartisanship. Because how would anyone ever dislike you if you're on their side? And being bipartisan means you're on everyone's side! My favorite place to be! So rather than do the right thing for the country, I decided to skimp on the jobs portion of the stimulus package in order to appease 3 Republican Senators. My critics, who I so desperately wanted to please, had made the case in the Idiot American Press that borrowing $250 Billion more would tank the country for good (an assertion debunked by every major economist on earth), so I decided to follow their lead (that's leadership, right?) and scale back rather than face the political wrath of a moribund political party that had been trounced in two consecutive elections.
But my true test of making everyone like me came in my quest for real Health Care Reform. This would be a big accomplishment and an enormous feather in my cap! But it wouldn't be easy. I needed to make sure all the Senators and Congressmen liked me, so I gave them free rein. I needed to make sure the doctors, nurses and hospitals liked me so I brought them on board. Ditto to all the lobbies. I know I said nasty things about lobbyists during the campaign, but that was just to make the voters like me (After all that "Hope" portrait of me by Shepard Fairey was donated to the National Portrait Gallery by a lobbyist couple. The Podestas, my buddies.) So I negotiated sweet deals with the drug and insurance lobbies to get their support! You should've seen me working it. You would've been really impressed.
Meanwhile there were all these Debbie Downers in the base of my party who kept yapping about how the Bill was turning into a nightmare. But these people not only liked me already - they loved me. I had won their hearts a long, long time ago and frankly the thrill of the love affair was long since passed for me. They were like a box of stale crackers. Who I wanted were the ones I could never have. Like those feisty ill-informed Tea Parties or Rush Limbaugh or Joe Lieberman. Those were the real challenges and the apples of my eye in my quest for Universal Likability.
But then something strange happpened. After my party and I made every form of compromise known to man - and just when we were on the verge of passing Health "Reform" - a political coup d'etat happened. We lost one Senate seat in Massachusetts!!! People didn't like us. Lots of people didn't like us. We need to retool. We need a new message. We need to try to appease more Republicans! Please tell me why they don't like me. Why don't they like me? WHY???....