The Obama Diaries

by Laura Ingraham

  I know how to work the conservatives. If you slap them on the back, tell a few jokes, and pose for a photo, next thing you know you’re getting positive coverage from National Review, Red State, and Hotair.com. But even Joe Biden has his limits. When Fred Thompson and his beatnik goatee came in for a hug, I did the Biden pivot and swept his wife, Jeri, up in my arms. She’s a spicy number. We had a moment—and there wasn’t a lot of Law & Order in our eyes, if you know what I mean.

  THE WINNING WAY

  There is a double purpose to Obama’s demonization game. He wants to damage the public profile of his opposition while at the same time creating division within conservative ranks. Once the circular firing squad starts forming, Obama is home free. By branding his opponents as extremists, he hopes to make them publicly radioactive, so that their message is blunted and their credibility falls into question. This is why the criticism of conservative talk radio, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party movement has been so unrelenting. They are all successful and making a difference.

  Obama and company believe that if they keep the heat on and throw enough mud at the conservative movement, you will become demoralized and give up. They believe they can outwork you, outwait you, and yes, out-organize you. Their plan is to divert your attention away from the important things (like policy) and onto created controversies and empty charges so you lose your focus.

  Citizen patriots must not allow this to happen.

  Now is the time to get engaged. Now is the time to familiarize yourselves, and those around you, with the pressing issues of the day. Don’t just accept the sound bites you hear on the evening news. Read deeply about the national and local issues that touch the lives of your family. Don’t buy the spin or the cruel distortions of the politics of personal destruction. Listen to talk radio, watch Fox News, and seek out the reportage of reliable journalists on the Internet. Get the facts so you can confidently defend the causes that need defending, and give voice to your own agenda of freedom.

  Reach out to your family and friends both in person and online. Make sure you include them in your political activism and share information with them. We are all participants in this political system. No one can afford to be a spectator. Make your family and friends aware of just how high the stakes are in this present moment, and be sure to point out the malicious tactics being used by Team Obama as you see them occurring.

  Finally, become a Freedom Czar. Organize for freedom and liberty. Gather names and e-mail addresses, and use social networking to reach out to your own battalion of freedom fighters. Together, you can stage your own marches and rallies, share information, and make your collective voices heard. If it worked for Obama and his acolytes, it will work for us. Let’s show them how to really organize a country. This is the only way we will overcome the enormous challenges before us and reclaim the birthright of liberty that is ours. Power to the People.

  CHAPTER 10

  HAPPY WARRIORS

  If you do not know the name James McHenry, you should. The thirty-three-year-old physician was a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. He is responsible for capturing one of the most insightful observations concerning the future of our young nation. Dr. McHenry took notes on the convention and surrounding events, and one day he overheard Benjamin Franklin talking to a lady. (Dr. Franklin was at the time eighty-one years old, and one of the most revered Americans alive.) According to Dr. McHenry, the lady asked Dr. Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a republic or a monarchy?” The old man turned to her and said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

  Think about that for a minute.

  “A republic, if you can keep it.”

  The statement is a warning, from one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. Benjamin Franklin understood, as very few men did, how difficult it had been for Americans to obtain their freedom from Great Britain. He also understood from history, that no form of government lasts forever. The republics of ancient Greece faded away. The Roman republic collapsed into an empire—which also collapsed. In politics, as in life, there are no guarantees. Each generation has to decide for itself whether our government and our way of life are worth preserving.

  Earlier generations of Americans understood instinctively that their experiment of giving power to the people was very fragile. It bears repeating that Francis Scott Key wrote the “Star Spangled Banner” after spending a night as a prisoner during the War of 1812. The “rockets’ red glare” he saw were British bombs, as the Empire sought to capture Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor. His poem asks a haunting question: “O, say does that star spangled banner yet wave / O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

  Key realized—as all of us should—that we can never be certain our flag will continue to fly. We can never be certain that our children, and their children, will enjoy the same freedoms that we have. Other nations have been conquered, or seen their power dissipate. Other freedom lovers have been crushed—and are being crushed today, in countries around the world.

  Ask the people of Eastern Europe who spent forty years under the Soviet boot. Ask the Tibetans who have lost their country to China. Ask the Israelis who are surrounded on all sides by people who want their destruction. Only men and women who have the capacity and will to fight for and maintain their freedom are able to keep it.

  In 1981, President Reagan closed his first inaugural address with the story of Martin Treptow, an American soldier killed on the Western Front in World War I. A diary was found on Treptow’s body. On the flyleaf of the diary, under a heading, “My Pledge,” he had written these words: “America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.” President Reagan challenged his audience to adopt a similar attitude toward the problems of the early 1980s:

  The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.

  And, after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.

  As we all know, under President Reagan’s leadership, Americans did meet the challenges of the early 1980s. Our economy revived from the stagflation of the 1970s, and we enjoyed almost two decades of strong growth. We adopted an aggressive foreign policy that enabled us to win the Cold War. By the end of the 1990s, a Republican Congress had helped to balance our federal budget. For almost thirty years now, President Reagan has been an inspiration not only to American conservatives, but to lovers of freedom and prosperity around the world. Unfortunately, he is no longer here to lead us. Those of us who were teenagers in the 1980s are the grown-ups now. The great torch of freedom has been passed to us.

  The fate of this republic is in our hands. We can’t simply sit around, waiting for “someone” to do “something” about our nation’s problems. We are the nation. Our founding document begins with the words: “We, the people . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Not: “We, the state.” Not: “We, the highly educated.” Not: “We, the folks with a lot of money.” Not even: “We, the community organizers.” We, the people. If we want our country to improve, we have the power—and the responsibility—to do something about it.

  THE DIARY OF WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF RAHM EMANUEL

  THE WEST WING

  April 5, 2010

  F@#k! F&>k! F#@%! Just read the new polls on this health-care sh*t. I can’t f*&^ing believe what the f*^k is going on in this f*&#king country. Don’t those f*#king hayseeds out there realize that the health-care debate is over, and they lost? Deal with it! Now it’s time for us as a nation to rally around the new law.

  But, nooooo
o! Every f*^king poll it’s the same message. “We don’t like the new health-care bill. We think it’s socialism.” What a load of sh*t.

  I told Plouffe that what worries me the most is that we don’t really have anyone—except for Barack—who can talk to these f*%kers without having f*^king tomatoes thrown at him. Plouffe asks, “What about Reid and Pelosi?” Incredulous, I snapped, “Have you seen Old Man Reid’s numbers? He’s a dead man walking! And Pelosi’s about as popular as the f*#king bedbug infestation. These days she can only appear in two places: Georgetown and the Castro District.”

  Then Plouffe says, “What about Biden?” I think he was kidding, because he’s too smart to make a suggestion like that. Poor old Joe. Even if we could get him to f*#king understand what was in that f*%king bill, he’d never be able to explain it to anyone else. We spend enough time dealing with his f*@king gaffes as it is. I told Plouffe: “We’re not sending f*@kface Biden anywhere where we have congressional seats in danger.”

  So it’s all up to Barack—unless we can somehow suppress the yahoo vote (and I’m not talking about the search engine). Maybe on Election Day, we can arrange for a series of monster truck rallies in fly-over country. Maybe we can get Barack to wave the start flag at NASCAR . . . or maybe we can put him in camouflage and send him hunting with Jon Tester in Montana . . . or maybe I can just get my @ss back to Chicago before this fu*%er tanks.

  THE DIARY OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  April 5, 2010

  Bit of an unpleasant meeting with Rahm, Axe, and Valerie this morning. They had a bunch of new polls showing that the numbers still haven’t moved very much on the health-care issue. I can tell that Rahm is really hot under the collar about something when his eyes start bugging out more than normal. And man, he was going all Marty Feldman on me and slinking around the Oval with that weird ballet step of his. Twinkle toes looked like he hadn’t slept for days.

  People will start forgetting all about this health-care issue soon. I told Rahm and Axe (who looked especially drawn) that no matter how fired up that Tea Party crowd seems, our people will be more fired up—because they don’t want to lose all those benefits. We’ve seen this before. Medicare. Medicaid. Social Security. Once you get these big programs in place, they never go away. (At least, not until they bankrupt the country!) I looked across at Jarrett sitting on the couch, and she had that little wrinkle she gets at the top of her forehead when she’s worried.

  They all wanted to keep talking, but I had to throw out the first pitch at the Nationals’ opener. I’ve been practicing all week and know the crowd will love me. I wonder where my White Sox hat is?

  THE DIARY OF VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

  U.S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY

  April 6, 2010

  Had a great meeting with Rahm, Plouffe, and Axelrod today about these b*llsh#t polls. By the way, I hate the way I almost never get polled separately from the rest of this crowd. I mean, jeezus, Barack’s about as popular as a toothache. I told the ballerina that they should have asked old Joe to throw out the first pitch at the baseball opener yesterday. For chrissakes, Barack’s herky-jerky throwing motion looked like something from Napoleon Dynamite. Barack couldn’t find home plate with a GPS! And the booing . . . it went on and on! I hear he was L-I-V-I-D! Well, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten so many boos if he’d been wearing the right team hat! Next time, I’ll let him borrow my lucky Orioles cap.

  Oh, back to the meeting . . . it sounds like they’re really going to start using the Biden magic to sell this health-care law. Jarrett insisted that although the schedule only lists my appearances at middle schools in the D.C. area, they’re adding different venues all the time. Well, I guess youth outreach is pretty damn important; otherwise they wouldn’t have given it me. Plus, I know how critical it is for President Obama to reach out to the “Rock the Vote” crowd. I do worry that the youth of today aren’t doing enough to help the good guys win in November—they’re spending all day zoned out, listening to their Walkmans. Oh, sh*t, I’m looking at my schedule . . . Jarrett was right, it’s not only middle school events . . . they added some high schools, too. Bastards!

  President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have set our country on a path that will inevitably lead to disaster. The enormous debts they are incurring will burden our economy for years—if not decades—to come. Their weak foreign policy will embolden our enemies. Their hostility to business and industry will discourage future entrepreneurs. Their flawed education policy will deprive our children of vital knowledge and fill their heads with PC mush. Their disdain for traditional morals will coarsen our culture. Their hostility toward public expressions of faith will undermine our spiritual foundation. The longer these policies continue, the harder it will be to reverse their harmful effects. If we wait too long, the consequences for our country—and our children—will be cataclysmic.

  And let me be clear (as our president would say)—rolling back the Obama agenda will not be easy. Obama and his crowd may not know much about economics, or history, or culture, or foreign policy—but they understand politics. They know how to raise huge volumes of money. They know how to manipulate the dinosaur media—remember the Razzle Dazzle! They know how to accuse their opponents of everything from racism to fascism to racist fascism. Most important, Obama and company still have the support of millions who want to take your money and spend it on their priorities.

  We have to recall that as America goes into decline, the lights of freedom will start to flicker everywhere in the world. The enemies of freedom—in countries like China, Russia, and Iran—will be emboldened. No other country will stand up for us or our values. No other country will help preserve our prosperity or our way of life. Americans are, in many ways, all alone on a hostile planet. If we want to roll back Obamaism, we will have to do it ourselves.

  So we have a lot of work ahead of us. This is “freedom’s last stand.”

  SOME BLIND ALLEYS TO AVOID

  Conservatives are getting a lot of bad advice these days. There are several paths that we should avoid at all costs: Acceptance, Despair, Bipartisanship, and Pandering.

  Acceptance

  The famous five stages of grief are (1) denial, (2) anger, (3) bargaining, (4) depression, and (5) acceptance. Over the past several years, I have heard from thousands of conservatives who have called in to my show or written to my website, who have felt many of these emotions as they watched liberals take control of our government and begin remolding the country in their image. Today, however, I’m sensing the fighting spirit is winning out over the malaise.

  But with the passage of ObamaCare, we are now going to hear more and more calls for conservatives to reach that last stage—to accept this triumph of liberalism and start “reforming conservatism” for the twenty-first century. President Obama—perhaps expressing more confidence than he truly feels—has mocked conservative plans to repeal ObamaCare, telling them to “go for it” and see how they fare with voters. Others called GOP plans to repeal health care childish and futile. Democrats want you to simply accept ObamaCare, because it’s never going away.

  We are also supposed to accept America’s inevitable decline. Accept that our day in the sun is over. Accept that your children will never know what it’s like to live in a country that is a superpower.

  It is hard to imagine a more poisonous attitude. Merely accepting the rise and future dominance of China is a recipe for our own extinction. This must be forcefully resisted.

  THE DIARY OF VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

  U.S. NAVAL OBSERVATORY

  April 14, 2010

  I’m really getting the hang of this whole “diplomatic” thing. The other day I met with some very intelligent Chinese gentlemen. Believe me, these foreigners love the chance to meet with a real live vice president.

  Anyway, they came in here and launched into a whole song and dance about friendship between our two countries, love of our fellow man, blah, blah, blah—the usual stuff. I’ve heard
it a million times.

  But I know how to liven up these meetings. I told ’em a few of my funnier stories about life in Scranton—some of the real knee-slappers that get such a good response on the campaign trail. And then I talked about how cooperation between the United States and China would benefit both sides, and how I’m sure we have nothing to fear from China’s peaceful rise.

  I think it went over very well. Although now that I think about it, the interpreter must have messed up the order of my talk somehow, because they were pretty solemn during the Scranton stuff, and they could hardly stop laughing when I talked about how their growth was good for America.

  I had the White House chef bring in some Peking duck for lunch to really make ’em feel at home. Aw sh*t, is it called Beijing duck now? Jeezus! Mumbai Safire martinis, Zimabawean [sic] Ridgeback dogs . . . it’s hard keeping all this PC b*llsh@t straight.

  THE DIARY OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY TIMOTHY “TIMMY” GEITHNER

  WASHINGTON, D.C.