President Me

by Adam Carolla

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Introduction: Throwing My Hat in the Ring

  An Explanation of Graphics You Will Find in President Me

  The Vice President

  The Federal Election Commission

  1. The Department of Commerce

  The U.S. Postal Service

  2. The Department of Energy

  3. The Department of Transportation

  NASA

  4. The TSA and the FAA

  5. The Department of Homeland Security

  Voter ID Laws

  6. My Address to the UN

  The Defense of Marriage Act and Other Important New Wedding Legislation

  7. The Department of Health and Human Services

  8. The Department of Agriculture

  The Secret Service

  9. The Department of the Interior and the National Parks Service

  10. The Department of Education

  The Department of Weights and Measures

  11. The FCC

  12. The Department of Labor

  Conclusion: The State of the Union Address

  Tell Your Friends!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Adam Carolla

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to ______________________________,

  (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE)

  for all of the devotion and passion, both in and out of the

  bedroom. I couldn’t have done this without HIM / HER.

  (CIRCLE ONE)

  INTRODUCTION:

  THROWING MY HAT

  IN THE RING

  Not one stand-up show or live podcast goes by where someone doesn’t say to me in the autograph line afterward, “Ace, you should run for president.” Well, consider this book my official campaign platform. As you’ll see, I have an assload of opinions and a dump truck full of ideas on how to make this country better.

  I mean, why couldn’t I be president? We’re in the golden age of celebrity politicians. We’ve elected Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If Carl Weathers runs, we could complete the Predator hat trick. Everyone laughed when Donald Trump thought about throwing his comb-over into the ring in the last election. But we live in a country where 45 percent of people believe in guardian angels and think Elvis is still alive. Why wouldn’t we elect Trump? He’d certainly make the White House a lot classier—a big picture of himself in the Oval Office where George Washington’s portrait used to hang and a lot of gold-leaf toilet seats.

  I do have the common-man touch that everyone seems to want these days. Which I think is retarded. I don’t want a politician who’s anything like me. I want them to think like me, but I don’t want them to be like me. If that were the case, the president would be watching YouPorn all day. I also hate the “he seems like the kind of guy you want to have a beer with” stuff. I went to school with 190 jack-offs you’d want to have a beer with. I wouldn’t trust those guys to assistant-manage a Del Taco, much less run the country. I want Bill Gates in charge—someone who looks like he’d be horrible to hang out with. I don’t need the relatable thing. I need the intelligence thing. Joe Six-Pack is great when he comes to your house and runs a snake through your main line. But you don’t want him negotiating a Middle East peace treaty. Relatable is useless. When Bill Clinton was asked the famous “boxers or briefs” question, his answer should have been, “Fuck you. What does it matter?” To all these politicians who have to pretend to be the little guy and act like they’re not rich or trying to get rich, I say cut it out. When did being wealthy in this country become a bad thing? Fuck that. You know who’s rich? Smart people. I want a one-percenter to be president. I want the overachiever. I grew up with the 99 percent. They’re not all that noble and hardworking. A lot of them are burned-out losers. I want that guy who has three degrees or amazing business sense and has made a shitload of money. Your school principal isn’t supposed to be “one of you.” He’s there to run the school. Your job is to study and not be a dumb-ass in the hallways. He just runs it the best he can to give you the opportunity to get A’s. And do rich guys not have TVs? I’m pretty sure they have a lot of them. So they can see what’s going on in the world. They don’t need to be in the trenches with the little guy to experience the life of the common folk. We should be electing the guy who pulled himself out of that. The president is supposed to lead. The president is supposed to be our CEO, not our BFF.

  I hate that if you run for president you have to pretend to be in love with the middle class. When it comes to talking to and hanging out with people, the superrich and the superpoor are far more interesting. If you had to sit on a long bus ride with someone (not that a rich guy would actually be on a bus, unless it was the Michael Bublé tour bus), you’d want it to be either Elon Musk or a homeless guy who was having a spirited conversation with a lamppost a few minutes before. You certainly wouldn’t want your boring-ass brother-in-law who’s gonna talk your ear off about the article he just read in Insurance Underwriters Quarterly.

  I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing it for you, love of country, and my plan to order the surgeon general and NASA to reanimate the corpse of Marilyn Monroe.

  Let’s face it. It’s a stressful gig, being the leader of the most important country in the world. We’re so divided now, anything you do is going to piss off 49.5 percent of the country. Plus, the pay sucks. I made much more on this book than the president made this year. Bad presidents are forgotten about or become punch lines. It must be tough on Jimmy Carter to be watching TV and constantly hear his name come up as the yardstick of shitty presidencies. Worst economy since Carter. Worst energy crisis since Carter. I imagine Jimmy sitting at home one night watching CNN comparing Obama to him and saying, “How many free houses do I have to build? Rosalynn, throw me the remote. What’s on HBO? I wonder what this Argo is about.”

  I’d certainly be a breath of fresh air. Every time a politician makes a tepid attempt at humor, everyone thinks he’s hilarious. It’s about context. When a politician tosses off a mediocre one-liner during the State of the Union or a debate, people think he’s a genius. But if you put an actual comedian in office, he’d be the funniest politician of all time. It’s like being the funniest guy at a funeral.

  More importantly, as comedians, our job is to say what is on our minds. Unfiltered and un-focus-group-tested. That’s what drives me nuts when yours truly and other comedians get gang-raped on Twitter every time we say something controversial. We’re comedians, not politicians. We should not be held to the same standard. We’re not just allowed—we’re required to do what a politician can’t do. And that’s to be honest. Everyone talks a good game about wanting their politicians to speak their mind, but then look at who gets elected—sociopaths, narcissists, sex offenders, and liars. I’m none of those. I’m a truth teller. (I still haven’t been caught for the sex offenses.) The essence of comedy is taking an uncomfortable truth and finding humor in it. Taking something horrible like crime, war, poverty, or divorce, and making it funny.

  But our leaders can’t tell the truth. We won’t let them. We’ve created a society where the politicians aren’t allowed to criticize the people. There’s no tough love coming out of the White House or Congress. They’ve gone from leaders and legislators to wedding caterers. If they want to keep the gig, they better give us what we want.

  Thus it’s gone from “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” to “These rich people aren’t paying their fair share. You’re working-class heroes, even though you don’t work. Why shouldn’t you get the same medical attention that Malcolm Forbes gets?” That’s how you end
up with “Hope and Change” and “Occupy Wall Street.” A bunch of people saying, “Come on, Barack, do it for me. Fix my life.” The more people that get into that mind-set, the less likely it is for someone to get elected who will act like your dad. Someone who will say, “Enough whining. Get your shit together.”

  Fixing your fucked-up life is not government’s job. Handling the stuff that people can’t do themselves—like war—is. One man can’t take out a dictator or stop a terrorist attack, unless that man is Chuck Norris. But what one man can do is get a job, raise his kids, and pay his taxes. You always hear politicians on the campaign trail saying, “I will fight for you.” Is that what we want, someone to fight for us? Shouldn’t we want to do our own fighting so that when we get our first house or start our own business, we can have the pride that we did it ourselves? Shouldn’t we think, “Hey government, don’t fight for me! Fight the red tape and retarded regulation so I can get to work.” Humans need challenges to overcome, just like a muscle needs resistance to grow. In a zero-gravity environment, an astronaut’s muscles atrophy because there is no resistance. The government giving you a bunch of handouts and living your life for you is the equivalent of doing push-ups in outer space. Big government is like the void of space—it’s massive, constantly expanding, and if we immerse ourselves in it, we’ll simply wither away.

  During the 2012 election I was stunned at how many people had the “audacity” to stand face-to-face with a candidate and say, “I’m twenty-two and I’m a student. As I look toward graduation and the job market, I want to know what you’re going to do for me.” As if Obama was going to say, “Okay. Let me get your name. Right after this debate I’m going to personally make sure you’re taken care of.” If it were me up there, I would say, “I’m not gonna do shit for you. But I am going to clear up the bureaucratic bullshit so you can do something for you. It’s your choice, I’ll clear the path. You decide if you want to stay on the couch and get high or if you want to get your shit together.”

  And that narcissism, that “me, me, me” meme running amok in our country, is destroying us. Some of it is our pop culture, some of it is our parenting, but a lot of it is our politics. That’s why a major plank in my campaign platform is bringing an end to the pervasive narcissism that has slowly destroyed our country. As you’ll read, we’ve gone off the rails as a society and it all has to do with narcissism. But fear not, I have solutions.

  I hope the above has served as a fair warning before you read this book. Many of you should prepare your ass cracks now for some panty bunching. Especially if you find yourself nodding every time you read a Huffington Post blog by Russell Simmons or Barbra Streisand.

  In the past couple years I’ve been labeled as a conservative, race-baiting, gay-bashing purveyor of hate speech. But I was never considered conservative when I talked about raising your kids, focusing on education, and government waste in 1996, when I started hosting Loveline. Now the poles have gotten so far apart that anyone who isn’t officiating a gay wedding at a Whole Foods is considered to be to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I didn’t change, the country did. I didn’t land on the right wing, the right wing landed on me. I’m just pragmatic. I’m not right wing, I’m just right. I know that nuclear power is less dangerous than coal mining; I know that the country would be better if dads, especially in certain communities, stuck around and raised their kids; I know that freebies from the government keep people stuck in a cycle of poverty and depression.

  This has not done me any favors with many of the fine folk here in Los Angeles, the entertainment business in particular. There’s a Hollywood Hipster club that likes to throw around a lot of terms like “school-to-prison pipeline” and “voter suppression” from high atop Mount Pious. This makes them all feel great while simultaneously accomplishing nothing. It doesn’t fix a damn thing. Sure, they get to smoke weed at parties and talk about what a backward buffoon I am, but in the meantime they’ve brought no attention to the real issues and they’ve not taken one fucking step toward solving the problem that they pretend to care so dearly about. Every time someone says “Adam’s a racist,” “Adam’s a sexist,” “Adam’s homophobic,” really what they’re saying is “I’m not. I’m better than him.” All that finger-pointing is really about patting themselves on the back. Well, fine, call me an asshole and rip another bong hit. There’s a certain freedom in hearing that people think you’re an asshole but knowing that you’re not. It’s the opposite of the politician who’s banging male prostitutes and knows he’s gay, so he’s constantly trotting out his family and wearing the flag lapel pin. He puts on a facade. I don’t think I’m an asshole, so I don’t need any facade. I can speak my mind and know that I don’t hate any particular group or gender. I don’t have time to hate any particular group or gender.

  Ultimately I think the president shouldn’t care about any particular class, generation, race, or gender. The president shouldn’t even be a person. The job should go to a soulless, number-crunching computer that decides whether to fund a certain program or bomb a certain country based strictly on cold hard logic and numbers. But until Apple comes out with iPresident, I’ll have to do. Over the next fifteen chapters (or if you’re reading this on the toilet, twenty-eight shits) I’ll lay out what each department of the federal government would look like in the Carolla administration. So chuck that Bible, get a Juggs magazine for me to put my hand on, and swear me in. I’ve some work to do and some people to piss off.

  AN EXPLANATION OF GRAPHICS YOU

  WILL FIND IN PRESIDENT ME

  Those of you who enjoy my podcast know how much I love the self-satisfied sniff that blowhards do after they feel like they’ve made a really strong point or clever analogy. Well, I’m no exception. Throughout President Me you’ll see this to show how proud I am of what you’ve just read. If you hit that graphic and didn’t dig what I just laid down, go back and read it again. It’s really good.

  And to signal when a new law, executive order, or policy is about to be mandated, you’ll see this graphic. I pulled this image out of my extensive collection of vintage gay erotica. I remember seeing it . . . perhaps I’ve said too much.

  Let’s get into this.

  THE VICE PRESIDENT

  Maybe it’s time we took a good long look at the vice presidency and eliminated it. Lyndon Johnson was the last VP we really needed. Now having one does more harm than good. These days the job is just sitting around having a few too many cocktails and putting your foot in your mouth while waiting for the president to get clipped.

  I wonder every now and again if the vice president says to the president, “Ride with the top down, boss. Beautiful weather out there. Why don’t you give a couple of the Secret Service guys a night off. They’ve earned it.” I mean, think about it. If you’re the understudy, you’ve got to be hoping the lead falls off the stage on the opening night of Pippin. I’m not saying the VP is sitting around with a voodoo doll, but he’s definitely the backup quarterback hoping the QB rolls an ankle.

  But this change will have to come after my administration. I have plans for my vice president. I’m going to make my VP do all my shit work. I’ll handle all the press conferences where I tell the people we killed a terrorist leader or that we passed some new popular legislation, but the veep is going to be the one telling you we’re cutting the food-stamp program and writing depressing letters to the families of dead soldiers.

  Since it’s a fairly useless position, I’m going to try to get as much liberal street cred as possible and name Michelle Rodriguez as my vice president. She’s Latina, female, and bisexual. Plus it’ll give us a chance to talk about the Fast and Furious movies.

  THE FEDERAL ELECTION

  COMMISSION

  Elections go on way too long and cost way too much. I have a lot of ideas on how to make them better. It will start with my campaign, and upon taking office, I will institute these new polices for all future elections.

  First, let’s focus on the fund-raising. Obama came
to L.A. about ninety times during the 2012 election, rattling the can in front of Spielberg, Will Smith, Streisand, etc. And every time he did, the entire town ground to a halt. Streets shut down and traffic came to a standstill every time George Clooney dropped a nickel. I have a solution that is win-win-win. When I run for my second term and come to L.A. to hit up Kimmel and my other Hollywood friends, Air Force One will land at LAX and just stay there. I’ll park it right on the tarmac and have my fund-raiser ON Air Force One. The celebrities would get a thrill out of it, and probably drop a couple extra shekels for the bragging rights of saying they took a dump on Air Force One. I wouldn’t even have to get off the plane, and, most importantly, the citizens of Los Angeles could drive on their fucking freeways without my motorcade.

  Beyond that, I dictate that how candidates raise money is their own business. If you have one corporate sugar daddy who is going to fund your whole campaign, I have no beef with that. That’s what I’ll do. You hear all the time about a candidate who kicked in $80 million of his own money and lost. If I put more than three hundred bucks into my campaign and lost, I’d go on a killing spree.

  That’s something you never see during a campaign—a sore loser. Whenever a candidate steps out of the race, they always take the high ground. “Everyone involved in my campaign should be proud, and to all of my supporters, you fought the good fight. But Senator Smith ran a great race and will do a fine job.” Fuck that. From now on I demand that the candidate say what’s really on his mind in the moment during that concession speech. “You cunts. You let me down, Iowa. I came to your godforsaken state, spent a shitload of my own money, and for what? To lose to that closet case, Senator Smith? You know he’s a homo, right? This is bullshit. Not that my dipshit campaign manager helped. He was too busy banging the interns. And my wife behind me? She didn’t support me at all. That icy bitch is drunk right now. She never had my back. Though I would like to thank my mistress, who’s over there pretending to make a documentary about me.”