Obama: I Didn't 'Tell A Story'

Barack Obama says his biggest mistake during his presidency was not “telling the story” of his presidency:

“When I think about what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done well, the mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.”

Here’s the real Obama story: Once upon a time there was a man reared by those who believed that America wasn’t a very nice place. He traveled to other countries and saw that they were much better than the place he lived, which was the closest climate to the Garden of Eden on Earth and where he went to a posh school from fifth grade through high school. But he still thought America was a bad place. Then the young man went to college and law school — and although we don’t know much about that time, he still didn’t think America was a good place. After law school he worked in Chicago and became close to a man who had once bombed Americans because he didn’t think America was a good place. Meanwhile he went to church, where he became close with the pastor, who really didn’t think America was a good place. When he ran for president, his wife joined in and said she had never thought America was a good place.

Then he became president because he hoped he could change America into a good place, even though he doubted some bitter clingers who liked God and guns, like the Founders, would ever allow America to become a good place.

After he became president, it seemed that he wanted to talk about racism and American sins a lot, because America still wasn’t a good place. He made a plan that sounded like he was going to take care of everyone’s health — but he didn’t ask Americans if they thought it was a good idea, because Americans were used to living in a bad place and thus their judgment was skewed. He made fun of people who wanted freedom and called them names based on gay sexual practices because they were from the bad old America. He went overseas a lot and talked about how bad America had been until he came. And when he wanted to pretend that he had made things better, he helped inflate the currency so no one could see how fake the stock market prices were.

Perhaps there’s a happy ending in all of this. But it won’t be the ending Obama wants.