Obama’s secret, undelivered speech to Israel

This just in: President Obama’s secret, undelivered speech to the people of Israel which was to be part of his effort to woo the Jewish vote back into his campaign tent—an exclusive brought to you by yours truly just for the Times of Israel.

Several weeks ago, the President, who has often reminded reporters how his speechwriters fail to express his ideas as well as he does (he wrote two books—what have they done?) now decided once again to wield the pen on his own behalf for a special task— a speech repairing the breach between him and the government and people of Israel, and, incidentally, helping Jewish American voters to remember on election day that he is Still The One.

When Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney cast his eyes on the draft of the President’s speech, he immediately suspected that it was written under the influence. He had the President’s soft drink tested in the FBI lab and found his suspicions confirmed: the President’s soft drink, sipped while composing his momentous speech, was indeed laced with a mix of sodium-pentothal truth serum—which caused him to engage in an unprecedented seven paragraphs of uninterrupted and unbridled truth telling. That explained it, Carney thought. And Carney, who doesn’t hold a top Obama cabinet spot for nothing, is well schooled in the perils of truth telling, and, like his boss, knows that suppression of the truth is always the better part of valor—especially in an election year.

After the questioning of witnesses, and a brief investigation, a suspect was duly apprehended by agents of the Secret Service (none of whom, please be assured, were implicated in the latest Secret Service-Colombian prostitution scandal). Upon examination, the suspect broke down and confessed to being the culprit who spiked the President’s soft drink with truth serum. Masquerading as a White House manservant, he turned out to be a Wall Street hedge-fund manager resentful of the President’s heated class warfare rhetoric. He told investigators that he was hoping it would force the President to finally tell the truth about tax-cuts for the rich.

Here below is the text of the speech:

From: President Barak Obama

To: The people of Israel

OK, we need to talk.

I’m really, really miffed by all of the bad press I’ve been getting in Israel lately and in the Jewish-American media. I’ve had it with you people. Here I am working hard to repair my image among Jewish American voters, and working overtime scrubbing away all that graffiti you guys have been spraying all over my hallowed name, and there you are dissing me and making faces. You see, I’m heavily engaged in a transparently cynical “charm offensive” to court the Jewish vote, and at least be seen taking back or regretting all those bad things I said about Israel and your PM that got me into this fix in the first place. Working rope lines, attending conferences, dinners, and speaking engagements with Jewish organizations—you just have no idea how convincingly I can laugh and smile through gritted teeth when my reelection is at stake.

So why all the hassle? Well, apparently, some of you were confused by my strong embrace of decisive action against Iran’s nuclear program at my speech before AIPAC, only to then watch that position totally undermined by a flood of leaks from my surrogates expressing deep reservations about a possible military strike, and painting your Prime Minister as an unhinged war monger who wants to blow up the Middle East and destabilize the world economy. But you shouldn’t be confused. Heck, I do that kind of thing all the time. You see, this allows me to publicly embrace a policy or a position that it’s not in my interest to oppose, or be seen opposing, while my underlings then carefully proceed to undermine it by slowly leaking it to death. That way I can be both for and against something, please everyone, and avoid the kind of difficult, unpopular decisions that will get me into trouble with independent voters this coming November. For those in favor of a strike against Iran, my aides and media surrogates can point to my speech. For those against, they can explain, sotto voce, via the leaks, what I really meant. See how that works? This gives me flexibility. You know, the kind of flexibility that I told that boy-flunkie Medvedev to tell Vladimir Putin that I’ll have, after I’m reelected?

Anyway, you guys need to cool it on Iran. Sure, Iran’s a headache, but the real problem is you people and all your loose talk and itchy trigger fingers. And, of course, there’s the settlements. Yep. You heard me. If only you Israelis would stop your stupid settlement building in places that are going to be part of Israel in any event, all would be well and there would be the peace. I’ve known this for a long time; my friend Rashid Kalhidi told me so.

He also told me about what you Israelis have been getting away with all of these years while being appeased by those wacky neo-cons in the Bush administration. You guys have had quite a ride, and think you’ve got it made here. You act like you own the joint. Well, I got news for the Jews: I’m president now and you’re not; Bush is now president of his Crawford ranch, and Cheney, well, don’t get me started on that war-mongering, water-boarding, neo-con troll, or I may never stop. Suffice to say, he can rot.

I’ve had it up to here with all your settlement building and occupation and checkpoint shenanigans. And please, enough with all the talk about Syria. I’m sick to death with hearing about it and I’ve heard it all before: blah, blah, blah. I’ve got other things to worry about, namely, how I’m going to pretend to be concerned about the deficit in the upcoming budget negotiations with House Speaker Boehner, while at the same time burdening the economy with higher taxes and more entitlement spending. Try dealing with that.

Now, my advisers tell me that making the kind of statements I’ve just made will anger pro-Israel members in Congress and, of course, the folks in the all-powerful Israel lobby. Stephen Walt can explain.

And since I don’t intend to be put into early retirement this November, I’ll make the perfunctory, happy-face, pro-Israel token statement I promised my pollsters and advisers I would make.

Here goes: Israel is a great country and a wonderful friend.

There, I said it. Happy now?!

Shalom!

***

The above scenario and speech was fabricated by Robert Werdine with non-verbal inspiration from his cat, Steve.