Obama Journal

News flash

So last night Reggie Love came running in and he goes, "Yo, B, that Steve Jobs guy from Apple is turning himself into a lady. I just heard it from a guy at the gym. Says he's taking some hormones and shit." I told him that was really great, and sent him off to pick someone up at the airport, even though nobody was arriving at the airport. Then when he was gone I did a Gooogle search. What he was talking about was this. People were thinking that Jobs was seriously ill and might even have cancer again because he's lost a lot of weight and basically looks like shit. So Jobs published a letter and says he's got a hormone imbalance. Nobody has any idea what that means, not even doctors, which is I guess was the point. No communications team in the world -- not even my guys -- can do meaningless communication the way Apple does. Check out the whole letter from Jobs. The true genius is that he puts out a statement that basically says nothing -- that basically raises more questions than it answers -- and then he gripes at the end about how this is a great big invasion of his privacy and he's already saying more now than he ever wanted to. Like he's the victim. Amazing. I told Rahm, We could learn from this guy. Seriously. Best part of all this is that a while back we inquired about whether Jobs might want to be the tech czar in my administration, and he told us he'd love to do it but he's way too sick. Make of that what you will.

Hillary is totally being cool about this, and I really appreciate that

Yes, as the Washington Post has reported, that's my head speechwriter, Jon Favreau, faux-groping a cut-out of Hillary Clinton at a party recently. Apparently there were other similarly awful photos of Jon and the Hillary cut-out also posted on Facebook. They've now been disappeared. As has Fingers Favreau. Only kidding. He's still on staff. But we've told him not to do it again. And he's going to throw out the Hillary blow-up dolls. Pronto. Totally unprofessional, and we're not going to stand for it. Peace.

Backlash continues

And as we expected, the worst stuff is coming from the left. First they were griping because I haven't put any "progressives" on my team. Now comes this hatchet job disguised as a 400,000-word (or maybe it just feels that long) profile of Naomi Klein in the latest New Yorker. You need to jump to page 7 of the online version to get the part where Naomi and her husband Avi Lewis have some not very nice things to say about me:

Both Klein and Lewis are skeptical about Barack Obama. “I’ve been at rallies and seen him speak, and I feel that feeling that one feels,” Lewis says. “It is thrilling. And it’s churlish not to allow yourself to be thrilled. We crave inspiration, and it’s a bleak life to always be dissecting things. But the main feeling that Obama creates in me is fear, because I see people fooling themselves. If you actually look at his policies, what they reflect is the triumph of the right-wing political paradigm since Reagan, and I think he could set things back dramatically, because for young people who are getting engaged in politics for the first time, for them to be disillusioned is very, very damaging.” Because Klein doesn’t expect much from any politician, she doesn’t spend time wishing Obama were more progressive. “I don’t want to appear too cynical, but when I first saw the ‘Yes We Can’ rock video that Will.I.Am made, my first response was ‘Wow, finally a politician is making ads that are as good as Nike’s,’ ” she says. “The ‘Yes We Can’ slogan means whatever you want it to mean. It’s very ‘Just Do It.’ When you hear it, you catch yourself thinking, Yeah! We’re gonna end torture and shut down Guantánamo and get out of Iraq! And then you think, Wait a minute, is he really saying that? He’s not really saying that, is he? He’s saying we’re going to send more troops to Afghanistan. He’s telling regular people what they want to hear, and then in the back rooms he’s making deals and signing on to the status quo.

You know, all I can say is this: Et tu, David Remnick? I guess this is payback for the way we responded when they ran that idiotic cover with me as a terrorist. Whatever. The backlash needs to happen. As long as we can absorb it and contain it, we'll be all right.

Attention New York Times: In case you're wondering, yes, Rahm is pissed

Yes, my chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel (in photo at right, describing the knife he carries in his briefcase) is very, very, very angry at the New York Times. Reason? Their big front-page story this morning about all the money Rahm made during his brief stint as an investment banker, after he left the Clinton administration and before he ran for Congress. Sure, they make a great effort to show how hard he worked, but you can't help walking away from this piece thinking that the guy stepped out of the White House and got his pockets lined in a hurry. And you can't help wondering what conflicts Rahmbo might have now that he's back in the White House and what favors he might be asked to do, especially since they point out how the financial industry guys contributed loads of money to his political efforts. Though they do give Rahm some space to claim that he's not in anyone's pocket:

In an interview, Mr. Emanuel pointed to other actions he had taken over the objections of the financial industry, including sponsoring a bill last year to curb the ability of hedge fund managers to defer paying taxes on compensation they stashed in offshore tax havens and another measure that imposed new reporting requirements on financial firms for what investors pay on stocks and mutual funds.

“I would say I’ve been as tough on my friends as others,” Mr. Emanuel said. “I call it like I see it.”

Keller at the Times is claiming that by including that paragraph the Times was providing equal space to Rahm. He says the story was fair and even-handed. All I can tell you is that I just saw Rahm stabbing a copy of the paper with a really large kitchen knife. Over and over and over again.

Bottom line: The New York Times took its best shot and didn't manage to knock the little guy out. You know what that means. Sleep with one eye open, hacks. Because Rahm plays mean. And payback's a bitch.

Just talked to Ann Coulter

As you may know, she broke her jaw and had her mouth wired shut. Ever since we learned about this Rahm has been calling her cell phone and fucking with her. He's like, So Ann, why the long face? Which is the same joke he's been using with her forever, but now it makes her nuts and she sits on the other end trying to talk and instead just going "Mmmnnn ... mmmnnn ... mmmnnn." And he's like, What's that? What's that? I can't hear you. Are you trying to say something? Ann, honey, do you have something in your mouth? Then he tells her that we're nationalizing all the airlines and outlawing guns and putting a three-dollar-per-gallon tax on gas.

Ann, I apologize for Rahm's behavior. Just to make it up to you, we're going to send you over a pizza and a straw. Suck on it, you twiggy bitch. Suck on it hard.

Reggie Love wants to create a federal pro sports commission

He's been bringing it up lately when we're working out or shooting hoops and then this morning he emailed me this story about some NFL players getting suspended for doping. Basically as Reggie has presented the idea to me so far, we would create a cabinet-level post to oversee professional sports, and Reggie would be the head of it. He says it would involve building an addition at the back of the White House where he could monitor all professional sports, or "at least the important ones," with dozens of plasma screens tuned to every sports channel plus the networks and other cable feeds, maybe with the DirecTV ultimate sports package. He wants to monitor not only the games themselves but the ESPN commentary shows. He's already talked to some guy his brother-in-law knows who owns a high-end audio-video home-theater store and they've designed a prototype with a bunch of leather chairs, popcorn machines, a kitchen, and Pioneer Elite plasma screens. He says if this takes off we could also add oversight for videogames, with other screens dedicated to Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3. Estimate for the construction, sound proofing, and electronic equipment works out to about $1.5 million, but Reggie says the guy will give us a deal on the screens and electronics if we mention his shop during press conferences, or put out some signage with his company name on it. And he says the Domino's guy will put in a free pizza kitchen if we outlaw abortion.

I was like, So Reggie, let me get this straight. You want me to spend a million and a half dollars of taxpayer money so you can have a big room full of leather recliners and plasma screens where you and your friends can hang out and watch sports and play videogames all day? He's like, "Yeah, but oversight, too. Like we'd have oversight and we'd, um, hold Congressional hearings on the steroids and the doping. And the ultimate fighting stuff. That really needs to be regulated. And you could come over whenever you want and help out."

You know what? I love this idea. I told David Axelrod to get on it right away.

Please sign this anti-terrorism petition

The guys in our social media team just made me aware of this petition calling on world leaders to end global terrorism. Please take a minute to sign this and let your voice be heard. This is exactly the kind of ground-up, grassroots community effort that it's going to take to tackle the problem of global terrorism. It's time for us all to rise up and just let these terrorists know that they must cease their activities because we simply will not tolerate their global terrorism anymore. Not in Mumbai. Not anywhere. It is just not acceptable. My team is also working on a social networking effort in which we will be organizing community efforts to rally people through street-level petitioning and appeals at the town and city level to declare "terrorism free zones" throughout the country with the goal of getting such statements passed in ten percent of U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2010, and ultimately one hundred percent covered by 2016. Joe Rospars and the crew at Blue State Digital will be taking a leadership role on this. But we're counting on all of you out there to make it happen. End terrorism by signing petitions? Yes we can.

I don't hate the media. I just feel a lot better when they're not around.

Rahm says he's been picking up on some criticism lately among some of the journalists who followed my campaign and now feel they're getting a bit frozen out. Basically, they want more access and they feel that my team has shut down on communication. Well, we have shut down, but that's to be expected in a time of transition. For one thing, I'm not the president, and even though the current occupant of the White House seems to be hiding under his desk and waiting for the scary movie to end, it's still considered bad form for me to start doing too much in public right now.

That said, I also must add that the truth is, I really don't like most of the reporters I've met. Nothing personal, but they're just not my type of people. And though, let's face it, they were all pretty nice to me during the campaign, I'm also pretty sure they're going to turn on me. Wait and see. It's how they do things. There will be a backlash. The only question is when. So forgive me, but yeah, I'm a little bit wary.

Big shoes to fill

You know, I worry sometimes about trying to deal with so many problems all at once -- the economy, the wars, the bailouts, the terrorism threat. To be completely honest, I worry that nobody, not even me, can turn this situation around. But then I just look at this sorry old motherfucker and tell myself, Dude, no matter how bad you screw up, there's no way you could do any worse than he did.

I mean just look at this moron, down in Peru last month, I guess thinking to himself that if he just had a cool cowboy hat to go with that poncho he could pretend he's Clint Eastwood in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Instead he ends up looking like some schoolkid who's all pissed off because he's put on his poncho and now they've canceled the fingerpainting class. Rahm wants to print out copies of this and hand them out to everyone on staff with a title that says, "What not to do."

Off the record: Arthur Sulzberger is asking me for a bailout

No kidding. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times, is in some seriously deep financial trouble. He's got huge debts, and not much money. And every month his paper loses more money. Not a pretty picture, though don't look for any deep analysis of the company's management in the business pages of the Times itself because according to Arthur that would cross some kind of journalism ethics line. Which is why you have to admire the Times, you really do. Anyway. He calls me up today and he starts out by saying how happy he is that I won and how proud he is that his paper had played a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and helping me get over the top. Then he brings up the financial meltdown and starts saying stuff like, "Gosh, I mean it's just amazing, every day we see another bank going down, or a big car company, and, well, I'm just glad to see that you're putting together such a great time of advisors who really seem to understand the value of keeping some of these institutions alive with some loans and bail-outs because without these institutions well, what happens, I mean do we all just fall into chaos? And there's the ripple effect as suppliers and others downstream get hurt and well anyway I just think you're doing a great job with a very difficult situation and by the way is there any chance we could borrow maybe a billion dollars from the federal government? Just to keep us above water while we sort out this whole print-to-Internet transition, because we've got a really great strategy in place but it's just taking a little longer than we thought for those digital revenues to kick in but when they do we are going to be so well-positioned that it's just sick, so whattaya say?"

Lord forgive me. I know this is wrong. But I can't say no to people -- it's one of my weaknesses -- and yet I know I can't give him any money, either. So I just did that thing where you pretend you're going into a tunnel and you're losing the signal and I was like, Arthur? Arthur? Are you there? Arthur? I think I'm losing you. I'll call you back. I will. Okay? Hang in there.

Then I told Reggie Love to add Arthur's phone number to the screened-out list. Sorry, New York Times. I know you helped me. You really did. Maureen Dowd has a free pass to any White House event she ever wants to attend. But the paper? As my good friend and longtime supporter Flavor Flav once said, I can't do nothing for you, man.