Obama Journal

Despite what you may have heard, I do have quite a sense of humor

For example, last night, in bed, I let out a little sheet creeper, totally silent but absolutely deadly. Then I waited. Took a while but finally Michelle goes, Goddammit, Barack, please tell me you didn't just lay down a fart in my bed. And I said, Actually, I prefer to call it a "hope bomb." She said I can call it whatever I want but I'll be calling it that to myself because she's going to the guest room and if I really think I can start pulling stuff like this just because I'm president then it's going to be a long, long eight years.

My cousin Raila Odinga has some radical ideas

Just today he called and said, "Dear Cousin Barack, please tell me what plans you have for punishing those regions of the country that did not support you in the election. For if they will defy you in this way then you must bring them to heel. I recommend that you send your supporters into their villages and burn down their homes and destroy their crops and livestock. Then salt their fields so that nothing can grow for one hundred years. Now that is change one can believe in." I said, Odinga, I can't do that. He said, "No, no, my dear cousin, of course you can't! You must distance yourself from this. You must plead with  your supporters to stop, and insist publicly that you do not condone such things! Yes, of course!" I told Odinga that this was not what I meant, that in fact I do not condone violence and retribution. I told him that for too long our country has been divided by issues like party loyalty, or race, but that my vision for this country is one of healing in which all people can work together to solve the great problems that confront us all. He laughed for a long time and then said, "Oh, my boy, your aunt was correct, you really do have a wonderful sense of humor. Well, I must be going. Our soldiers will be evicting some settlers from Nyanza province who threw stones at my Hummer during a recent visit, and I want to observe from a helicopter. Good luck to you, my dear cousin."

You seriously have got to keep Joe Biden away from me

It was part of the deal when we chose him and he knows it. No face time with Barack. No being alone in the same room with Barack. No speaking up at meetings unless spoken to first. But now he's trying to fly to Chicago and see me, and we're stalling him, and meanwhile he's running around Washington talking out of his ass and calling himself "co-chief-executive" and telling people how I'm consulting him on all my big decisions and cabinet appointments. Bitch, please. Do we need to put you under sedation again, the way we did during the last three weeks of the election? Because I'll do it if I have to. But it would really make life a whole lot easier if you would just move your shit into the Naval Observatory and not let us hear a peep from your ass until 2011 when it's time to start running again. Or I swear to God I'll send Rahm out to see you. And you don't want that, believe me.

I swear we had nothing to do with this Ann Coulter thing

Yes, she did just announce a new book that will criticize me and the media that worships me. And now reports are surfacing that Ann Coulter has suffered a broken jaw and has had her mouth wired shut. Rahm and I want you to know that we had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all. Do you hear me, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity? So pipe down on this or we'll have to come down there and not break your jaws too.

Paul Volcker has old guy smell

So I've put him in charge of an economic advisory panel, and he's a smart guy, and he gave me lots of good advice during the campaign, but man oh man -- the dude is 81 years old, and when you sit down with him in person, well, you know that odor you get in a nursing home, that's like a mix of stale pee and flaky skin? Larry Summers says he'll work with Volcker, but he'd prefer to do it over the phone, and if they have to meet in person he's going to insist on keeping a window open. I didn't tell Larry, but Volcker's condition about Larry was that he'd work with Larry but only if he didn't have to watch Larry eat. I've seen this, and frankly I don't blame Volcker. There's food spraying everywhere, pieces falling out his mouth, sauce all over his tie. Not pretty. His Secret Service code name is Purell. I swear to God. Volcker's code name is Magoo. You'd never know it from looking at them, but those Secret Service guys are funny little pricks.

Rahm's brother wants to know if we can whack people for him

No kidding. Rahm and I were sitting around watching "Zohan" and making a new list of people we're going to kill and the phone rings. It's Ari. Rahm puts him on speakerphone and Ari is like, So you guys are going to be running the CIA now, right? I got a couple people I need taken care of. And Rahm goes, Sure, gimme the names, and he starts writing them down on a piece of paper. I'm like, Rahm, we can't go killing people. Rahm says, We can't? Then what are we doing with this list? I go, That list is metaphorical. We're not actually going to kill these people. We're just going to ruin their careers. Rahm sits there, stunned. Then he goes, Well that's not how we did things in the Clinton administration.

Truth is, I worry about Rahm. He's good to have around, the way a Doberman or a Rottweiler is nice to have around. Or a really meanspirited terrier or dachshund I guess would be the better analogy. And I sure didn't want to leave him out on his own where he could do me harm. But I can't help thinking that someday he's going to turn on me. And that brother of his? Look at those teeth. Rahm says he can bite through a soda can and tear it clean in half.

Alan Colmes tired of getting bitch-slapped

After a decade of being Sean Hannity's punching bag, Alan Colmes says he's had enough. Nice to see you finally growing a pair, weinerhead.

We're all secretly hoping that Al Franken loses

Sure, he's a Democrat, and we could use the seat in the Senate. And he means well, I guess. But the truth is that nobody likes him. And then yesterday he just shows up in Washington like some annoying uncle who invites himself to Thanksgiving, and everyone tried to be polite to him while at the same time letting him know that we'd really, really, really like it if he could just be someplace else. Like in the photo above -- Dianne Feinstein is saying, "What the fuck are you doing here?" and Al is saying, "You know, I have that same Woolrich blanket on the couch in my summer cabin." Oh, he thinks he's real cute. But what he doesn't know is that quietly, secretly, under the covers, we've all been helping out Norm Coleman.

Not that we like Norm Coleman, because we don't. But the truth is that Al Franken is rabid and angry and, well, a bit of a nut. And frankly nobody around here needs the kind of drama he'd be bringing. I mean he's fine in small doses. Like, for a minute or two. Anything beyond that and let me tell you, he's like a case of hives. It's the same stories, over and over again -- snorting coke with Belushi, what a snotty bitch Jane Curtin is, Chevy Chase is a jerk, on and on. He's the worst name-dropper I've ever met, and believe me, I've met most of the great ones. The other thing is that he's not very smart, but he thinks he's really really super smart, and he's got all these great big ideas about how he wants to change the world, but the reality is that most of them are stupid and would only fuck things up. And those doofy glasses! And his voice. That accent. Jesus. And the obsession with O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. And the same old Stuart Smalley jokes, over and over again. You see what I mean? We're dreading this guy.

Pope says he called the market crash in 1985

Bitch, please. You really expect us to believe you saw this whole financial mess coming and predicted the current market crash back in some random academic paper from twenty-odd years ago? And now you say we shouldn't care about money because "money vanishes, it is nothing"? Really? You don't care about money? Then why are you wearing that ermine cape? And those Prada ruby slippers? Bitch, please.

Morning workout: Goddamn, I am totally ripped

Did an hour of low-heartrate cardio, then worked on lats and abs and came away feeling like a golden god. After my shower I spent ten minutes in the locker room just gazing at myself in a mirror and marveling at how fine I am. Michelle says I am looking like a leaner version of Will Smith. She's got me on fifteen hundred calories a day, overbalanced to protein, with almost zero carbs and an anti-toxin cleansing drink before bed. I can feel the fat cells burning up under my skin. Amazing. PS last night I went up to bed and she was wearing her Angela Davis wig from Halloween. I know it's silly but that wig makes me nuts.