MY PITCHES
FOR POLITICAL-
SATIRE SKITS PLAYING
ON PRESIDENT OBAMA'S
FOIBLES KEEP GETTING
SHOT DOWN.
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OK, so there's an international crisis with North Korea and a fear of imminent global thermonuclear war, and President Obama has been summoned to the chaotic War Room. Everyone is frantically warning him that the Koreans will attack at any moment, the secretary of defense is urging the president to launch a pre-emptive strike, some four-star general is fainting, and—ready for this?—Obama strolls up to the red phone, initiates a dialogue with Pyongyang in that exaggeratedly calm way he has, and two minutes later he's cleared up the misunderstanding, the situation is defused, and America and North Korea now have a 20-year nonaggression pact. Zing!
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Picture it: Obama's "team of rivals" has devolved into a squabbling, infighting mess. Hillary's emasculating everyone in the Cabinet, Summers is telling her she can't draft complex legislation because she's a woman, Biden's making some offensive spontaneous remark, and then Obama walks into the room and ... wait for it ... everyone just kind of quiets down and respectfully states their positions and then listens as he thoughtfully processes them and arrives at a rational decision incorporating the best of the differing viewpoints without damaging any egos. Can you say burn?
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Let's hit Obama right where he's most vulnerable: his caesura-laden speaking style. We have him answering a reporter's question at length, something about an obscure policy he's wonkishly expert on. Then, halfway through, he pauses and says "uh" while transitioning, and the audience is like, "What's this loser politician doing, working methodically through an idea and trying to express it as lucidly and eloquently as possible in a manner befitting the course of actual human thought instead of rattling off a series of prefabricated sound bites designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator?" Hmm ... but maybe this one is too edgy and subversive—not sure the public is ready for the scathing satire ...
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The White House press secretary wakes Obama up in the middle of the night with a possible scandal on their hands: Malia's been at a sleepover where some of the girls were drinking wine coolers. He tells the president that his own candid admissions of drug use in the past will be fodder for the press once they get their hands on this story. So Obama finds Malia and he tells her—get a load of this—that he only resorted to the escapism of inebriants in his youth because he was confused and unhappy and lacking the stable family dynamic he's tried so hard to create for her and her sister, and that he understands experimentation is a part of adolescence, but—sorry, I can't stop laughing—he regrets his own decisions and wishes she would think long and hard about the reasons she might be tempted to do this herself. Then Malia tearfully says that she didn't drink anything at the sleepover, that she's seen what drugs and alcohol do to people and has read her father's sensitively honest ruminations on them, and she's sorry she was even present, and they hug and he tells her he loves her and Sasha more than anything, and he wants her to know she can always tell him the truth, no matter how hard it is. To ratchet up the inherent hilarity of the premise, I'm thinking we have Malia played by a fat white guy.
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Oh, and in all the skits Obama's ears are really sticking out.
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Teddy Wayne's
Other Pieces.
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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My Pitches for Political-Satire Skits Playing on President Obama's Foibles Keep Getting Shot Down By Teddy Wayne
The Tom Tom Club Catechism By Maureen Miller
Jokes for People With Body-Image Problems Tied to Low Self-Esteem By Dan Kennedy
Scrabble Letters Explain How They Are Coping in the Economic Downturn By Kate Hahn
Angry Farewell Notes From Runaway Dogs By Dave Donovan
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