Barack Obama and Michelle Obama share insights on how Americans view the president

Impact

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me a tape of a conversation he recorded. I was stunned to hear the voice of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle when I played the recording.

My friend is a former proprietary trader for Stanley, Morgan, Sachs, Citi Guaranty, a renowned investment bank. He was let go a couple of years ago for encouraging the firm to go long on mortgage bonds. The losses he inccurred nearly brought down SMSCG. Now, he’s working for a plumbing company that often does work at the White House. My buddy is a master using the snake, which was just what was needed the other day when someone used too much paper and stuffed the toilet just outside of the White House kitchen. In the next room, a very important conversation was taking place

Here’s a transcript of the repartee between the first lady and the president.

Michelle: What’s the matter honey? You look exhausted. You want to fool around in the Lincoln bedroom? The kids are visiting some friends, and we are alone except for the 100 secret service people skulking around the White House.

Barack: Nah. I’m not in the mood. I’m pissed off about an article that Peggy Noonan wrote about me in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

M: Oh, boy, what’d she write?

B: She said I wasn’t a “Smooth Operator.” Can you imagine anyone saying that about me? I’m the coolest dude who ever occupied this place.

M: How did Noonan describe you?

B: She indicated, “Something’s happening to [my] relationship with those who are inclined not to like [my] policies. They are now inclined not to like [me].” I thought everybody liked me, even my opponents.

M: Americans do like you, Barack.

B: She said I am a “trimmer” and “[I’m] not operating in good faith.” Also, my birth control mandate was “morally repugnant” and “not even constitutional.” My compromise was “devious.” My response to the opposition, she said was “dishonest.”

M: Peggy just doesn’t like your policies.

B: But it gets worse. She said my conversation with Dmitry was “bush league.” Hell, if I do get reelected, I will have a lot more flexibility. Then, she criticized my saying “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvvon.”

M: What’s wrong with that? You were just being emotional.

B: Noonan thought I personalized it, and I fanned the flames of protest resulting in “death threats and tweeted wrong addresses and congressmen in hoodies.”

M: I think you’re being a little too sensitive.

B: That’s not all. Noonan also said my arguments on healthcare during the Supreme Court hearings were “hollow, [and] so careless.” She said I should have been more focused on the financial crisis in 2009, and that I “wasted history’s time.” Do you think my aides and I were misinformed about what the American public wanted when I set out to reform health care?

M: That’s ridiculous.

B: Maybe my administration was not experienced enough, as Noonan suggested. She said that this was the reason we were so blindsided by the “town hall uprisings of August 2009 and the 2010 midterm elections.”

M: Barack, it’s not easy being in your seat. You need to forge ahead. You’re making history.

B: Noonan addressed that point too. She suggested that if I lose, no one will miss me or be sad, and no one will say in 2014, “If only Obama were president!”

M: If you lose, the country will be devastated. You became president because America needed you.

B: Well, I was not able to compromise with Congress, the way that Reagan and O'Neill were able to do. They got some things done, and I have done so little.

M: You still have time.

B: Noonan said, “[I] really cannot win the coming election. But the Republicans, still, can lose it.” According to Peggy, it’s out of my hands.