Obama the Sly

Monica Crowley, Ph.D., speaking on the O’Reilly Factor the other night, presented her theory that the Occupy Wall Street movement was “orchestrated” to “provide President Obama with a major campaign theme”, namely income inequality. Several lines in Scene I were lifted from Coriolanus.

Scene I. New York.  A park.

    Enter a company of mutinous citizens, with tents and drums.

First Citizen.

We, the 99 percent, are accounted

Poor citizens for here we gather to protest

The leaness that afflicts us.  The one percent

Are by themselves accounted good and say

We slander the helms o' the state, who care for us

Like fathers. 

Second Citizen.

                       Care for us! They ne'er cared for us
Yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
Crammed with grain; repeal daily any wholesome act
Established against the rich; and provide more
Piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
The poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and

There's all the love they bear us.
 

     Exeunt stage left.

Scene II.  The Oval Office

     Enter President Obama with Lady Pelosi

Obama.

Our plan doth proceed apace.  Already have they

Divided our citizenry into the one percent

Who hath much and the ninety-nine who hath much less,

And thus resentment riseth and attach itself,

As I foretold, to Lord Romney, the knave

Who would my place in this round office take.

Pelosi.

But how didst thou orchestrate this scene?

It doth seem to me very like the herding of cats.

 Obama.

Aye, it were no easy task, but the details

Of this I must retain for my own counsel

For I fear much that word of our guiding hand

In this will leak to Lady Crowley, PhD,

Who hath, as thou knowest, oft revealed

My darkest and most secret machinations.

Pelosi

Yes, she hath disclosed, as I recall, the message

Thou sendest to David of Axelrod through the play

that Robert Scheiffer did perform before the nation.

That was wondrous shrewd and cunning, and yet..

Obama

And yet she did expose my part in it

To all who had ears to heed her rantings.

And she did also bring to light my hand

In making a loathsome and repugnant thing

Of a cheeseburger that she was wont to eat.

I believe a mole must lurk within my staff

That doth inform the wench of my very thoughts.

Pelosi

Dost thou think that she hath gotten wind

Of thy secret plan to turn this hapless land,

Rife with venturing capitalists like Lord Romney

Who doth themselves too much enrich

While casting workers into penury,

To make of it a socialistic state?

Obama

Thou must not speak of such things, even here

Within my office, for there are those who might

Thee overhear and sound alarums that

Would all my plans undo.  We must content

Ourselves with signs most subtle – winks, nods

And crossèd fingers - and with flow’ry words

Pay full service of the lip to free enterprise,

While our true thoughts we hold in deep disguise.