By: Marion Algier
AskMarion

Every year the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or nerd prom as it has been dubbed, is held in Washington D.C. where the President is supposed to display his entertaining side opposite a major comedian who is asked to more or less host and either make or break his or her career. Over the weekend for 2013 it was Conan O’Brian, who attacked CNN, Fox News, the Washington Hilton and Mitt Romney but pretty much soft-balled the President, who broke tradition and chose to enter to rap music instead of the traditional “Hail to the Chief”… too stuffy for our too hip president and his Hollywood pals. In fact the Correspondents’ Dinner has gone so Hollywood that Tom Brokaw (and others) said ‘no thanks’ to attending this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “That dinner, as it has been constituted for the past several years, is saying, ‘We’re Versailles. The rest of you eat cake.’, said Brokaw.

In reviewing the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner I wrote Alinsky Alive and Well in the White House. And although a bit more subdued this year, the Obama format followed the Alinsky primer, Rules for Radicals. President Obama used Alinsky’s Tactic #5 to perfection: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

In 2012 the AP wrote:

It’s not often that we get to see the most powerful man in the world tell jokes about eating dogs, craving cigarettes and imposing his rumored “radical socialist agenda” on the country. And yet, last night in Washington, D.C., we were treated to just that…

This year the most poignant example was Obama’s comment: “I’m Not The Strapping Young Muslim Socialist I Used To Be!”

Some Obama highlights:

“I know Republicans are still sorting out what happened in 2012, but one thing they all agree on is they need to do a better job reaching out to minorities,” Obama said.

“And look, call me self-centered, but I can think of one minority they could start with. Hello? Think of me as a trial run, you know?” he said.

“These days, I look in the mirror and I have to admit, I’m not the strapping young Muslim socialist that I used to be,” Obama said. “Time passes. You get a little gray.”

“I’m also hard at work on plans for the Obama Library, and some have suggested that we put it in my birthplace, but I’d rather keep it in the United States,” he said.

“Did anybody not see that joke coming?” (Show of hands.) “Only Gallup? Maybe Dick Morris?”

“One senator who has reached across the aisle recently is Marco Rubio, but I don’t know about 2016. I mean, the guy has not even finished a single term in the Senate and he thinks he’s ready to be president,” Obama joked. “Kids these days.”

“I know CNN has taken some knocks lately, but the fact is I admire their commitment to cover all sides of a story, just in case one of them happens to be accurate.”

“Some of my former advisors have switched over to the dark side. For example, David Axelrod now works for MSNBC, which is a nice change of pace since MSNBC used to work for David Axelrod.”

“The History Channel is not here. I guess they were embarrassed about the whole Obama-is-a-devil thing. Of course, that never kept Fox News from showing up. They actually thought the comparison was not fair — to Satan. “

“I still make rookie mistakes. Like, I’m out in California, we’re at a fundraiser, we’re having a nice time. I happen to mention that Kamala Harris is the best-looking attorney general in the country. As you might imagine, I got trouble when I got back home. Who knew Eric Holder was so sensitive?”

“Some things are beyond my control. For example, this whole controversy about Jaz-Z going to Cuba — it’s unbelievable. I’ve got 99 problems and now Jay-Z is one.That’s another rap reference, Bill. I’ll let you know.”

“I’m taking my charm offensive on the road – a Texas barbeque with Ted Cruz, a Kentucky bluegrass concert with Rand Paul, and a book-burning with Michele Bachmann.”

“Groucho Marx once said — and, Senator Cruz, that’s Groucho Marx, not Karl. That’s the other guy. Groucho Marx once told an audience, “Before I speak, I have something important to say.”

One of the funnier more light-hearted moments of Obama’s routine came near the beginning of his turn at the podium. Mr. Obama remarked that the presidency can take its toll on anyone, and he realizes he’ll need a burst of energy and some new approaches to energize his second term. He and his aides have talked about that, he said.

“We were willing to try anything. So we borrowed one of Michelle’s tricks,” said Obama.

My take has not changed and is still that Obama played it cool and delivered a perfect Saul Alinsky Speech. If you are concerned about America and want to help turn things around or if you are politically unaware or uninvolved and you want to get a better handle of what is going on, if you haven’t already, you need to read Saul Alinsky’s: Rules for Radicals plus understand the Cloward and Piven strategy; both major parts of Obama’s playbook. Mix in a little George Soros string pulling and you are headed in the right direction. Then do a little reading and digging into who BHO’s family and friends are and who he is connected to and everything will come into focus!

I think Alinsky would have been proud!

“Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.” – Letter from L. DAVID ALINSKY, son of Neo-Marxist Saul Alinsky

Obama helped fund ‘Alinsky Academy’: “The Woods Fund, a nonprofit on which Obama served as paid director from 1999 to December 2002, provided startup funding and later capital to the Midwest Academy…. Obama sat on the Woods Fund board alongside William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization…. ‘Midwest describes itself as ‘one of the nation’s oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change.’… Midwest teaches Alinsky tactics of community organizing.”

Hillary, Obama and the Cult of Alinsky: “True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties…. Many leftists view Hillary as a sell-out because she claims to hold moderate views on some issues. However, Hillary is simply following Alinsky’s counsel to do and say whatever it takes to gain power.

“Obama is also an Alinskyite…. Obama spent years teaching workshops on the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project…. Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing.

While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer.” (By Richard Poe, 11-27-07)

The Alinsky Tactics (and of course they can be combined) from the Progressive Bible Rules for Radicals:

“Tactics are those conscious deliberate acts by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them. … Here our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take power away from the Haves.” p.126

Always remember the first rule of power tactics (pages 127-134):

1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.

3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”

6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time….”

8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.”

11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside… every positive has its negative.”

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

I think Alinsky would have been proud of Obama’s Correspondence Dinner speech… of his whole presidency.

Using Alinsky’s Tactic #5 to perfection “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon: It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage”, President Obama took everything that his opponents: the right in general, patriots, the GOP, people paying attention, etc. are fighting, bringing to the forefront and trying to educate the American people on and ridiculed them by ridiculing each point one by one through making it a joke… thereby making it look silly to the low and uninformed that anyone would question something that was so trivial that the President himself would make fun of.

In 2012 Obama belittled the topics of eligibility; the hot mic incident where he essentially told the Russians to wait until he was re-elected and would have unbridled power to do what he wants; made light of eating dogs; threw in his digs at Romney for being rich and an elitist, at Gingrich for losing the GOP Primary and Hillary for drinking and partying in Cartagena; high-fived all his Hollywood celebrity friends; and basically told us to hang onto our hats for a radical second term… including reinstating ObamaCare if it was struck down and that it would be raining men during his next term (interpreted by most in the know as paratroopers and other military, including UN troops, on American soil).

In 2013 Obama hit the topics of his purported Muslim faith, missing college transcripts, and questionable birth certificate from several angles as well as his socialistic agenda and dislike for the conservative media and conservatives in Congress. He also made fun of the issue of his friends Jay-Z and wife Beyoncé traveling to Cuba on a special visa, when Americans have been prohibited from going there for decades, as well as his campaign to make the results of Sequestration as painful for the public as possible while blaming it on the Republicans using a reference to the White House Easter Egg roll.

Obama is the master… he told us in 2008 and wrote in his books (Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage) (as well as in books about him) all that he was planning to do but most of America wasn’t listening and like with Hitler (in Mein Kampf (German Edition)… nobody read his books; now several like Dreams from My Father (try to borrow an vintage copy to read)have been edited and re-written. But again, Barack Hussein Obama’s weekend comedy routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was generally only funny to those who have not been paying attention or who have continued to drink the Kool-Aid.

Related:

Nerdprom 2013: Inside The White House Correspondents’ Dinner Pre-And-Post Parties

White House Correspondance Dinner – 2008

White House Correspondents’ Association

Rolling Stone: Obama Jokes About His Legacy and Jay-Z at White House Correspondents’ Dinner