Guess who's coming for lunch?
President Obama will host Mitt Romney at the White House for lunch tomorrow, press secretary Jay Carney announced this morning. There aren't a lot of details out there about what the two men will talk about....
- Josh Voorhees, "Obama Will Have Romney Over to the White House For Lunch Tomorrow "; Slate, November 28th, 2012.
Mitt. Hello. Hi. You know, I'm glad you agreed to come over and break bread with me. I know we had a tough campaign and said some harsh things about one another, but that was just politics. I think we can agree the Etch-A-Sketch can be shaken more than once, can't we?
First thing I want to tell you, though. You can be absolutely comfortable today, say anything you want. All those hidden microphones Nixon had all over the place have mostly been removed. We're pretty sure they were removed. I had the electronics people over, a couple of nice fellows from the CIA and FBI over to look and make sure there weren't any cameras on the buffet table, make sure the phone lines weren't tapped. So if you want to talk about the forty-seven percent of people who voted for me, just let yourself go, get it off your chest, say whatever you... no, wait, hold on, hold on--didn't someone just tell me you only had forty-seven percent of the popular vote?
Well. That's sort of ironic. Funny how things add up. Heh.
So, uh, okay. Well. This is the door to the Oval Office, and I'll just open that up so you can take a look inside there. That's where you would have worked if more than forty-seven percent of the country had voted for you. Oh. Sorry about that. So, yeah, that's where you would have worked. That's my desk, and my chair, and my credenza over by the wall, there. I thought you'd be really interested in seeing the credenza, actually, because you can see that it really has a lot of room for binders on it, only mine are full of national security briefings. I try to read those before I go out and give a press briefing about something like the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, so I don't humiliate myself by jumping the gun too much even if I have to correct some things later when new information comes in. Love to show you those, Mitt, but they're for Presidents only, ha-ha. Tell you what, I'll let you peek at one of the less-confidential briefings if you show me your tax returns. Ha-ha.
No, I'm only kidding, Mitt. I can't show you those. Besides, I can just call up the IRS and have them sent over--
Mitt! Mitt! Calm down! Joking! Kidding! Hey, man. It's okay. Just... okay... just sit down right here... maybe put your head between your knees and breathe deep. Can somebody get this man a glass of water? Are you going to be okay? We're all friends here, Mitt. We're all friends. It's okay. Here. No, here, take my hanky. It's going to be alright. Here, here's a glass of water. Drink slowly. Breathe. You okay? No, take as long as you need. You sure? Okay? Okay.
So, okay, here's the dining room. We'll be having lunch here. When it's warm out, sometimes I just take a sandwich out into the Rose Garden and check my BlackBerry. Don't tell Michelle, but sometimes I sneak a cigarette, too. Ha.
So, this is John, he'll be serving us today. He's been here awhile, worked in the kitchen under three previous administrations. We're his fourth. I could have fired him my first day, but I really hate doing that. His grandmother came here illegally, but John's an American citizen. We think. We didn't ask him to show us any photo ID. You could have been his fifth administration, unless you fired him. Don't know what his wife would have done, she has some preexisting medical conditions that would keep them from getting coverage if he lost his job. Fortunately we got Obamacare passed, a lot like your Romneycare... by the way, have you figured out whether you're for that or against that, yet?
What's wrong? You're not still upset about that tax thing, are you? Look, here: have some lemonade. We prepared it especially for you. Just the way you like it: lemon, wet, good.
Comments