BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS AN AMERICAN HERO…AND HE’S A HERO OF MINE

Sorry to those whom I may offend.

Gotta watch yourself with political discussions and the havoc they may wreak.

Most especially, with your friends.

So, I’ll be careful.

But in this case, I don’t care.

Unconditionally, I love Barry.

That is, I love Barack Obama.

Simply stated.

He’s exactly what this country — we — need.

Oh, wait.

We had him for two terms and that’s all he gets.

That’s all you get.

Now, it’ll be what it’ll be…but…

As all politicians are so tiresomely wont to say — in so many words, which could be in so few — this is an election and it’s your choice.

CHOICE!!!

President Donald John Trump has stripped you, one by one over time, of your choices.

And he may be just warmin’ up.

But this is not about him by any means.

Or is not intended to be.

We must steadfastly refuse to make it about him, the right way.

If we don’t vote him out and by a legitimate landslide, then it may be another four years, “of it’s [gonna be] about him.”

And should he lose legitimately, either by a landslide or by a hair, the fallout will be seismic because he threatens to continue to make it about him…unlawfully no less.

Refusing to cede power, for example.

Who’s he kidding?

The months between the election results (should he lose or not, actually) and Biden’s inauguration could have a seismic impact on an already terribly divided, downtrodden and beleaguered nation.

But there you go.

He’s doin’ it again.

This piece was not conceived with him in mind, despite the fact that his shenanigans make for good copy.

Obama’s last two speeches, rallying on behalf of Joe Biden and excoriating Trump in the process, make for better copy.

Yesterday (Tuesday October 27) in Orlando Obama came out swinging.

“What’s Trump’s closing argument?” he asked rally-goers. “That people are too focused on COVID. He said this, ‘COVID, COVID COVID.’ He’s jealous of COVID’s media coverage.”

The former president continued, referring to the White House, where at least three dozen staffers have tested positive for COVID-19 including Trump himself, a “hot zone” for the virus.

“The White House, let me say this, I lived in the White House for a while, it’s a controlled environment. You can take some preventive measures to keep from getting sick. Except this guy can’t seem to do it,” Obama said. “He’s turned the White House into a hot zone. Some of the places he holds rallies have seen spikes right after he leaves town.”

While Trump maintains that “one of the things we’ve done a really good job on is Covid,” his frame of reference is skewed and deeply flawed.

“We would have [a] million people, right now, we would have millions of people dead,” he contends. “Two million people. They were projecting 2.2 if we didn’t do what we did.”

Never mind — or please don’t — that former White House staffers have since spoken out against the president, remarking that he had purposely downplayed the severity of the virus (beginning as far back as January) to help his re-election campaign.

Obama calmly countered Trump’s fallacious assertions with the facts.

“More than 225,000 people in this country are dead. More than 100,000 small businesses have closed. Half a million jobs are gone in Florida,” he told the crowd in Orlando. If Trump “had been focused on COVID from the beginning,” he said, “cases wouldn’t be reaching new record highs across the country this week.”

“Winter is coming…” and the Trump administration is “waving the white flag” at the coronavirus pandemic.

Obama implored the crowd in Orlando to recognize and understand that the country can’t afford to endure a second term by Trump in which he ignores every major issue ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia placing bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers.

His pitch on behalf of Biden was a masterful blend of comedy and blistering criticism of Trump, calling him “lazy” and describing him as uncaring and aloof.

Surely Trump would continue to ignore rising coronavirus cases across the country, even in the face of unanimity among all health models — science — which forecast the continuation and ratcheting up of the spread of the virus, along with other winter illnesses, in November, December and January.

Lamenting the nation’s small business closings and citing a spike in Black unemployment to upwards of 17% in the state of Florida, Obama full-circled to Trump’s botched pandemic response.

“It doesn’t have to be that way, Florida,” he reiterated. “Tweeting at the TV doesn’t get things done.”

Obama noted that Florida has the highest enrollment in the Affordable Care Act of any state in the country, a law which may be in peril as several Supreme Court cases — hello Amy Coney Barrett — are scheduled in November, set to challenge it.

“Florida, this is serious. Joe and Kamala will protect your health care, they will expand Medicare, they will make insurance more affordable for everybody. Because Joe knows that a president’s first job is to keep us safe from all threats, foreign, domestic and microscopic.”

The polished and unflappable former president orated eloquently and from the heart, seemingly without the benefit of notes or teleprompters.

But he worked himself into a lather, his sweat-stained shirt, a testament to his fervor and passion.

He cares.

He has no agenda other than what he thinks is good for the country.

Trump meanwhile, was incensed that Fox News had the audacity and unmitigated gall to broadcast live coverage of Obama’s latest speech, which incidentally was aired live by all three of the major national news networks.

Typical.

Infusing a little humor, highlighting a very serious topic of discussion — namely Trump’s business dealings — Obama drove home these points:

“Listen, can you imagine, if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection? You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that?” he quipped. “They would have called me ‘Beijing Barry.’”

With Biden in the White House, “It won’t be so exhausting,” Obama stated. With Biden and Harris at the helm, “you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day.”

“You’ll be able to go about your lives, knowing that the President is not going to suggest ingesting bleach, or retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world. Or claiming or retweeting the claim, the Navy SEALS didn’t actually kill bin Laden,” suggesting it was a body-double eating the buckshot.

Finally, Obama commented that electing Biden would mean the end of the Trump drama/reality TV existence.

It would mean, “just having a normal president.”

So, “Don’t boo…VOTE.”

Why can’t we have Obama steering the ship, or at least his body-and-mind-double?

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan on October 28, 2020.]