I would have come at this whole presidency thing from a completely different angle.  So, for a moment, close your eyes and imagine a short, bald, Jewish guy transmogrifying into a tall, skinny black guy.  When you open your eyes, I be the President.

My first four years would go something like this: appoint well-known moderates to positions of power in the administration, but have the people that I eventually intend to run the bureaucracies as the deputies of every cabinet-level department.  I would have left all of the Democrat governors in their respective offices and only recruited from the Republican side of the isle for figurehead positions (e.g., Ray LaHood, or Judd Gregg).  Co-opting my enemies would be my number two agenda item.  Putting Hillary in as Secretary of State was effing brilliant and not letting her get her own cronies appointed into her staff was genius.  There are others, of course, and putting members of the Blue Dogs into my cabinet would have been a very high priority.

I would never have even attempted HellthScare in my first four years.  My goal would be to fiddle around the edges of things I want.  Like, change regulations that allow coal companies to mine their product.  Nuclear power would be a thing of the past in the US, because you have to have a place to store the waste and Yucca would never happen with my friend Harry Reid as the Senate Majority Leader.  The insurance industry would be reregulated, not to death, but enough that the next step, upon reelection would have put them out of business.  Cap and trade would be a policy put into place over time, not by legislation, but by executive order.  I would never want to do anything that would get the American people upset with the Democrat-controlled Congress.  In fact, the last thing I want is to exacerbate the relationship between Congress and the American people.

My goal is to squeeze Republicans down to 25-30 seats in the Senate and 150 in the House.  As the leader of the free world, I’m going to do everything in my power to help countries that agree with me politically, like Venezuela and Cuba.  Thawing relations with these countries and restricting imports from countries that I don’t like.  I would never overtly make things more difficult for Israel, but reducing or stopping the intel and military cooperation agreements would come first.

When the American people have recognized the benevolent way that I’ve tried to run the country, inclusive and caring, and seen the Right Wingers for the hate-filled people that they are, and the people have responded by handing me the largest electoral landslide since Reagan, with Legislative coattails unprecedented in the modern political era, then I’d begin.

I would only appoint solidly left-wing people to the federal bench.  In fact, I would leave vacancies open from the first four years so that I can fill them with members of my political party who clearly have my politics (e.g., Barbara Lee and Bernie Sanders).  This goes for the Supreme Court as well.  There are plenty of people out there like Harry Blackmun, because frankly Sotomayor isn’t to left enough.  Maya Angelou is just about right for a SCOTUS pick.  Health Care, done, because the legislation was written in 2011 waiting for my reelection.  Unions would clearly no long have to worry about Card Check, because with the new majorities, it’s done.  Cap &  Trade, done.  Maybe even Constitutional Amendments like banning personal firearms.  Allowing restrictions on free speech in cases of hate speech is a possible Amendment.  An Education Amendment, a Healthcare Amendment, and certainly the Equal Rights Amendment.

Wake up people!  None of this happened.  Dear Leader couldn’t play it cool and George Soros wouldn’t have wanted it that way.  There nothing like a little coercion to make a person feel powerful.  Now, the One is behind the 8 ball and has to bloviate his way out.  Congress is feeling the heat from the friction with Astroturf.  He can screw with the Federal Judiciary all he wants for the next 1.5 years, then it’s over.

We were saved from the fate of eight years of PBO by hubris and arrogance.  These two traits more than any others made the meltdown in Washington possible.  And they saved us from a fate we will never know, but can only imagine.  Thank you G-d.