Thursday, February 5th
9:10am

Dear Diary,

I must admit, I was surprised to watch the news late last night and find out that the press really enjoyed all my apologies. I’m glad they got my message. After all, I know how much Bush was criticized for never admitting to a mistake. Heck, I criticized him for that too. So I’m going out of my way to admit mistakes when I need to, even if they’re not entirely my fault, as was the case with Tom Daschle. Of course, I can’t make too many mistakes, since people won’t appreciate my apologies quite as much… Still, people recognize this already recognize this as a major difference between my presidency and Bush’s presidency, and I’m glad to know they’re picking up on my cues of distinction.

But while I have the media in the palm of my hand, the Republicans are an entirely different story. I just cannot seem to win them over when it comes to the stimulus. And I’m running out of time too, since the Senate is voting at the end of the week – most likely tomorrow. It’s frustrating, but I’m really hoping that the more moderate Republicans support it. After all, I do have their precious tax cuts in there, but tax cuts alone won’t fix the economy, which I’ve said several times. But to pressure them a little more into voting for this,

I’ve included a clause about salary caps for U.S. executives, so we don’t run into the same problem with prodigal bonuses. Republicans shouldn’t dare vote against it now, or else they’ll be voting for executives to give themselves unlimited bonuses, which is something very un-Republican...

Yours,
Barack