Barack Obama's speech at the DNC's misbegotten cyber-convention worked only for those Americans, including most in the media, who paid no serious attention to the eight years of Obama's presidency.  As I document in my book Unmasking Obama, I and scores of other journalists, many of them unsalaried, did pay attention.  What follows are some of the riffs that I, and likely they, found most entertaining.

Obama began by telling us the Constitution "wasn't a perfect document," implying that he would have done better had he been there.  Its redeeming quality was that it established "a system of representative government — a democracy — through which we could better realize our highest ideals."

As late as March 2011, Obama seemed to believe this, saying, "With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed."

In 2012, with re-election looming, Obama unilaterally decided he could suspend deportations through executive orders.  He gave out a million or so work authorizations while he was at it, arguing that he personally could make laws that were "more fair, more efficient, and more just" than Congress.  Curiously, that is almost exactly what Stalin told the Politburo when he forcibly collectivized Ukrainian farms.

Said Obama at the DNC: "Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't.  And the consequences of that failure are severe.  One hundred seventy thousand Americans dead.  Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever."

To blame Trump for the COVID dead is disgraceful, pure demagoguery.  Trump resisted the urge to nationalize the response and allowed each state to respond to local conditions.  As a result, perhaps a third of American deaths occurred in just three of our bluest states — New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.  A much higher percentage of people died of COVID in the U.K.  Was Trump responsible for those?  As to "those at the top" who profited — people like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos — they are almost all Obama-supporters.

"For eight years," said Obama, "Joe [Biden] was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision."  Biden was certainly in the room on January 5, 2017.  So were Comey, Brennan, Rice, Clapper, and Sally Yates.  The "big decision" here was how best to tie Trump to Russia and subvert his presidency, "by the book," of course.

In speaking of the Biden-Harris ticket, Obama told the DNC, "They'll expand health care to more Americans, like Joe and I did ten years ago when he helped craft the Affordable Care Act and nail down the votes to make it the law."

The DNC might have invited Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber to explain how those votes were really nailed down.  Said Gruber when he thought no one was looking, "This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.  If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies."

 "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage," Gruber continued.  "And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."  

Biden and Harris, said Obama at the DNC, would "rescue the economy, like Joe helped me do after the Great Recession."  Rescue?  Was this a laugh line?  As Louis Woodhill noted in a May 2012 Forbes article, "[u]nder Obama, the worst recession since the 1930s has been followed by the slowest economic recovery in the history of the republic.  In a very real sense, there has been no recovery at all — things are still getting worse."

Here was one of my favorite Obama lines: "Joe knows the world, and the world knows him."  No one denies that, especially not the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs.  In February 2009, Biden was the first to say, "It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia."

During a 2011 speech, Biden boasted of visiting a high-tech hub on the outskirts of Moscow.  With a proven talent for taking care of those close to him, a talent he would hone in China and the Ukraine, Biden encouraged American venture capitalists to invest there.  By the way, yes, this is the same evil Russia that Trump allegedly colluded with.

According to Obama, Biden and Harris "believe that no one — including the president — is above the law, and that no public official — including the president — should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters."

At the time Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was still struggling to pay his student debts.  Today, the Obamas have a net worth north of $40 million, almost as much as the Clintons and slightly more than Hunter Biden.

Biden and Harris, Obama insisted, understand that the military ought not to be used "against peaceful protesters on our own soil."  Obama actually said "peaceful," and no one apparently laughed.

Biden and Harris also understand that "political opponents aren't 'un-American' just because they disagree with you."  Catherine Engelbrecht had to chuckle at that one.  Engelbrecht faced twenty-three distinct audits or inquiries for daring to organize a Tea Party in Texas.  The IRS stalled or rejected the applicants of hundreds, if not thousands, of comparable groups as well.

In public testimony, Engelbrecht asked Congress "to end this ugly chapter of political intimidation.  There was a time when people of goodwill were encouraged to participate in the processes of government, not targeted because of it."  Obama and Biden would not have been re-elected in 2012 without that "ugly chapter."

Obama assured us, too, that Biden and Harris understand that "a free press isn't the 'enemy,' but the way we hold officials accountable."  Tell that to Sharyl Attkisson.  Then with CBS News, Attkisson endured an unprecedented campaign of Deep-State cyber-harassment for her failure to be "reasonable" in her Benghazi reporting.

Meanwhile, James Rosen, then chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, went three years unaware that the DOJ was surveilling his personal and professional communications.  So invasive was the DOJ's surveillance that it moved even the Washington Post, if not to condemn the action, at least to report it.

After several minutes of multicultural blather, Obama closed by accusing Trump of exactly what his administration did in the closing months of the 2016 campaign: "tear[ing] our democracy down if that's what it takes to win."

Mr. Barr, let's get those indictments ready.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.