The Barry Bamma Project - The Making of a President

[John]

Prior to the reelection of Obama, the idea of a short story came to me while walking my dog.  I wanted to make some points, and thought a fictional story with some real aspects might persuade some to not vote for Obama.

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The Barry Bamma Project - The Making of a President

Preface

This story is fictional. The degree to which any aspects of it resemble reality would be something known only to those closest to President Obama and quite possibly foreign intelligence services and their governments. The aspects of the story that are real, and the potential to lead to adverse consequences consist of: the ability of a large segment of the population to be influenced by someone with extraordinary persuasive skills; the willingness to elect someone to the highest office in the land knowing less of his background than would be required of an ordinary employee joining a company; the willingness of politicians to go along with a President, possibly against their own better judgment, facing the need to survive; the ability of a President to funnel money to friends and favorite causes with apparent impunity; and lastly, and perhaps most significantly, is the potential damage to the United States that can exist when a President's background is not fully transparent and widely known.

Whatever the degree that the story resembles reality, the actions of the President to willfully torpedo the economy with a massive debt increase, to weaken the country internationally, and to decimate our military, leads to fundamental questions of his real motivation.

1. The Institute mid-1990s and the introduction to Barry Bamma

It started out innocently enough. The Institute for Coercive Psychology at the University of Chicago had been formed several years ago. Their focus was on using aggressive techniques for persuasion. In the past they applied these techniques for marketing, using much more aggressive techniques than those traditionally used by psychology practitioners to influence consumers. The Institute professors were part of a group not considered within the mainstream of the field of psychology by any means. Their use of psychology in a coercive or manipulative way was considered by some in the mainstream to be of questionable ethics. The Institute professors did not mind their reputation by some, and in fact relished the notion of manipulating or controlling the human mind. A very successful example in the past consisted of using subliminal images within movies to sell products. For example, pictures of cheeseburgers and hot buttered popcorn buckets would appear very briefly spliced within movies at various points during the entire movie. The movie watcher was not consciously aware of these images because they appeared so briefly. Once this practice was discovered, the fallout was highly negative. The Institute members avoided the press and the Institute shunned all forms of publicity.

Prof. Jay Richman was an ambitious professor in his mid-30s. He was very frustrated as funding sources had significantly dried up following the motion picture debacle. He started to drink and would typically have at least a couple of drinks while watching TV at home in the evening. One evening he fell asleep and woke up several hours later during an infomercial program on a local Chicago independent TV station. He did not recognize the personality selling the products, a young man of African American ancestry with a very engaging personality and unique melodious voice. He called himself the Secret Savior and was currently focusing on selling gold chains to elderly ladies. At least that was the impression Prof. Richman had, which later turned out to be correct. Although Richman had no need for gold chains, and was certainly not part of the target audience of the Secret Savior, he felt a strong urge to purchase the chains, though he was able to avoid doing so. There was something very strongly compelling and persuading about the voice, but Richman could not put his finger on the specific reasons for the strong motivation. Over the next several evenings, Richman recorded the program. He brought the recordings into the lab at the Institute and began conducting analysis of the voice. He identified a specific pattern of frequencies associated with the complex human voice that seemed to have an impact on the audience. Richman enlisted support from other professors within the Institute, and they began a detailed analysis of the voice. They considered other aspects of the Secret Savior. His overall gestures were quite engaging, but they became convinced that the audible qualities within his voice were the chief factor having the persuasive effect.

The professors within the Institute became very interested in studying the effects that the Secret Savior had on his viewers. One of the professors had a contact with an investigative journalist at a major Chicago daily. He learned that an investigation by the paper had been ongoing, but because of the relationship between the newspaper and a TV station, the investigation had been quashed. It turned out the Secret Savior was named Barry Bamma. He had been investigated by the paper for exploitive practices. Specifically, he targeted elderly ladies and encouraged them to spend their limited resources on gold chains. This technique involved a combination of his melodious voice and catchphrases that he coined. He said repeatedly in a very soothing voice “the chains will change you.” He repeated this several times along with other phrases such as “the change from the chains will make you better.” The elderly ladies were so motivated to deplete their savings for these chains that they often sacrificed needed medicine and food. The investigative reporter had interviewed Bamma, who appeared indifferent to the plight he was inflicting on the elderly ladies. He said he was not forcing them to buy the chains, but he did believe in their mysterious, beneficial effects. The reporter also discovered that Bamma and the station were both making a handsome profit.

The professors were highly intrigued. They felt that Bamma could provide some keys to kickstarting the Institute research, which had been languishing for the past several years.

2. The Beginnings of a plan

The professors considered a number of options to experiment using Bamma’s persuasive gifts. The idea they kept coming back to was inserting him into a political setting. The major issue was they were professors knowledgeable about psychology but complete novices when it came to politics. They quickly realized they needed to work with an experienced political operative either a person or perhaps even a team.

Through the same contact at the Chicago newspaper, they learned of someone who could fit the bill. His name was David Axle, and he seemed to have the requisite political know-how based upon a background that the reporter at the newspaper explained. The professors were cautious because they did not want to take a chance of having their plan, or at least the beginnings of a plan, blown out of the water. Specifically, they wanted to ensure that Axel would work with them, or at least not blow the whistle on their plan.

Their contact at the paper pointed them to several sources that they used to form an assessment of Axle. The initial assessment of Axle concluded he was a consummate political operative. He was driven by the need for power, the desire to wield influence, and of course the desire to accumulate wealth. It was further determined that he was what can be called, pragmatic, meaning he was not worried about the niceties of principle, but would be willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve an objective. The more they studied Axel, the more they became convinced that he would be a reliable partner.

3. The Project starts to take shape

Jay Richman and the other Institute professors and Axle started working closely together. Axle brought another associate, David Ploof, to join the team. Richman and the other psychology professors could not resist analyzing each new member of the team. They were psychology professors, what else would be expected? They found Ploof to be young, highly energetic, and as power hungry as Axle, with about the same degree of moral scruples. The Institute professors and the political team decided to refer to themselves collectively as The Committee.

Initially, The Committee did not have offices, so they used office space owned by the Institute on the University of Chicago campus. The first order of business was to introduce Bamma to The Committee and get his support. They needed to fully prepare themselves to offer a package that would be attractive to Bamma. They decided to do a more complete assessment of Bamma based on the investigative reporter’s contact, their observation of him as the Secret Savior, and further information that Axle and Ploof were able to provide from sources they chose to not disclose.

The initial assessment of Bamma concluded he was not highly political, not religious, driven mostly by power, the desire for wealth, and the satisfaction from the ability to manipulate people. They concluded therefore that his attendance of Rev. Wright's church for many years was not driven by religion but by the desire to master the ways of persuading people. Rev. Wright had an impressive track record in soliciting contributions, often from people who could ill afford them. The bottom line was they needed to appeal to Bamma’s desire for power, wealth, and satisfaction at manipulating people.

They arranged a conference room at one of the hotels and invited Bamma. Axle took the lead as he was known with the political connections, and it was decided that Bamma would be most receptive to Axle’s invitation. They laid out the goal, getting Bamma into Illinois politics, specifically capturing a seat in the State Senate. They needed to first establish some academic credentials for him, a process that would take two years maximum. As they outlined the plans, and kept focus on the goals, Bamma could not contain his ever widening grin. Handshakes all around, and the Barry Bamma Project was officially underway.

After getting the TV station to reluctantly provide an indefinite leave of absence, Bamma set off for Occidental College in Los Angeles. His entry there was arranged by contacts of the professors, and he enrolled in a light enough load to be considered a full time student. A transcript was produced, but kept under wraps.

After a semester, the process was repeated at Columbia University. Bamma had been fully briefed on the cover of his having graduated from Occidental. Bamma stayed there for a semester, also leading to a transcript being produced, and also kept under wraps.

The final step in his academic career seemed extremely lofty, but in reality was the simplest. Harvard proved to be easy for Bamma’s admission because of its extreme emphasis on diversity leading to very generous Affirmative Action policies, the contacts between the Institute professors and Harvard was solid, and the left-leaning Axle had contacts among the University officials. With less difficulty than might be imagined, Bamma found himself a student at Harvard Law School. To make his credentials even more impressive, it was planned for him to join the Law Review, a very prestigious group.

Membership in the Harvard Law Review is limited to second- and third- year law students who are selected on the basis of their performance on an annual writing competition. Harvard Law School students who are interested in joining the Review must write the competition at the end of their 1st year, even if they plan to take time off during law school or are pursuing a joint degree and plan to spend a year at another Harvard graduate school.

In recent years, the number of students completing the competition has ranged from 215 to 265. 44 students are invited to join the Review each year.

Fourteen editors (two from each 1L section) are selected based on a combination of their first-year grades and their competition scores. Twenty editors are selected based solely on their competition scores. The remaining editors are selected on a discretionary basis. Some of these discretionary slots may be used to implement the Review's affirmative action policy.

The only issue of concern was Bamma was not a second or third-year student. He was brand new on campus. They were able to finesse this by convincing their contacts at Harvard that the requirement did not apply to the affirmative action slots. Bamma took a stab at the writing assignment, but the Institute professors and Axle and Ploof basically discarded it and wrote a paper that got him onto the Law Review. Getting him elected President of the Law Review turned out to be quite simple. Bamma had his natural persuasive skills. The Committee provided a background cover that emphasized how Bamma overcame great difficulties. Bamma could deliver the lines leaving many of the students in tears. After an extremely successful semester, Bamma left Massachusetts for his Chicago home.

4. State politics – late 1990s to early 2000s

Bamma’s Chicago experience, the manipulative talents of Richman and the other Institute professors, the political savvy of Axle, and the quick learning by Ploof made his election to the Illinois State Senate surprisingly easy. They decided Bamma should avoid political enemies at all cost, and suggested he vote “Present” at every opportunity.

The Institute professors were initially motivated primarily by their desire to see their theories put into practice. Axle and the other political associates were always motivated by political power and eventually the financial advantages that would result from this power. But as the Institute professors and political consultants started working together, the thought of power became intoxicating for the professors as well. Additionally, the professors were not convinced their coercive psychological skills had been all that instrumental in achieving the Senate office. Wanting to definitively prove the power of their techniques made them willing accomplices to Axle’s ambitions.

5. Planning for national visibility

What seemed unthinkable to the professors only a few years earlier started to take shape. One lingering concern was the possibility that his manufactured transcripts and college background could be discovered. They were not too concerned while he was in state office, but the visibility would be much greater with offices in the Federal Government. A couple of approaches were taken. First, it was decided that Bamma’s politics would take a sharp leftward turn to make him more relatable to the media, which would be less inclined to investigate. Second, his birth certificate would serve as a decoy. The Committee knew the birth certificate was valid, but would deliberately keep it hidden. The goal would be to manipulate the media and public opinion to consider people who looked into the birth certificate as extremists.

The one small bump in the road was an unsuccessful bid in 2000 to defeat a Democratic incumbent for a seat in the House of Representatives. There was extensive soul-searching which led to a careful review of how the Institute professors and the political team interacted. One of the major lessons learned was the need for closer interaction. The Institute professors decided that they needed to effectively sever their relationship with the University or at least greatly deemphasize it. They decided the most appropriate thing to do was not officially close their offices at the University but allow them to fall into disuse. They found office space not too far from the offices of Axle and Ploof, and a few additional consultants.

6. The national scene – US Senate


As part of the increased interaction, effectively being The Committee instead of separate groups of professors and politicians, they decided that all speeches needed to be prepared by The Committee to ensure the maximum impact of the speeches by considering both the psychological impact as well as the political impact. A couple of major milestones were achieved in short order. His winning the 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the US Senate showed the flaws in the process had been repaired. Even more significantly, Axle arranged through several friends, calling in favors from a number of them, a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. This was quite unusual, as he had not yet won the US Senate seat. Such a role as a keynote speaker was coveted, and generally went to a senior party official, or someone with a record of significant accomplishments. It shows the power of backroom politics.

The keynote speech showed The Committee at its best. It was loaded into the teleprompters which were moved from Committee offices to the hotel near the Democratic Convention. Bamma delivered the speech masterfully, and he immediately become known as an up and coming politician on the fast-track.

There was concern that Bamma could have difficulty with any investigations by the FBI prior to Bamma receiving a security clearance as a US Senator. The investigating agencies want to know details about a person for the past several years. Those details include occupations, schools, associates, neighbors, financial situations, and membership in associations. The plan which was successfully executed consisted of studying the high-level officials in the FBI and Department of Justice to determine which ones would be amenable to working with the Committee. In effect, they were seeking political opportunists who would be swayed by the possibility of the future favorable consideration. The approach was to remove the vetting process from the normal channels and instead handle it administratively by the more senior officials. They could not take the chance of field agents whose loyalties could not be determined from knowing Bamma's background. In effect, he was granted a clean bill of health administratively.

The Committee became hungry for more success and power, and even prior to him assuming his Senate seat, began preparation for the next Presidential campaign. To not burden Bamma with his Senate duties, Ploof was relocated to the Bamma Senate offices. All normal matter that a Senator would read would be scanned and emailed to the Committee offices in Chicago, where a new section was established to basically perform his Senate duties, consisting or reading the material, formulating position papers, and writing speeches.

7. The Presidential primaries and election

As momentous as the Presidential primaries and election might seem, the execution occurred along the lines carefully planned by the Committee. During the primary process, the Committee was successfully able to manipulate the major media outlets to become hostile to Hillary Clinton. This was a major coup to encourage liberal outlets to go against a liberal. Another coup was the successful use of the race card on President Clinton by manipulating news coverage. President Clinton was the last person anyone would consider as racist. He was even referred to as the “whitest black man’ based on his support and affinity towards African Americans. The political members of the Committee decided President Clinton need to be attacked to damage Hillary in the primary fight. Their plan worked exactly as intended.

In the period leading up to the general election, The Committee was able to benefit from events and actions that significantly helped the Bamma campaign. The economic collapse under the Republican watch just two months prior to the election helped immeasurably. They were also helped by the refusal of McCain to consider the questions of Bamma’s background and associations.

The entire campaign resulted from a extremely close cooperation of both the Institute professors and the political operatives, maintaining the cohesiveness of the Committee. It turned out the melodious voice of Bamma had the same magic effect as did the soothing words of the Secret Savior selling gold chains to the elderly women only a few years prior. The professors correctly predicted the mantra “hope and change” would have a mass hypnotic-like effect. Each affected person reflected on those words to conjure up his own nirvana. The professors also made very insightful use of props. They correctly anticipated the subliminal effect of Greek columns, as a backdrop to a Bamma speech.

After all the preparation, along with the use of technology and websites collecting donations that intentionally did not check for valid addresses, the election victory was a foregone conclusion.

8. The Presidency – protecting the Project

It was also determined that to provide maximum coordination and ineffective management of the president to install a representative of the reelection campaign at the White House. David Ploof was located adjacent to the Oval Office.

One other concern had been recognized. As much as Bamma was working very closely with the Committee, it was understood that anyone in the Office of the President could eventually forget the role of those who in effect installed him and considered himself to be more important. They needed to ensure he would remain cooperative, and while not said explicitly, manageable. The way they handled it was to maintain the point with Bamma that they all needed to stay very closely aligned as a team because any fissures could result in the entire background becoming exposed.

The entire operation was functioning smoothly. The media was under control, facilitated by the most helpful MediaMatters organization. The White House was committed to protecting its tax-exempt status. One lingering problem remained was Fox News, which had always been troublesome. MediaMatters was not effective in marginalizing the operation. Plans had been considered to harass employees of the network, including discussions with the White House to have the IRS aggressively target their employees. The plans had not been carried out because of a concern that it would backfire.

The use of the birth certificate as a decoy, intended to hide the nature of the transcripts and discouraged those from digging in, had always been a concern, but with the media manipulation, it had been considered manageable. A more significant challenge arose when Donald Trump decided to investigate the birth certificate situation. The Committee had been effective in manipulating the media and public opinion to consider people who looked into the birth certificate as extremists. The labeling of them with the term "birthers" had been highly effective. Although Trump was widely hated by many on the left, he did enjoy a reputation as being a sane, savvy person. Specifically, the worry was that with Trump starting to look into the birth certificate, while they could disclose the real birth certificate, the real concern was that could motivate others to start looking into the transcripts. This was a significant concern, and it resulted in several meetings between the Institute and the political team. The decision was made to utilize media connections to disparage Donald Trump, making jokes about his hair and other things in an attempt to portray him as being extreme, at least with respect to looking into the birth certificate. They ultimately decided the transcript cover would be best maintained by Bamma actually releasing the birth certificate in an attempt to further embarrass Trump.

The Committee was concerned about the penetration by foreign intelligence services of the transcript cover. They enlisted the services of retired FBI agents and other security personnel. One of their primary tasks was to maintain liaison, generally without identifying themselves or their purpose with those involved in the transcript situation at all three universities.

As much as the Committee created cover, there were also realists and realized that the Russians, using traditional intelligence techniques, and the Chinese, hacking computer systems, could very likely penetrate the cover and understand the entire project. The approach was quite simple. The Bamma administration would provide a conciliatory, and in fact an appeasing posture to the Russians and Chinese. They would have no reason to exert any type of actions against the administration including direct or indirect blackmail based upon their potential knowledge of the project. The Chinese would be advised that we would not resist their economic actions. The Russians were advised that we would perform a reset in relations consisting of pulling out of the East European defense shield without requiring a quid pro quo and supporting Russian entry into the WTO.

It was presumed the Russians did, in fact, learn of the Project as their demands became more extreme and even bellicose. Their latest demand was we unilaterally reduce our nuclear stockpile by 80%, leaving our number of weapons at 300 compared to the Russian stockpile of 6,000. The Committee was quite alarmed, but there was no doubt that the Russian demand would be met. There would be a study commissioned to study options, but the study was nothing but a charade. The cover story to facilitate this reduction was the numbers did not matter, that the US was taking the moral high ground, and that we would ultimately be safer. Everyone knew it was a ridiculous argument, but The Committee’s manipulations using the media had been so successful they expected success here as well. Even if for some reason they fell short of this goal and needed to compromise because of a rebellion in the Democratic Party, the Russians would know an honest effort had been made to comply with their demands.

The situation with the Israeli Mossad was a bit more complex. Although Bamma was largely nonpolitical, he was strongly anti-Semitic and insisted on having a policy that clearly favored the Arab states over Israel. A concession was reached that allowed Bamma to maintain this posture, but he agreed to not make any overt anti-Semitic statements. It was further agreed that he would be receptive to modifying if not his policy, then at least words, if there was heightened concern that the Israelis might act against the project. It was clearly understood that if Israel found its back against the wall, such is being threatened by Iranian nuclear weapons, that Israel would go to any lengths to protect itself and blowing the cover on the project was would be a distinct possibility. It was also recognized that several current members of the political team were Jewish, and likely additional members would be as well, and it made no sense to antagonize them by Bamma displaying his anti-Semitism. They also obviously did not want to antagonize large group of Jewish voters, a large percentage of whom almost automatically vote Democratic.

9. The Presidency –preparing for re-election

Potential candidate liabilities: Obama has a weird name. He’s aloof. He’s an elitist. He spent his formative years in Indonesia. His father was a Muslim. His mother was a Marxist radical. He won’t release his college records. He never served in the military. He never held a job in the private sector. He had a negligible impact as an Illinois state senator. He had a negligible impact as a U.S. senator. He had no foreign policy experience. He had no executive experience. He spent 20 years of Sundays with a lunatic pastor who despises America. He’s a product of the notoriously corrupt Chicago political machine. He had close personal ties to domestic terrorists and other unsavory characters.

[UCAV]

Great story, and I have to say you may have missed your calling, John! This story is so accurate! If you are bored in retirement I bet "The Onion" would hire you in a heartbeat! Thanks for a great read!

[John]

Great story, and I have to say you may have missed your calling, John! This story is so accurate! If you are bored in retirement I bet "The Onion" would hire you in a heartbeat! Thanks for a great read!
 

Thank you!  This just happened to cross my mind a couple of days ago as a respite from all the current events.

[UCAV]

You're welcome! You do know, the story isn't finished. The sequel needs to be written if Trump prevails. Either now, or in 2024.

[John]

I don't know if I have the energy for that. These forums, talk radio, selected TV programs and other life activities keep me busy.