Obama: I'm Doing To Democracy What Bush Did To Iraq

President Barack Obama today told a hastily assembled West Wing news conference that his Presidency was modeled on his predecessor's approach to Iraq.

"We understand we have to destroy democracy in order to save it," Obama told reporters. "Whether the issue is executive pay for bankers, health care, running GM, or anything else our administration is doing, I believe that we have a strong precedent in President Bush's foreign policy.

"Bush went into Iraq and destroyed it to rebuild it. I'm doing the same thing right here at home."

The President told reporters that "sometimes you have to break something in order to benefit from it, like a piggy bank, or for my Latino friends, a pinata. And once you do, people get something out of it. And after a while, they don't even miss the old thing they used to have."

Obama said that "It may take a few years before people start to realize that we destroyed democracy in order to save America. But the alternative, letting the free market system and the business cycle come around again, was just unacceptable."

Obama also said that GM's first new model vehicle since entering into bankruptcy, the Obama, would be available this fall "but without any options."