Obama Will Bail Out Ireland

• Nationalization Being Considered
• Over $100 Billion Planned In Annual Aid

Sources high in President Obama's administration have confirmed that plans are well underway to bail out Ireland with more than $100 billion annually in foreign aid.

The stunning development was leaked to the Irish Examiner USA over the St. Patrick's Day weekend by a source in the Obama Cabinet, a senior Irish official, and a local New York congressman. All requested anonymity.

"This is what we call a pilot program in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. It's shaping up as a huge test case for what we want to do and what we mean by spreading the wealth. We're optimistic," the Cabinet source told us.

"All systems are 'go' as far as we're concerned. The good will is there. The votes are there. The groundwork's in place. We're on the same page. It's big. It's bipartisan. It's a blockbuster. We're futurists and we see Ireland as a laboratory for the future, for restructuring the world's economy as we know it, for reconfiguring, if you will the fiscal framework of the planet."

"It is our understanding that the proposed aid package is beyond extraordinary," the Irish official said. "It has been estimated to represent in excess of $50,000US for every man, woman, and child in the Republic bar none.

"We have learnt subsequently that the Congress are working on a lesser but still quite substantial relief package for the distressed Northern province as well."

"When I saw the Irish bailout plans on the table, I was as surprised as anyone," the congressman told us. "But nothing should surprise you about the dynamicism of this administration. They're smart. They're young. They're stylish. They're pretty. They're fit. They're confident, and they think they can do anything.

"At the end of the day, they're looking to Ireland as a test case for redoing economics on a colossal scale, on a global scale. They're twisting arms and persuading other countries to jump on the bandwagon and to just kick in some cash. Basically, what it portends is Uncle Sam is getting ready to bail out anybody and everybody who needs the money.

"Trust me. They're serious. By pouring what some might say is an inordinate amount of greenbacks into the Celtic Tiger, which has been on hunger strike lately, they're expecting to jump-start the whole European economy, which will in turn spark our economy. It's synergy. They've run the numbers through computer models. They have a hundred economists, guys burning the midnight oil. This baby has wings. It's going to fly.

"Remember, Ireland was the only country to reject the EU, so this is how they're going to get everyone on board. It's basically an end run around the bleak future of rejectionism. At the end of the day, it's an open-ended annual block grant, no strings attached. It's the Irish wing of the stimulus package. It's a gift with the green side up for everybody.

"This means that every blessed soul in Ireland - men, women, children, seniors, students, travelers, the undocumented, the sick, the homeless, the imprisoned, you name it - they're going to have an income now in excess of, say, about $50,000 a year, tax free, for life, with cost-of-living adjustments for inflation, etc., whether they stay at home or work or go to school or go fishing, whatever.

"The administration's even talking about nationalizing Ireland, if necessary. Whatever. I hear the UN's giving it the thumbs up. No surprise but still amazing stuff! It's like everyone hit the lottery!"

Reactions from local Irish-American officials were uniformly positive but predictably cautious: "Nobody's talking," a source at the Irish Consulate told us. "Nobody wants to jinx this. Right. It's difficult to believe but it's absolutely true. Obama's a magician. He's a miracle worker. That's why they call him 'The One.' Thanks to him, we're all holding the winning tickets in the Sweepstakes so."

Over at the Irish Trade Board, a source said: "Naturally, we're over the moon. We're dancing at Lughnasa. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to Ireland: Bigger than the Revolution, with more far-reaching effects than the Famine, more historic than the Plantation. We've hopped to the head of the world's economic class. It's as if every Irishman woke up an oil sheik, so to speak, but, for the record, we have no official comment."

A source at the Irish Tourist Board told us: "It is our firm policy to neither confirm nor deny this kind of story. But, let me say this: Plainly put, we're doing cartwheels in the corridor. Yes, it means we're rich, rich, rich, all of us rich. If you're a citizen of Ireland, whether at home or away, you've, how shall I say it, found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

A spokesperson at the United Nations refused to comment on the specific plan but hinted: "Can you feel us smiling on First Avenue? Close your eyes and imagine that you can. Obama should be king for life. He is a king."

A source at one of the leading Irish immigration groups in New York said: "Yeah, we're happy. Are you surprised? Who wouldn't be? It's been a hard slog, you know. We've all been on tenterhooks, working three jobs, nights and whatnot, but it was worth the wait, I can tell you. It'll be nice to connect up with your bank account again and see all those zeds in a conga line on the ATM receipt.

"So, yeah, it'll be great to join the gentry, fly first-class, wear designer clothes. Man, money sure feels good when you've been walking around a waitress, a nanny, a doorman, tending bar part-time, bagging groceries or on a construction site with the wind blowing up your torn back-pocket."

"We decided to purposely leak this story to one of the smaller papers as a deliberate symbolic act to demonstrate how our plan is going to work," the Cabinet source explained.

"This is an evolving, macroeconomic, grass roots type of strategy, carefully thought out, to get the world's economy back on its feet. So not only are we going to start with one of the smaller countries - over-infusing it with relatively enormous amounts of cash as a way to kind of, sort of, shock the economy out of its doldrums and the depressed insolvent masses into solvency - we're going to percolate the details up through the smaller news organs, wafting prosperity skyward, as it were, as a way to revive the newspaper industry.

"The press has taken a bad beating of late, a terrible beating, but, through thick and thin, our reporters, that is, our supporters, they've been really helpful, so not only are we going to bail them out with the big bucks, we're going to fuel the industry with substantial breaking news stories as well.

"It says somewhere, I don't know exactly where, but you can look it up, a wise man said long ago: 'Those who are last were denied their rights or they'd be first.' So this is what you might call a 'bottom to top' strategy.

"Stay with us. It's going to catch fire. We're a hundred percent sure. We didn't win this election in a landslide by promising more failed policies of trickle-down economics. We won by promising hope, by promising change you can believe in. Well, here it is. This is a life preserver for the whole world, the first of many. Deal with it or drown."