And Now, a Public Address from the President of the United States

"I’ve said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts.

"I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed."

"It's like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, but the original one. You know, from '74. And I'm Walter Matthau. No, no, wait; I guess I'm the mayor. So I'm paying because of the people on the train.

"It's the American people on the train, and it's a runaway train. But the Republicans aren't even on the train. We have an undercover guy watching them not on the train.

(Aside directed away from mic: "Is that supposed to be Snowe? ... Biden says it's him? That doesn't make any sense.")

"Anyway, the Republicans are dividing the money. But one of them will electrocute himself. Maybe some of you haven't seen this movie. Just stay with me here.

"The point remains that electrocuting yourself, like a tax cut for the rich, is bad. But we can't allow the American people on the train to get hurt, so we're not going to crash the motorcycle carrying the ransom. We will only allow the top motorcycle driver in the country to deliver the ransom for the American people, and we will not lie about being at the tunnel. At the end of which, there is a light... the light of jobs.

(Aside directed away from mic: "When you wrote this, had you even watched this movie recently? ... Why didn't you just use 'Die Hard'?")

"Look. We all know that runaway trains kill people, and so we have to pay the Republican hijackers so that they will electrocute themselves and not shoot the American people who are on the train that the Republicans are not on... they would be shooting them not directly in this case because they're in different places, but indirectly, and just as harmfully, with .... money, or taking their money ... with shooting, which is involved. Really with today's technology, you could have a gun that shoots in one area and the bullet tracks its target and follows it to kill it. Actually that's something like a missile.

"The Republicans want to kill you with missiles. Thank you. Yippee ki yay, my fellow Americans and goodnight."