WHEN YOU’RE THAT SMART, WHO NEEDS FACTS?

I've only just now begun to appreciate how truly smart IMPOTUS is. (I've tired of hearing and writing the word "Obama" and will refer to him here with this acronym for the phrase he so often uses to refer to himself: "I am the President of the United States.")

For each of the past 10 days IMPOTUS has been on a health (s)care road show with daily speeches, town hall meetings, hospital viewings, and Blue Dog beatings, culminating in that rouser of a press conference Wednesday night.

He and his voice are everywhere thanks to our subservient press providing endless broadcasts of his every move, to the point he is now more over-exposed than Britney Spears in her cobra costume.

For some of these past 10 days I had been blissfully news-free, enjoying a trip to the Tahitian islands: no papers, no TV, no cell phone, no computer, no missile threats, no IMPOTUS. (Well, almost no IMPOTUS. I did get a few tiring questions about him from a couple of French tourists; and our otherwise-charming Tahitian host on a remote atoll off Rangiroa liked to wear the infamous Hope T-Shirt with guess-who's face staring out at me.)

So my mind was fresh from this needed break in the news (re)cycle as I caught up with recent IMPOTUS events upon my return last week. And this past Wednesday night, (unaware that "So You Think You Can Dance?" was a viewing option), I tuned in to the IMPOTUS press conference (notably rescheduled from the 9:00 p.m. slot so IMPOTUS would not have to compete with Britain's Susan Boyle on America's Got Talent.)

Something happened at the end of that press conference which crystallized my view of the man. I don't know how I had missed "getting" it for so long. Despite the claims of his genius IQ from the media and other admirers, foolish me, I had resisted the notion.

But folks, his words in response to that last question have made it clear to me beyond cavil: IMPOTUS is so smart he does not need the facts to come up with answers.

It all came together for me with that softball question about the arrest in Cambridge, Mass. of his friend Henry Gates, an African-American Studies Professor from Harvard. Mr. Gates, a black man, was trying to force open the jammed front door of his home after returning from a trip with the help of his limo driver. An alert neighbor, knowing that there had been burglaries in the area, called the police.

According to the arriving police officer, Mr. Gates became irate, uncooperative and belligerent, screaming accusations of racism at the officer when asked to produce identification. Police claim Gates continued his tirade against officers outside the house, threatening them that they didn't "know who they were dealing with."

The result was Mr. Gates's arrest for disturbing the peace (a crowd of onlookers had gathered and witnessed Gates' bizarre behavior, according to officers.)

Gates undoubtedly has a different story, and I don't presume to suggest what actually happened that night, because I don't have all the facts. But a lack of facts didn't stop IMPOTUS from stating what happened!

In answering the question, IMPOTUS said that "he didn't know the facts" and "wasn't there" and that he was "a friend" of Mr. Gates so he "might be prejudiced." But he then proceeded to take Mr. Gates' s side in the matter, (which no doubt will help Gates in the civil suit he is threatening), pronouncing:

• that the officers were guilty of "acting stupidly,"
  
• that police officers were still using "racial profiling" in America, and
  
• implying that the officer in question had acted from racial motives.

I had to ask myself: How could he so clearly pronounce judgment on a subject about which he admitted in his first breath he did not know the facts?

I had just been asking myself the same question earlier in the press conference when he repeated the now familiar mantra that "if you like your health care, then you can keep your health care" when he had admitted he hadn't read the bill and wasn't fully familiar with the provision on retaining private insurance.

This admission came up in IMPOTUS's taped conference call with left-wing bloggers (the health (s)care road show left no stone unturned) when a blogger said he ran into an Investor's Business Daily (IBD) article that claimed Section 102 of the House Bill would outlaw private insurance. The blogger asked: "Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?"

IMPOTUS replied: "You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about." (Truth is he is not familiar with most of the 1,018 page Bill-said to project costs of $1 Billion per page- which he has not read.) But that didn't keep IMPOTUS from again promising later in the call: "…if you have health insurance, and you like it, and you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period."

But, Houston, we have a problem here: as IBD editorials point out, on page 16 of the Bill is a provision prohibiting changes to existing coverage, and making new coverage illegal. It states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" (of the year the legislation becomes law.) (Investor's Business Daily, Wednesday, July 15, 2009.)

Translation:

• No new policies for private individual coverage can be written after the public option becomes law,
  
• which would not only prevent the previously uninsured from buying private insurance,
  
• but also would prevent those who leave a company to work for themselves from buying individual plans
  from private carriers, and
  
• would prevent changes or additions to existing policies, such as adding new family members or areas of coverage.

Worse yet, if government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance, the private market will die: IMPOTUS can't force employers to keep providing private plans, and many employers will prefer the option of paying a fine, dumping their employees into the public plan.

The Lewin Group, in a July 17 report for a study commissioned by the Heritage Foundation, states that if the House bill becomes law 83.4 million people (nearly half of those currently covered by medical insurance) will lose private insurance because their employers will drop coverage. (Wall Street Journal Opinion "ObamaCare in Trouble" by Karl Rove.)

I got confused at first when comparing the words of IMPOTUS about keeping your coverage to the words of the Bill itself and to commentary by people who had actually studied it.

• I know that IMPOTUS can't be outright lying. To believe that would be to believe his ego is so big, he thinks that there's no whopper too big for us to swallow.
  
• And we know he's not stupid, so this isn't just a mistake.
  
• Some say that IMPOTUS will do anything to push through his radical left-wing Marxist ideology:
  
  • large government is the savior of the masses;
  • amassing power in that government is the first priority, and
  • is an end justifying any means.

The notion that any of these possibilities could be true would mean that those who placed their trust in The One to be a moderate, post-partisan, and post-racial leader were duped.

This is much too painful to contemplate. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that IMPOTUS must simply be so much smarter than the rest of us plebs that he and he alone can see the truth.

• He's so smart that he can see into the soul of a man he's never met and divine racism.
  
• He's so smart he doesn't need to read the health care Bill to know what it says.
  
• He's so smart he doesn't have to bother reconciling his promises to the actual provisions of the Bill.
  
• He's so smart that he knows what's good for us better than we do ourselves.
  
• He's so smart that he can take on the banks, the insurance companies, car companies, the economy, health care, energy, nuclear threats, two wars, and still have time for destroying our existing system of government to replace it with a "better" socialist state, all with only the experience of a community organizer, a short-term state senator and 150 working days in the US Senate.

These things must be true, because if they're not, IMPOTUS is not that smart after all, and is just a dishonest, power-grabbing, ideologically-driven leftist politico who cares more about himself and his radical agenda than the welfare of the American people.