"Ignorance Is Bliss" As Political Ploy

He wants us to believe him.

During his speech in St. Charles, Missouri just days before the US House of Representatives passed his health care reform legislation, Barack Obama told us all what he does not know:

You know what, here’s the bottom line, St. Charles. I don't know how the politics play. I don't know. This is a hard issue. It’s a complicated issue. There is a lot of information floating around out there. A lot of it is inaccurate.(†) The opponents have spent millions of dollars fighting it. And people during recessionary times, they’re anxious and sort of thinking, gosh, can we really afford to change things right now? Maybe we should just kind of stick with the status quo, even though we know it’s not working for us.

So I don't know how the politics plays. But here’s what I do know:  The American people will be more secure with this reform. Our country will be stronger because of this reform. I don’t know about the politics. But I know it is the right thing to do, and that’s why I’m fighting so hard to get it done. [bold mine, added for emphasis]

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Barack Obama has a serious problem. Whenever he speaks, many astute listeners receive his words with abject incredulity. He speaks with such disrespect of the truth that people can hardly hear him, shutting him off when he most wants to be understood. Or does he not really care if anyone understands him? Maybe he really doesn't care that millions of people have tuned him out. It seems his casual disregard for truth and fact leave him nearly inaudible, as he speaks at a frequency few care to hear, having passed their threshold for pain. We all know the truth can be painful, and we accept that. But it is undeniable that Mr. Obama fails to comprehend his falsehoods are painful, and that we therefore reject them.

In the passage above, Mr. Obama, the president of the United States, claims he's ignorant of the politics regarding health care reform legislation. Really? A sitting president does not know the politics of a major issue? That's quite amazing. But if this is true, surely it is safe to conclude the president is incompetent.

And if it is false, then Mr. Obama is a liar.

No one, of course, believes Mr. Obama is as ignorant as he claims. Everyone knows he knows what he claims he does not. His apology tour proves this; going forth with a busload of talking points to try and sell health care legislation -- ex post facto -- to a doubting public proves he does know the politics, and that he always did. No doubt he was simply trying to portray himself as the noble crusader, indifferent to his own future: My ignorance of the politics, of how all this will play out, proves I am more concerned for you than my own political future. Or so he implies, though it is indeed hard to reconcile such thoughtful altruism with his claim he "does not know the politics" and his subsequent hard-sell to a public that refuses to acquiesce merely because of his good intentions.

Of course, the one thing Mr. Obama genuinely did not know was his own health care bill. And he still doesn't know it. This is particularly evident today as we learn that sick children, those with certain "pre-existing health conditions," won't receive health care coverage immediately -- as promised -- but in 2014 (or so it is reported). The strategy to bring such "immediate" relief to needy children was surely bold and new: Let's pass the bill first so we can all fall in love with it. After that, well, maybe then we'll look at what's in it. But bold and new is, in this case, undeniably pathetic.

Ignorance -- and feigned ignorance -- are sadly what "change looks like."

Permit me to borrow Mr. Obama's own words: "Here's what I do know" --  that this, truly, is an ironic presidency.

†"A lot of it is inaccurate" implies that some of it isn't.

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