Impervious

Did you hear Obama say the other day that he was "not informed directly" that the ObamaCare website didn't work?

Second question. (Laughter.) You were informed or several people in this building were informed two weeks before the launch of the website that it was failing the most basic tests internally; and yet a decision was made to launch the website on October 1st. Did you, sir, make that test (sic)? And if so, did you regret that?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: OK. On the website, I was not informed directly that the website would not be working as -- the way it was supposed to. Ha[d] I been informed, I wouldn't be going out saying, boy, this is going to be great. You know, I'm accused of a lot of things, but I don't think I'm stupid enough to go around saying, this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity, a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn't going to work.

I suppose it's possible that nobody told him, but I think it's more likely he knew there were problems with the website, but decided to ignore them and go ahead with the October 1st rollout.  When he realized how badly he misjudged, he went to the line about how he's not that stupid.  

While there might be plenty of evidence to support you, it's generally not a good idea to disagree with Obama on that point.  For one thing you're immediately branded as racist.  That hasn't bothered Mark Steyn.

Ooooo-kay. So, if I follow correctly, the smartest president ever is not smart enough to ensure that his website works; he’s not smart enough to inquire of others as to whether his website works; he’s not smart enough to check that his website works before he goes out and tells people what a great website experience they’re in for. But he is smart enough to know that he’s not stupid enough to go around bragging about how well it works if he’d already been informed that it doesn’t work. So he’s smart enough to know that if he’d known what he didn’t know he’d know enough not to let it be known that he knew nothing. The country’s in the very best of hands.

Unlike Steyn, I think Obama's miscalculation is not stupidity.  As we read further down in Obama's press conference I think it becomes obvious that Obama's faith in his own brilliance is blinding.  Look at this admission he offered up in the guise of humility.  

What we're discovering is that part of the problem has been technology, hardware and software, and that's being upgraded. But even if we get the -- the hardware and software working exactly the way it's supposed to with relatively minor glitches, what we're also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy. 

Well, OK.  Admitting to making such a discovery it this late stage may have been stupid.  Just imagine yourself in private industry as the sponsor of a large IT project, one that's been taking three years to get off the ground, and when it finally debuts as a production system it's a complete disaster.  Now imagine yourself explaining to the stakeholders that you've just now come to realize that the business is... well, it's complicated.  

Since you're not Obama you'd have been expected to know, not only that it's complicated, but how complicated and how your system was designed to address such complexities.  Not knowing is not doing your job.  Somehow, Obama is oblivious to what his belated realization really means.  

If it has only recently occurred to him that buying insurance might be complicated, it's pretty clear that he hasn't given a thought to what else might be complicated about insurance.  How about the complications involved in devising an insurance plan and putting together all of the managerial, technical, and financial resources so that premiums can be collected, claims can be paid, customers and the company can be protected from fraud, and it can continue in business?  Failing to consider all of the possible complications is not stupidity, it's arrogance.  It's the absolute conviction that he, Barack Obama, knew all that he needed to know. 

Baby steps, I suppose.  At least he's acknowledged that there was this one time something he didn't know.  But even though he admits that it turned out, after all, to be important, I doubt that he thinks that he, Obama, should be expected to have understood it beforehand — somebody beneath him, maybe, though to inform Obama directly might be asking too much.

For the sake of perspective, it's important to note that Obama's goal has always been the transformation of America.  By comparison ObamaCare is somewhere down the list of priorities.  So the healthcare website doesn't work?  That can be fixed.  It's just a tool for implementing ObamaCare as ObamaCare itself is just a step towards the ultimate transformation of America.  Obama's goal is for America to be a utopian paradise.  He remains impervious to any argument that it would be the world's first, after hundreds of years of attempts.  There have always been these complications, you see.  But Obama remains confident.  He's smartest guy in the room and he means to pull it off.  What could possibly go wrong?