Written by Richard Butrick   

What accounts for the President’s seemingly holier-than-thou attitude toward inconvenient truths? The man seems unphased when his convictions about how reality will unfold turn out to be wrong.

It is hard not to believed he believed it when he intoned with sincerity and conviction and a seer like presence:

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”.

“Today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office”.

Now he tells us on World AIDS Day, that the U.S. will "be at the forefront of the discoveries how to put HIV in long-term remission without requiring lifelong therapies. Or, better yet, eliminate it completely."

The man has gravitas. He can be almost mesmerizing when he envisions the future. Here is Newsweek editor Evan Thomas after Obama delivered his Cairo speech. "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Now it is possible that Obama is a cynical, Machiavellian deliberately deceiving a gullible populace and that he doesn’t believe what he is saying. If that is the case then he is one of the greatest actors the world has ever seen. But I am going to presume that is not the case. That leaves the remaining possibility that what he says with mesmerizing conviction is what he believes. He has shown us the way and if we follow his vision what he promises will come to pass. Mission accomplished.

That also means that the President’s “lies” about health care were not out-and-out deliberate deceptions because Obama at some level believes that an inspiring articulation of a plan in terms of its intended objectives will somehow rightfully effect the implementation - or at least that he has fulfilled his role as “commander” in chief to show us the way. At some level he begins to believe that his morally based vision and inspiring rhetoric commands or should rightfully command reality. In a rebuttal to Hillary Clinton in 2008,Obama claimed,

"Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream’, just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self evident that all me are created equal’ – just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself?’ – just words. Just speeches."

That things do not turn out the way he envisioned is our fault. If only we had listened. He has shown us the way. If we do not follow in the path of righteous it is not his fault.

The Obama Factor. We fell for a charismatic, postmodern Armani suit with a messiah complex stoked by the media. I don’t know about you but for me, next time, it is hard-nosed realism and competence over charisma and visions of sugar plums.