I know that sometimes I come off as a hard-nosed, cold-hearted cynic, with nary a compassionate bone in my body. While it’s not entirely a well-honed act, there are those occasions – rare as they may be – when even I am moved by the plight of others.

For instance, there are times when I can’t help thinking how difficult it must be to go through life as a liberal. Assuming they haven’t undergone a lobotomy or experienced extensive shock therapy sessions, how do they get through even a single day? Are they all partaking of psychotherapy? If so, even I can’t help empathizing. I can see the poor boob stretched out on the couch, venerable old Dr. Kochenlocher seated behind him, taking notes and occasionally muttering a venerable “hmmm,” as the poor broken creature rambles on, giving vent to his conscious mind, his subconscious mind and his unconscious mind. At these prices, nobody wants to risk getting short-changed.

“Dr. Kochenlocher, it all began like a wonderful dream. Here was this young Lochinvar with his message of hope and change, and he had such audacity! But once he became president, everything seemed to change. He promised transparency, but he kept secrets. Not little things like his birth certificate, his college application and his grades, either, but even the contents of his legislation. We were told we’d have 72 hours to ruminate about pending bills, and then, suddenly, we were told that they’d have to be passed before we’d find out what was in them. Isn’t that like having to buy a car before you even get to see it? Like a trillion dollar car?”

“Hmmm.”

“He said he’d end all wars, but then started a new one. He also said he would lower the oceans, but even I knew he was kidding about that. He was kidding about that, wasn’t he, Doc? He also promised amnesty for illegal aliens, but he soon showed he was no Ronald Reagan when it came to amnesty. He swore he’d shut down Gitmo and give all the inmates speedy civilian trials, but (sob) he was just saying those things because he knew how much I wanted to hear them. And now…now I feel so cheap.”

At this point, the good doctor hands the guy one of his monogrammed tissues and says, “Get a grip. You still love his smile, don’t you? Come on…you know you do. You still love the way he reads from a Teleprompter as if he’s searching for just the right word, and that cute little way he has…of breaking up…his sentences when…he gives a…speech. Don’t ask for the moon, you little dummkopf, you’ve got the star. That’ll be $200. Make the check out to the DNC.”

“Oh, Dr. Kochenlocher, I keep forgetting to ask; how do you really feel about ObamaCare?”

“Don’t get me started!”

Of course we conservatives can scoff. We haven’t suffered the shattering of our child-like illusions. We never bought Obama’s promises of bi-partisanship and racial harmony. Instead, because we had paid attention to his questionable friends and mentors, his voting record in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. Senate, his connection to a racist church, his anti-oil-and-coal energy policy, and his insistence on a redistribution of wealth, we suspected that millions of American voters had simply been placed in a trance. At least that was the kindest explanation. After all, the only other reason for anyone to have been shocked to find that a radical leftist with racist tendencies had been elected president was stupidity of a degree unparalleled in human history, or at least going as far back as the unveiling of the Edsel.

I have actually heard people, including some on the Right, spring to Obama’s defense, insisting that, after all is said and done, he’s a fine husband and a wonderful father. Being neither his wife nor one of his children, I can’t comment. The family makes for a nice Christmas card, especially when they bring in the dog for the photo op, but I can’t pretend to know what their personal life is like. Heck, I don’t even know if Obama’s mother-in-law is still hanging around the White House. If the First Family served as an inspiration so that we saw a lowering of the 70% illegitimate birth rate that plagues the black community, I’d say it was a good thing. But nothing thus far suggests that’s the case.

When it comes to presidents, it’s their policies I care about. All the rest is well- produced publicity pap. In most cases, it’s only years later that we find out that FDR and Eisenhower carried on with their female aides; that Jack Kennedy carried on with anything that breathed; that Mrs. Nixon, Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Carter, had drug and/or booze-related problems; and that Jimmy Carter and daughter Amy apparently treated their Secret Service agents with less respect than Simon Cowell displays towards those pathetic wannabes who bomb on his shows.

Speaking of pathetic wannabes brings us back to Barack Obama. Whatever one might say about Herbert Hoover, at a time when the nation was suffering through a financial meltdown, when millions of people were losing their jobs and their homes, we didn’t see the Hoovers hopping on $150,000-an-hour jets and flying off on exotic vacations and hobnobbing with every half-baked celebrity in the universe. And for all you nitpickers out there, it wasn’t just because jet planes hadn’t been invented yet. It was because for all his possible shortcomings as the nation’s chief executive, Mr. Hoover was a decent man and had a clear sense of what was appropriate to the office.

Instead, we had Obama coming on TV to show us a birth certificate. And didn’t he sound annoyed and downright peeved, as if we had been the ones hiding it, along with college applications, college grades and medical records, for all this time!

In no uncertain terms, he scolded us: “We do not have time for silliness. I do not have time for silliness.”

Well, I should say not. Not so long as there are golf balls to hit, basketballs to shoot and fists to bump with sports and show biz millionaires.

“And while we’re on the subject,” he might have gone on, “don’t waste my valuable time with those other silly things like unemployment, gasoline prices, chaos in the Middle East, a nuclear Iran and a $14 trillion deficit. In case you don’t know it, I’m an important dude and I have a plane to catch. Oprah’s waiting for me and my old lady in Chicago, some big money guys have a check with my name on it in New York, and thanks to my having to spend time here, proving that I’m constitutionally eligible to be the Wizard of Oz, I mean President, I’ll probably only be able to squeeze in nine holes this afternoon.”

And somewhere in this great land of ours, a poor soul is making a phone call: “Hello? Dr. Kochenlocher…”