“The Five Year Plan Was Overfullfilled”

Richard Fernandez on the ObamaCare rollout:

What most frightens those who have ever built a database application isn’t finding that it doesn’t work, but discovering, after some minutes of false satisfaction, that you are getting different answers to the same query.

Most professionals will try to fix the problem. But there’s another alternative. Hide it. Pretend the system works and keep up the charade as long as you can.

With the online portal inoperative, Obama pivoted to the alternative: use the telephone, except after you give your information to the operator she tries to enter it into the inoperative computer program. But no matter, it works as intended.

But at least the public feels better. Obamacare may not give you insurance to treat your dread disease, but it gives you the Hope that you will. And if you keep feeling hopeful until you’re too sick to care then the problem is solved. What the Administration apparatchiks are now worrying about is how to keep the public from ever learning the truth about their higher insurance premiums

To further cool the mark, there will be other distractions

It’s a brilliant move, relying on the well proven fact that no one remembers a toothache after being struck on the head by a 64 ounce hammer, a treatment whose efficacy has often been demonstrated by Moe on Curly Joe. By applying this sovereign remedy it is virtually certain that by this time next month no one will remember Obamacare because they’ll be caught up in some new catastrophe.

Of course none of this fixes the problem, merely hides it and spins it away; a process similar to pasting a static picture on the front glass of a dead Iphone to make it seem like it’s working. It may not be working at all, but it won’t matter as long as the customer is distracted long enough for the vendor to sell it and get away.

The Economist says that Barack Obama’s supporters are worried that he is “a terrible manager”. Nothing could be further than the truth. He can sell anything, even if the product never ever works.