D.C. shell game: Now you see it, now you don't!

President Obama's poll numbers were down last week, but poll numbers don't stop a president from doing what he wants to do - not if he controls both houses of Congress.

So it was full-steam ahead for the president and the Democratic Party on the multi-billion-dollar "cap and trade" legislation, on multi-billion-dollar health-care reform, and on promoting economic recovery by spending ourselves into oblivion.

Unfortunately, a little old country editor can't single-handedly bring common sense to a Washington, D.C., power establishment that is top-heavy with ego and bottom-fattened with lobbyists' lard. Nonetheless, it's time to spend a Montana minute exploring the labyrinthine recesses of the shell game that is national politics.

Maybe you don't know the classic 'shell game," but this country editor happened to grow up near New York City, so I know all about how easy it is for a fool and his money to be parted. I remember one trip to Little Italy, in particular, with some of my college cronies that had us begging for bus fare home from the street hustler who had swindled us out of all our money. After he gave us back a ten spot, he also gave us a lecture free of charge: "It wasn't me that took away your money; it was your own stupid greed. Consider this a lesson, boys - and you got it cheap!"

Of course, that kind of hustle could never happen in the corridors of power, could it? There's no way that our elected leaders could play us for fools, lull us into a false sense of optimism, sucker us into putting up our wad of cash, and then hammer us over the head with our own stupidity. "Au contraire, mon frere," as we college chums used to wisely intone. "To the contrary."

What got me reminiscing about the con games that provided an education for me and some other 20-year-old know-it-alls during the ironically named "Feast of the Assumption" was the president's press conference "on health care" last week. It was fun to watch the president try to hide the "massive cost" pea under the various cups represented by the "mean old insurance companies," "money-grubbing doctors' and "Republican audacity."

But what ultimately gave the game away was the final question of the press conference, asked by one Lynn Sweet of Chicago, the president's hometown. Sweet was scheduled to be the last questioner of the night all along. We know that because the president wasn't calling on reporters at random, but based on what his Teleprompter told him to do. After a mix-up in which a reporter took a question out of turn, the president answered the correct reporter's question briefly, and then announced, "All right, I tried to make that short so that Lynn Sweet would get her last question in."

At which point, Sweet turned the national conversation from health care to … race.

It was she who asked the president to weigh in on the arrest of his Harvard friend, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., for disorderly conduct. Turns out that Professor Gates was seen "breaking into" his own house when the door got stuck. When the police got the call, they dispatched a patrol car to the scene as you would hope they would, and the responding officer, Sgt. James Crowley, tried to find out exactly what was going on. Professor Gates decided he was being harassed because he was black and initially refused to hand over identification to establish that he did indeed live in the residence. He shouted out, "This is what happens to black men in America," to a small crowd that had gathered outside his house, and was then arrested.

President Obama, after admitting he had not seen all the facts, said that the "Cambridge Police acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, and hinted that this was one more case of "racial profiling" by law officers.

"There is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact… And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in this society," the president said.

You could make a case that the president put his foot in his mouth here. After all, the arresting officer has no history of racism, and indeed teaches a course for police officers on how to recognize and avoid racial profiling. Moreover, the assisting officer at the scene was a Latino who noted in his report that "the gentleman [Professor Gates' refused to be cooperative."

But if you were to actually pay attention to this issue at all, you would be making the same mistake that my friends and I made back in 1975 at the Feast of the Assumption: We "assumed" that if we kept our eye on the "pea" we would be able to win a game that was invented hundreds of years ago for the express purpose of being unwinnable.

Professor Gates may or may not have done anything wrong; Sgt. Crowley may or may not have done anything wrong; even President Obama may not have done anything wrong in calling the police 'stupid." Let's assume he was right. It doesn't matter - because the pitchman's patter isn't about "right" or "wrong"; it is about diversion.

And when all was said and done at Wednesday's press conference, the pea that President Obama had started with - the huge cost of universal health care - was well-hid and undetectable; Congress was digging into its pockets for another wad of cash and getting ready to place another bet on a 'sure thing"; and - just like the last time I got scammed in Little Italy - there was nary a cop in sight to protect us from ourselves.

n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com