Yeah, yeah, I know: His lips are moving. But in preparation for the first 2012 presidential debate Wednesday night, Hugh Hewitt has catalogued a few of Obama’s “poker tells.” The Greatest Orator in Human History always has certain little giveaways that tell you a particularly egregious lie is comin’ right up:

Talk show hosts love when the president gives one of his very rare press conferences or any other occasion when he is off prompter. That is when these “tells” surface, giving all veteran Obama observers the verbal heads-up that the president has entered the land of thinly disguised fantasy or obvious dissembling.

First, the president begins a pattern of “ahs” and “uhmms” which are as embarrassing as they are revealing. The awkward pausing punctuated by these semi-stutters increases in frequency as the president senses his own flailing about.

Next, the president begins filibustering. His average length of answer in every press conference is already epic, but he has been getting worse as the presidency has dragged on…

Watch as well for nonresponsive self-pity, verbal essays on how difficult it was when he took over and how hard he has been working. Self-pity and self-regard are not designed to endear him to the unemployed or even the economically fragile, so he will be coached to try to avoid displaying his sense of outrage at being thought a failure or “in over his head,” but the president’s sense of his own immensity is so great as to blow past such base political calculations…