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Another Perspective
Reflection on Brains and Barack
Obama’s and Palin’s minds may or may not be of different quality.
The premise by which our bipartisan ruling class has claimed the right to direct ever more of our lives with ever less of our consent is that it is better suited to do so, because it is brighter than the rest of us. In growing diametric conflict with any and all notions of democracy, this class and its attitude have been growing since the Progressive era of a century ago. For many decades it expressed its claim mostly in small venues, without challenging directly the generally accepted notion the governed have every right to grant or withhold the powers of government. Nevertheless, the class and its presumption were so obvious by the 1950s that William F. Buckley’s quip that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone directory than by the Harvard-MIT faculty needed no explanation, except to said faculties. In our time, that class’s claim poses arguably our future’s crucial choice.
That choice’s substance, namely by what right anyone rules anyone else, whose vision of the good is to prevail over whose, and why, what role superior and inferior intellectual capacities play, is all important. This reflection however, is on a topic incidental to it: namely by what means can we consider anyone’s claim of intellectual superiority?
Conventional wisdom about Barack Obama’s and Sarah Palin’s intellects illustrates the question. I have not heard Obama’s opponents describe his intellect as anything other than “high” and him as “smart” or “very smart.” Nor have I heard Sarah Palin’s supporters describe her as bright. What can be the basis for judgments so widespread and stark? Keep in mind that none of those who pronounce themselves on Obama’s and Palin’s intellects have the slightest knowledge of what they may be relative to one another, never mind in absolute terms.
The two minds may or may not be of different quality. Knowing the results of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) that both took before college would provide a relative comparison. But neither Obama’s nor Palin’s test scores are public. In fact, it seems that the more any person’s public standing depends on his or her being perceived as bright, the less willing they are to disclose their scholastic record. Obama, specifically has gone to some lengths to block access to his academic records. True, in America, grades don’t tell much, because the quality of courses and the subjectivity of school grades is so great. In other places, such as France, where curricula are standard and grading is objective, they tell a lot and are public, judging leaders’ minds is more possible. In such places also, judgments about people’s intellectual status depends on specific examination of their products. In America, by contrast, the pretense of intellectual worthiness that so many make on behalf of Obama and of others similarly situated is guarded by unwillingness to look, by downright eagerness to assume.
But absent data, on what basis do so many assume that some kinds of people are bright and others so dull as to be disqualified for serious responsibilities? True, the way people present themselves sometimes correlates with underlying qualities. Teachers who have evaluated generations of students do notice that certain types of human beings are more agile and inventive in their use of language than others, that they grasp logical connections more easily than others, etc. At best, it is specific prejudice predicated on general experience. On that basis, I would take odds that Palin and Obama’s SAT’s are within fifty points. But none of this is knowledge. Yet the overwhelming many who treat as knowledge their conclusion about the intellectual capacity of others make no such observations and have no vast bases for comparison.
Their prejudice consists of neither more nor less than preference for, identification with, a certain type of person to whom they then attribute the additional quality “smart.” In other words, the attribution of intelligence proceeds from generalized social preference. People who look sophisticated are supposed to be. Those who are treated deferentially are supposed worthy of that deference. The fact that someone went to a more prestigious school suggests that he studied on a higher level than someone who went to a less prestigious school — though that is often the opposite of the truth. In short, when we attribute intellectual qualities to public figures gratuitously we merely compound conventional wisdom and add one more obstacle to understanding the world around us.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (167) | Leave a comment
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maverick muse| 3.31.10 @ 7:09AM
I have not heard Obama's opponents describe his intellect as anything other than "high" and him as "smart" or "very smart." /end quote.
Where have you been? Granted, I would not expect you to have heard me. Obama may be crafty in Chicago style, but he most certainly seems stuck on stupid.
George F| 3.31.10 @ 12:09PM
Hurray! Somebody brave enough to speak the obvious!
Ron| 3.31.10 @ 4:55PM
If anyone is undecided as to his intelligence, consider the fact that the man cannot speak without a teleprompter in his face. With the right tools, the man is an extraordinary orator. Without the tools he is mediocre at best. He actually missed his true calling, the person who narrates audio books. When he has to speak extemporaneously he can be pathetic and usually is. Does "I've been in 57 states with one left to go" ring a bell? No matter what level of intelligence he has, he must be portrayed as highly intelligent. It is the only hope uber-liberals have that he'll be successful pushing their agenda. Point being his opponents will cower because Obama is so much smarter than them.
Alan Brooks| 3.31.10 @ 5:15PM
I'm tired of her. She got upset because Trig's pwecious wittle feewings might be hoit by Rahm saying the 'R' word-- in reference to people she doesn't like to begin with.
Trig is set for life by now, anyway. If Palin is that sensitive, she can go screw herself.
Cal Mark| 3.31.10 @ 8:17PM
An example of liberals' well-known compassion on display.
Santy Claus| 3.31.10 @ 8:28PM
Maybe you and Drew can get together. You both are low lives, hate Sarah Palin and want to kiss Obummer's ass.
GreyLion | 4.3.10 @ 8:16PM
Alan,
If you would quit eating from the toilet you might be able to quit lisping.
Rufus| 4.4.10 @ 12:06PM
Ron White the comedian said that when he was a member of his school debating team he always won the debate by replying " Oh yeah, well go f...K yourself!" It appears that you went to the same school.
Ron| 4.4.10 @ 4:39PM
Let me guess; you are not a parent, are you? Going on that assumption, we should be grateful. There are more than enough hateful and spiteful people without their breeding more.
Drew | 3.31.10 @ 7:12AM
Quote: William F. Buckley's quip that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone directory than by the Harvard-MIT faculty needed no explanation
Obviously this quote does require explanation: Buckley was arguing that being "governed" by Harvard's faculty was bad - not that the prospect of being governed by random Bostonians was somehow desirable.
Ms. Palin is perceived as, at best, incurious because of the way she treats her audience. She assumes everyone who hears her pronouncements on bridges to nowhere and world geography will accept them as fact.
It was, I believe, a famous Republican President who observed that "you cannot fool all of the people all the time.” Ms Palin would be well advised to keep that dictum in mind.
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.31.10 @ 8:52AM
Folks,
I grade Sarah as extremely bright (smile). She shares a perspective with me on just about everything.
I consider myself very bright. My first two years after high school were in Junior college. I had an opportunity for a full ticket pitching on a national finalist team before transferring over to Baylor University, again, on scholarship.
Interestingly enough, those two years in Junior college turned out to provide me the finest teachers, across the board, one could possibly hope for. I was on the Deans list three semesters.
As many of you know, college level baseball teams play some 40 to 50 games per Spring (3 and 1/2 months)...(half on the road), and perhaps four hour practices every other afternoon except Sundays.
Those Jr. college teachers did not hesitate to come over to the dorm evenings and weekends to keep us caught up. Really dedicated folks.
As many of you know, Baylor is one of the top rated Universities in the country in several disciplines. Many of you have been treated by MDs. that trained at Baylor Med.
Heh, my grades there were very uneven. The grades in courses in and around my major were extremely high.....and the nonsense "broadening" courses....ummm not so good.
I think the descriptive phrase we might adopt is the "intellectual honesty" that I learned in college.
ie: how does one's perceptions and "acceptions" mesh with and succeed in the real world....heh... or not.
Then over years of learning the right "lessons" from experience...heh (mistakes), hone that intellectual honesty.
If the above sorta' meshes with your thinking, then I think you must come down on Sarah's side as personifying an extremely bright human being.
...course I also like her personal courage....a lot.
Rita| 3.31.10 @ 12:32PM
What a pleasure to finally read someone else that can relate to Sarah in a positive manner. I think she is extremely intelligent, both in skill and common sense. You don't have to act smarter than everyone else...just to prove your intelligence. In fact, that's what I admire about Sarah....she doesn't put on an act of any kind or pretense of anything.
Margie| 3.31.10 @ 1:52PM
Amen.
patty| 3.31.10 @ 3:17PM
Sarah has way more common sense and way LESS arrogance than Barack. Sarah understands people--their needs, their hurts, their beliefs. She has her feet on the ground. She loves this country and understands its history (respecting the brilliance and sincerity of its founders).
John Rich| 3.31.10 @ 4:58PM
Amen. Sarah seems to lack some of what we used to call "book learnin'." Obama seems to lack what we used to, and still, call "making a living."
Guess who would be the better leader. What we have is, at best, the moderator at a sophisticated ivy league seminar. Sarah's a leader.
On Baylor: my pastor and one of our assistant pastors are Baylor grads, and, my, they are sharp.
My Stetson's off to you, Old Texican.
History Ph.D.| 4.1.10 @ 9:19PM
We don't know how Obama made it through the Ivy League institutions he attended. Book learning, however, could definitely not have been it, judging from the uninformed, erroneous statements and analogies that flow endlessly from his mouth.
Drew| 3.31.10 @ 7:07PM
Certainly one need not graduate from university (elite, Ivy League or otherwise) to be either intellectual, curious, or smart. This country, and the world in general, are filled with brilliant people in all manner of fields whose formal education stopped at the ninth grade.
But you bring up an interesting phrase (one that is worthy of discussion, and merit, in its own right): "Intellectual Honesty."
What then do you have to say about a woman who lacks the "intellectual honesty" to write her own book; pay for her own clothes; or - as reported today - even conduct her own interviews?
Note: Whining about the elite librul media and sending e-mails in an attempt to get your ex brother-in-law fired also don't really strike me as examples of "personal courage."
Santy Claus| 3.31.10 @ 8:26PM
Well little Drewy baby, if you don't like Sarah you're free to go on kissing the ass of your Obummer dude. No one's stopping you sweetheart.
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.31.10 @ 9:02PM
Hi Drew.
Still yanking on those PROVEN LIES, are you?
Poor baby.
Get some new talking points from your boss for cryin' out loud.
Thank you.
Kathy| 4.1.10 @ 4:41PM
Drew, if you really believe what you've written here, then you're spending way too much time reading misleading leftist talking points. No one who has followed these stories could honestly portray them the way you have.
If you can't look beyond the propaganda, then you're just not intellectually curious.
chuck| 3.31.10 @ 9:01PM
I think too many people put to high a value on a high GPA in college. I have a Chemical Engineering degree, not exactly a walk in the park. My GPA wasn't great, about B-, but I worked my way through college, doing 135 hours in 4 years. Enough blowing my own horn. I had a classmate, a complete ditz, to whom I had to constantly explain things. I was floored when I found out her GPA was a full point higher than mine. Point is, high GPA, or high intellect does equate to common sense. A trait many politicians are lacking.
GregA| 3.31.10 @ 8:53AM
You assume that everyone who hears your pronouncements accepts them as facts. In fact, you assume that everyone wants to hear your factual pronouncements. You can't even fool some of the people some of the time. Please keep that dictum in mind.
Interested Conservative| 3.31.10 @ 9:00AM
It does? Seriously? I thought the primary reply to WFB was why he so favored the A surnames?
Ever heard of the term limits movement? Ever thought of what's wrong with being governed by random Bostonians, or random other citizens?
If Gov. Palin is "at best, incurious", what is the POTUS? What evidence is there of his curiousity, intellectual or otherwise?
She's been a broadcaster, a commercial fisherwoman, a mayor, an executive, I believe helped build a house and cabin, and likely has some emergency training in small aircraft piloting. That's before you even get to "political philosophy". Oh, she also runs marathons.
The POTUS is from Chicago and plays basketball (oops, she did that too). He was a professor and state senator. He's clean and articulate.
But I guess he's very curious.
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 10:06AM
This penny-ante thug had his rigid, small, sadistic, doctrinaire mind made up for him by radical, irresponsible and indifferent parents (funny how radicals are always utter messes in their personal lives). Rootless and unloved – or used - by most adults around him, he bounced around absorbing the Tyrant’s lesson that one can slay one's personal demons by projecting them onto society and then destroying the objects onto which those demons are projected.
He was ushered through the thresholds of successive elite institutions as an affirmative action cracker jack toy for the left without ever being seriously challenged.
(Remember, "President" of the Harvard Law Review is a ceremonial title - not to be confused with the hands-on smarts required to be editor).
And at every stop, the aim was only to burnish his halo, to create an image that would be an effective Trojan horse of the left. Lull the masses to sleep with a gift that will absolve them of the original sin of White Guilt – and once he’s inside the city walls, release the hounds and stick it to the poor schmucks before the intoxication of Being Good wears off.
Why, Obama's personal traits were always irrelevant to his Great Purpose. Of course it's personal traits that actually forge the mettle of REAL presidents, but Obama is not a president; he's a dictator.
Obama is perhaps the most incurious president we've had in my lifetime, and I go back pretty far by now. See, his job is to tell you what you're opinion is and what’s good for you. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your mind right - and right quick.
The guy is facile, in a callow, presumptuous grad student sort of way. I’ll give him that. But he didn’t exactly win MENSA points with that shocking performance in front of Brett Baier, the only journalist to challenge Our Dear Leader (may he live and rule over us with benign wisdom for 1,000 years!). Those watching carefully might have noticed that the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes at all.
But emotional intelligence? Overall knowledge? Understanding of economics? History? Geography? Philosophy? Religion? Science? Math? Human nature? Compassion? Please.
He can’t even fake decorum. Because he doesn’t give a damn about any of that. He and his administration are too busy engineering the institutional shock collar that will FINALLY bring the people to heel with the push of a button.
The dude's a ZERO. Less than zero, actually. What he doesn't know could fill a galaxy, and what he does know is untenable hogwash, populist hokum and long-disproven tenets of a moribund ideology.
But you libs didn’t hire him for his smarts. You hired him to be a mirror to reflect the pleasing image of your own moral vanity, or perhaps because your bank accounts benefit from his breathtaking, blatant corruption. Maybe you really believe that THIS time, unlike throughout the rest of history, Obama will get socialism right. Or corporate cronyism, or fascism, or Marxism, or whatever facet of this tyranny is prettiest to you.
Or maybe you just hate the legions of regular, hardworking people who once made this country great. Yeah, the Trojan horse is now within the city walls. And still, after he wreaks utter havoc and destroys the edifice of this country, smashing institutions and killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, you people look upon the destruction and wonder how it could have happened; it looked so good on paper.
As Forrest Gump (or was it Bill Clinton?) said, “stupid is as stupid does.”ll Clinton?) said, “stupid is as stupid does.”
Ned| 3.31.10 @ 10:34AM
rather nicely put - hope you don't mind as I cut and paste and send it to all my friends... not sure
they'll understand an attribution to "Grzmlyk" though...
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 10:58AM
Thanks, Ned.
I really don't mean to go on and on when I start these posts , but I just think we are in unchartered waters, and I want so badly for people - many of them former friends of mine - to wake up to this coup and to the reality of socialism.
It's so frustrating & this is my steam valve.
GregA| 3.31.10 @ 11:29AM
Grz,
Awesome...totally awesome.
G
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 11:57AM
Thanks, Greg.
The way I interpret Buckley's famous comment is that any random sampling of ordinary Americans would have a greater likelihood of acting for the true common good (not the socialists' wet dream) than a bunch of narcissistic, over-inflated, navel-gazing, cowardly professors who've never had to meed a payroll, and for whom the real business of everyday life is just as abstract as string theory is to physicists.
That's why I like Sarah. She may not be the thinker Reagan was, but she is bright, she is decent, she is courageous, she is real and she understands innately what makes America great.
And that catapults her far beyond Obama and his confederacy of dunces. And compared to the phony insects the Dems have run in the last couple of elections - Gore and Kerry - she's a towering intellect.
chuck| 3.31.10 @ 9:10PM
Second paragraph sums it up perfectly, Bright, decent courageous ,real, and knows what makes America great. I felt an instant connection with her when I heard speak at the announcement of being picked by McCain. I was working, listening to it on the radio, and all I could think of was "wow, this woman is the real deal".
vitadMD| 3.31.10 @ 12:10PM
Bravo and well done!
After being a nurse and then a physician for many years, I interacted with many, many kinds of people, from all walks of life. As a first generation Lithuanian American I learned very early in life about socialism and lived in Soviet Lithuania for two months where I met many kinds of people there living under a completely different system.
One gets a sense of a person's intelligence not by finding out where they went to school or for how long... or what kind of work they do. Intelligence is appreciated by interacting with people.... and, boy have we had an interesting interaction with Obama, although at a distance... I must agree that he reveals very little understanding about history, economics, geography, religion and philosophy. He does seem to know quite a bit about socialism, however. Reminds me of that Reagan quote about liberal friends having so much knowledge that is wrong.
As far as Gov. Palin is concerned, I think that people would have a very different impression of her if they had seen the great interview she gave with Larry Kudlow on energy about six months prior to her nomination, if they had done their own research of her record, if they had not allowed themselves to be conned by media, political operatives, and SNL.
I find your analysis intelligent and reflective of much research, attention to detail, and thoughtfulness... look forward to reading more of your comments...
K. Dupre| 3.31.10 @ 12:18PM
Oh Grzmlyk! I think I might be in love with your comment.
NavyBrat | 3.31.10 @ 12:50PM
Grzmlyk. I also offer my congrats for one of the best posts I've read on any site in quite some time. And I too will be copying your post & emailing it to all of my like-minded friends (nod to Ned for the idea). As to your Trojan horse analogy, I also agree. Here's an appropriate quote to describe traitors like OhBummer & his ilk:
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."...Cicero
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 1:10PM
Thank you K Dupre.
Navy Brat, that quote is PERFECT. Funny how there's never really anything new under the sun.
Too bad so many credulous fools think Obama IS new - I mean, all that hope and change malarkey - even the pabulum was warmed over cotton candy that dissolves upon initial contact with reality.
In reality, of course, he's as old as corruption itself, as old as the con game, as old as the exploitation of naivete. And his ideas are moth-eaten retreads from two centuries ago. Obama's not the father of Obamacare - Bismark is.
But for most liberals, "progressivism" (or whatever they're calling it at the moment) is the eternal and changeless triumph of hope over experience. For the rest, it's the ill-gotten gains such foolishness yields.
And for those of us who use our eyes to see, it is the road to serfdom.
Campy| 3.31.10 @ 3:05PM
Grz,
Don't know if you ever started your blog, but as a graphics professional, allow me to offer completely free layout/pre-print services for any book you might ever seek to print. Think about it... Do your (sleeping) former friends ever read your posts here at AS? Do you have other forums/mediums through which libs hear your words? They need to.
Here, while you are SO appreciated, you are singing to the choir—excepting an errant troll or two. I submit that articulate, succinct, countering, voice-of-reason is essential and vital. Contact me if at all inclined or anyway! always8@livedotcom. Am very serious.
C.
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 3:17PM
Campy, THANK YOU.
I will contact you. I never did start the blog - got bogged down with Godaddy passwords and then got busy.
I will contact you tonight.
Thank you very, very much.
victor| 3.31.10 @ 4:55PM
Gryz:
"Funny how there's never really anything new under the sun."
Ain't it the Truth.
As soon as you said that, I was reminded of these verses written by Solomon, 3000 years ago:
Ecc 1:9 "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.
Ecc 1:10 Is there a thing of which it is said, "See, this is new"? It has been already, in the ages before us.
Ecc 1:11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after."
And that thought was already old when Solomon put pen to paper.
That was a great post!
Margie| 3.31.10 @ 2:21PM
Beautiful. A standing O is in order! Thank you Grz, for this excellent contribution! Now, can you just imagine if a Presidential candidate would speak this way!
To The Liberal Readers of the world~ Read it and Weep!
He's Reagan with a twist!
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 3:05PM
Margie, you are so nice. Thank you.
Anthony| 3.31.10 @ 2:39PM
The "Moral Vanity" of the Left. Well said. Game, Set and Match to Mr. Grzmlyk.
May I add the Moral Vanity of the Left is the malignancy of Liberalism.
P.S. It was Forrest Gump. Bill Clinton said "Better put some ice on that".
Grzmlyk| 3.31.10 @ 3:04PM
Touche, Anthony! :-)
essequamvideri| 3.31.10 @ 9:52PM
Brilliant!
Grzmlyk, you definitely need a broader audience.
Please do a blog or submit to Spectator or AmThink or SOMETHING - you've got too much talent to squander it commenting on boards.
Not that there's anything wrong with that ... ;>)
aes | 4.2.10 @ 1:34PM
well spoke/i spent 10 years doing business in hawaii. obama is a dope smoking charity case to punahou/black my ass/he doesn't know what he is/he is a neo-black/yeh i had a friend that was the editor of harvard law review/he did not make the linguistic errors, that this hawaiian hillbilly masquerading as malcom X/black my ass/ his sedar would have been ramadan if he thought he could get away with it/would have been more honest/i was at silicon valley when the left was the intelligencia/then i went to war, established businessess, hired and fired, had children and live on a mountain outside of rio in a bauhaus i built and designed amidst the atlantic rainforest/i have sons on nuclear subs, and helos/i was in the diamond businesss for 30 years all over the world/you learn who to trust/its instinctual/we do business with people like palin and minnisotans and iowans/we do not do business with people like chicagoans/nice suit, dirty underwear. your perception is spot on./the left are an anachronism, like eugenics/
FRW55| 7.18.10 @ 10:11PM
I realize this is 4 months later, but I'm just now reading your response. WOW! The Trojan Horse analogy is spot on.
Marek| 3.31.10 @ 3:16PM
POTUS was an adjunct (part time) professor and was elected unopposed to his state senate seat due to Daley machine fooling around. He was elected to the US Senate when his very capable Republican opponent withdrew over an overblown account of conduct that occurred prior to his divorce. He was replaced by Alan Keyes, a strange man, maybe a good man but a horrible campaigner who was not from Illinois!!
My feeling on the perception of intellect or lack of it all comes down to how we handle the English language. Dole, McCain, Bush and Bush were TERRIBLE public speakers. John Kerry (who by the way served in Viet Nam) was a good speaker but such a snob he couldn't get out of his own way. By comparison BO is a very good speaker, with perfect pitch. He reads the teleprompter very well and can sound bright on anything for about 2 minutes. In our sound bite society, what more does anyone need? If the Republicans hope to throw the current bunch of scoundrels, theives and scum out of office they need to find someone who is an orator. Sad to say folks, it isn't Ms. Palin. I like her ideas but she sounds like a hick kindergarten teacher
CDJ| 3.31.10 @ 3:33PM
Just FYI:
The statements by the U of Chicago about P-BO being a "professor" seem to be stretching the normal term, likely as a source of pride that P-BO was in their employ for twelve years. Their statement is that he "served as professor," which is not the same as "being" a professor. He was actually first a lecturer, then a senior lecturer at UC. Of course calling himself a professor makes him so much more intelligent to us angry crackers, dunces that we are ........
Just another way to manipulate the facts, something lawyers, especially those from Chicago, are trained to do.
Alborn| 3.31.10 @ 5:48PM
Do not forget that he was a community organizers who taught others how to bring down the government of the USA by overwhelming the government by signing up for all the welfare programs available.
danfromatlanta| 3.31.10 @ 11:11AM
I don't understand! Exactly what (aside from what Tina Fay's characature of Sarah has said) has Sarah Palin said to make you think she is any less bright than the obamanation? Is it the young earth beliefs that have been attributed to her? I have to side with those that believe that evolutionists are just as much a religious cult as any set of liberals. The acceptance of conventional wisdom without the curiosity to investigate it is one of the primary reasons we have so many willing to cede their freedoms to elitists.
Kathy| 4.1.10 @ 4:32PM
Liberals get into trouble when they try to explain the working of the conservative mind. They don't understand it, but they're sure it's really bad and evil. And "incurious". When that happens, their arguments become totally incoherent. Like Drew's.
Tim| 3.31.10 @ 7:14AM
Soooo , Why is Obama hiding his undergraduate records from Occidental and Columbia.
Why did Obama fail to make the publicly listed Honors Role.
Affirmative Action Boy ?
Figure It Out !
coal carrier| 3.31.10 @ 7:20AM
Just because someone is labeled “smart” doesn’t necessarily make him or her intelligent.
Tim*| 3.31.10 @ 7:27AM
Geoffrey Kabaservice, political historian :
"Anyone who is a minority and who's come up partially through the meritocracy — getting into good colleges, and subsequently good law schools — is going to come under suspicion that there was some kind of affirmative action boost," he said. "I suspect this is an area of discomfort for Obama."
Interesting !
martin j smith| 3.31.10 @ 7:29AM
Take away the support of the MSM ( that means the press corps treats BHO the way they treated GWB )
BHO would not be seen as so "brilliant".
arlo price| 3.31.10 @ 7:35PM
It's press 'corpse' like obummer said.
Kitty| 3.31.10 @ 7:32AM
With all of O's school documents locked up and hidden from the public, I was left with his work history, what there was of it. I concluded that he was woefully underqualified for the position of president. In fact if he had been white, he would have been advised to first get a real job with some experience, even if it was in politics.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand, does have a work record, in the public sector. She's run a business and a town and a state. She's negotiated successfully with the energy industry: http://online.wsj.com/article/.....lenews_wsj
No one would have questioned these qualifications -- if she had been a man.
Fourteen months into his term, it's easy to conclude that O is a danger to America and Sarah Palin is the savvy one.
...
Ret. Marine| 3.31.10 @ 7:44AM
Of all the intellectuals I have had the misfortune to run across in my life I have noticed one thing they lack, common sense. Sarah Palin has, and can prove it, had the experience of small town USA, exective experience, and the common sense required of all of us to navigate this complex world in which we find ourselves living in. Can we say the same of the attack of barack. Yeah I didn't think so.
jimm| 3.31.10 @ 7:54AM
Like most I am guilty of judging politicians based on personal likes/dislikes than on their proven/tested abilities, I will strive to be more impartial in the future. I am concerned about the overall number of attorneys in all levels of government & believe they are the single biggest impediment to getting things done the way the voters intended when they were elected. Their pompous arrogance,particularly in Washington,should be reason enough to impose term limits & stop them from enriching themselves & their cronies at the trough. First came the churches,then came the schools.......then came the lawyers & THEN CAME THE RULES......the never ending rules.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.31.10 @ 8:07AM
In the first sentence the author refers to the "bipartisan ruling class." There is no bipartisanship. What we have is socialism and socialism lite.
GregA| 3.31.10 @ 8:09AM
We need to consider who the politicians serve. Take it away, Bob Dylan...
"You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage,
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,
You may be a business man or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody. "
Who does Obama serve? Who does Palin serve?
Melvin| 3.31.10 @ 8:17AM
Ret. Marine is correct that the majority of intellectuals have no common sense. Kitty is also correct that if Sarah was Steve there would be no questions of her being obtuse.
Sarah by nature of her not having a Ivy League Pedigree is like Reserve Officers being compared to Service Academy Graduates.
On the Naval side of the house. Annapolis Graduates loathe Reserve Officers, even though many outstanding Captains of naval vessels have been Reserve Officers.
I don't know about the rest of you. But aren't we a bit tired of all these political geniuses with all their long collegiate linages, and collage legacies.
For the longest time now, these politicians who have spent their entire adult lives in academic or political office have guided this Country into decline instead of prosperity.
Strictly speaking from a common sense prospective, going into decline is kind of ass-backwards is it not?
I apologize how could I be so insolent, not being from Harvard and all.
Bruce | 3.31.10 @ 9:45AM
Absolutely on the money. To use an SAT score as a yardstick for relative intelligence is nonsense. There is also such a thing as "life experience" - which many of us (even the educated among us) consider of higher value than formal education at the hands of liberal revisionists. I'd take a person with life experience and plain old common sense over an "Ivy League" pseudo-intellectual any day.
MikeBee| 3.31.10 @ 12:29PM
Melvin,
I positively refuse to hire anyone from an Ivy League college. Half of their tenure there is spent in classes taught by other students from the grad program, rather than by actual professors (talk about inexperienced teachers?). They are also brainwashed to Socialist/Marxist ideals in many "non-major," but required, courses. No, I'll take an employee who knows what he's doing any day of the week over Ivy Leaguers. As more and more of us refuse to hire Ivy Leaguers, those colleges will be forced to either change or close.
Red Bubba| 3.31.10 @ 8:40AM
Look for evidence in thier lives. Barack lived off of entitlements and borrowed money to get out of debt.
Granny Jan| 3.31.10 @ 8:42AM
Obama is a gifted mimic, but he hasn't had an original thought his whole life. From Bill Ayers ghostwriting Dreams, Frank Davies writing his poem Pop, from his changing accents, Obama is a total fraud and an intellectual fraud.
Albert| 3.31.10 @ 11:19AM
Granny Jan makes a great point. If President Bozo is as smart as his sycophants claim, then he would have written his books himself. But he didn't write them, nor is he capable of writing at that level. This is a guy who needs a teleprompter to talk to a small room of grade school teachers. President Bozo is, frankly, an idiot. He is a puppet for his handlers who is stupid enough to believe his own propaganda.
Ron| 4.4.10 @ 4:57PM
At a Q/A session at a battery manufacturer, a woman tells Obama that we are over taxed. Being the intellectual heavyweight he is (dripping sarcasm), Obama spends the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds giving a 2500 word reply. To quote the Washington Post , "he lulled the crowd into a daze" and "wandered from topic to topic". http://voices.washingtonpost.c.....d-res.html
If this is any indication of his intelligence, Palin has nothing to fear in a head to head comparison.
Granny Jan| 3.31.10 @ 8:42AM
Obama is a gifted mimic, but he hasn't had an original thought his whole life. From Bill Ayers ghostwriting Dreams, Frank Davies writing his poem Pop, from his changing accents, Obama is a total fraud and an intellectual fraud.
Timothy L. Pennell| 3.31.10 @ 8:48AM
Let's stick with Ret. Marine for a bit.
Now. Who would you rather have by your side, in a FIREFIGHT. The Experienced Gunnery Sgt.? Or the wet behind the ears 2nd Lt. who ACED ALL HIS TESTS?
All you need to know about the Boy Kings' intelligence, is that he needed his TELEPROMPTER to speak to Elementary School Kids. Or that he campaigned in "57 STATES, with only 3 more to go". (you don't think he got OUR 57 States mixed up with the 57 MUSLIM STATES, do ya?
But, by far, my favorite pronouncement of BARAKS' BRAIN was from Michael Beschloss, being interviewed by Imus. Beschloss went on and on, almost like a love struck school girl. "I think that Barak Obama, far and away, may be the most Brilliant Man to ever occupy the Oval Office. His I.Q. numbers are off the charts."
Then Imus said to him: IMUS: "What is his I.Q.?" BESCHLOSS: "What?" IMUS: "You said that his I.Q. Numbers were high. I'm asking you if you know what his numbers are." BESCHLOSS: "No. I have no idea what they are."
Now THAT is what ya call BLIND FAITH.
To my Jewish Cousins. If you really need a MESSIAH, you can share JESUS with us. I know he'd love to have you.
This Kenyan Muslim is a FALSE PROPHET. It's time to start believing your EYES and EARS, again. And remember what GOD said about those who oppose Israel. Do you really wanna be in that crowd?
Wake up!
NavyBrat | 3.31.10 @ 12:58PM
Mr. Pennell. Don't worry. Not all of us Jews are brainwashed liberals. There are SOME of us out there with some common sense. Trust me, I try explaining the error of the ways of this Jew hating Pres. & his administration to my supposedly more enlightened Jewish Aunt, Uncle, & cousin in DC (she works for John Dingleberry on the Hill).
Now, I LOVE my family. I'd die for any one of them. But the way they follow this fool so blindly aggravates me to NO END. Its to the point now where I just don't even talk to them about politics. Its just better that way. I can only pray that they'll eventually figure out the error of their ways. I ain't holding my breath though.
Rick H| 3.31.10 @ 8:51AM
I do find it astounding that the "obama is smart" line is repeated so much when there is absolutely no evidence of that because he has never released any records to show any actual intellectual achievement.
I am a "token-er" because I believe his not showing his records prove he has been affirmative actioned all the way to his current position.
Albert| 3.31.10 @ 11:22AM
"Barack Hussein Obama, America's first Affirmative Action President." This is not something I would want on my resume.
arlo price| 3.31.10 @ 7:48PM
I concur totally, where is the empirical data substantiating his intellect and other than decisions made for self-promotion, relate to us one of his decisions that show an iota of wisdom.
As this hick sees it, obummer "couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel".
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.31.10 @ 8:56AM
(In case you missed my comment above...)
Folks,
I grade Sarah as extremely bright (smile). She shares a perspective with me on just about everything.
I consider myself very bright. My first two years after high school were in Junior college. I had an opportunity for a full ticket pitching on a national finalist team before transferring over to Baylor University, again, on scholarship.
Interestingly enough, those two years in Junior college turned out to provide me the finest teachers, across the board, one could possibly hope for. I was on the Deans list three semesters.
As many of you know, college level baseball teams play some 40 to 50 games per Spring (3 and 1/2 months)...(half on the road), and perhaps four hour practices every other afternoon except Sundays.
Those Jr. college teachers did not hesitate to come over to the dorm evenings and weekends to keep us caught up. Really dedicated folks.
As many of you know, Baylor is one of the top rated Universities in the country in several disciplines. Many of you have been treated by MDs. that trained at Baylor Med.
Heh, my grades there were very uneven. The grades in courses in and around my major were extremely high.....and the nonsense "broadening" courses....ummm not so good.
I think the descriptive phrase we might adopt is the "intellectual honesty" that I learned in college.
ie: how does one's perceptions and "acceptions" mesh with and succeed in the real world....heh... or not.
Then over years of learning the right "lessons" from experience...heh (mistakes), hone that intellectual honesty.
If the above sorta' meshes with your thinking, then I think you must come down on Sarah's side as personifying an extremely bright human being.
...course I also like her personal courage....a lot.
Thoughts?
Melvin| 3.31.10 @ 9:17AM
Ken, by your description, you were educated not indoctrinated by your educators.
You didn't fall for the Liberal propaganda, received your sheepskin and applied it to the private sector where your decisions had real world consequences to your stewardship of a company on it's success or failure.
If your Company lost money it lost money never to be regained again, you didn't have the ability to go Oops call up the Treasury Department and say, "I made a wee mistake, I need another 50 billion."
Sarah Palin did not pontificate on the Governor's throne in Alaska, she met the people and looked them in the eye that her decisions had a direct impact on.
I don't know about you, but when I make a financial mistake and have to go look the boss in the eye, I don't get many second or third or fourth chances. And besides I feel like crap for losing money that could be in the company anyway.
Dan Hirsch| 3.31.10 @ 8:59AM
MRS. Palin and Mr. Obama do share a trait with Ronald Reagan. All three display(ed) a knack for capturing complex concepts in compact phrases. E.g. Mrs. Palin's 'death panels', Mr. Reagan's "Tear down this wall." and Mr. Obama's "You've got to spread it around."
Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Palin differ from Mr. Obama in that what they believe is the fundament of our government, self-rule; Mr. Obama's behavior shows that he knows we are not smart enough for self-rule.
Those of you conscious during the Reagan era may recall the polling, oftentimes President Reagan took positions at odds with the 'popular' only to have high approval ratings, in spite of unpopular positions. I posit that even those who disagreed with Mr. Reagan knew he meant what he said. You may have disagreed with him, but at least you knew where he was coming from. Mr. Obama's statements all come with "expiration dates."
PS Does anyone find humorous the latest GE advertising campaign wrapping itself in a mantle of Reagan memorabilia? Given their recent behavior trading with Iran, lobbying for uneconomic solar and wind power mandates, are they trying to distance themselves from their recent anti-American behavior. "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool..."
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.31.10 @ 9:47AM
Dan,
yes I do find the GE "Reagan wrap" obnoxious.
My wife's picture and 2007 Ronald Reagan lifetime achievement award hangs on the same wall with Ronald Reagan's award in his college Presidential library.
So yeah, I guess I find it "humorous" in a not funny way.
GregA| 3.31.10 @ 11:22AM
GE also lobbied very heavily during the Healthcare Deformation Cabal. Please take note of their stock price over the last month. Should we expect GE to become the only medical equipment supplier allowed by law?
Cpm| 3.31.10 @ 9:04AM
Sarah Palin is a self-made women while Obama was an undistinguished community organizer before he was plucked out of obscurity and groomed by the Cook County-Chicago Democrat machine. In many ways he never left.
Mike| 3.31.10 @ 9:35AM
I would recommend that readers spend some time reading about Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.
No matter what one may think about Sarah Palin's political ideas, nobody can deny that she has exhibited considerable intellectual skill. She has read the emotional state of a significant number of her fellow citizens perfectly and has been flawless in exploiting this to her financial advantage. She is also an engaging performer. All one has to do is look at the footage of her rally supporting John McCain to witness one who has an undeniable stage presence and one who doesn't.
By contrast, Joe the Plumber, who was also given a national stage by the McCain campaign, apparently lacks the intelligence to exploit the opportunity.
I was struck by this statement: "In other places, such as France, where curricula are standard and grading is objective, they tell a lot and are public, judging leaders' minds is more possible. In such places also, judgments about people's intellectual status depends on specific examination of their products. In America, by contrast, the pretense of intellectual worthiness that so many make on behalf of Obama and of others similarly situated is guarded by unwillingness to look, by downright eagerness to assume."
Can you imagine a call for a national curriculum and objectives exams like they have in France? Be careful, Angelo. The state of Texas and the creationists will be calling for your head.
Vector guy| 3.31.10 @ 9:51AM
Brightness or intellectual capacity notwithstanding, the evidence suggests that neither Obama or Palin is very well or widely read. Neither has demonstrated any real knowledge of history, for instance, or philosophy. I happen to agree with much of what Palin says, but I don't think her understanding of many issues is very deep, particularly foreign policy. If he is being at all truthful in his public statements, Obama knows next to nothing about economics. O'Riley is right when he says Palin needs to do some serious studying of issues to develop a respectable fund of knowledge.
Mark MacInnis| 3.31.10 @ 11:02AM
What Palin needs is what we old-tmers call "seasoning"....what Obama needs is what we old timers call "impeachment"
Cuffs| 3.31.10 @ 2:55PM
Mark, you made me laugh--perfect!
He is a fraud on all fronts.
To wit:
Navy corpsemen
Army Corpse of Engineers
Marine Corpse
Peace Corpse and the
only one that fits--
Press Corpse
Ryan| 3.31.10 @ 9:52AM
Give me experience and know-how over raw brains any day.
I think that's sometimes the basis of the left's argument - they don't know the value of real-world experience. It's long been the disconnect between the academics and the real world.
Immanuel Goldstein| 3.31.10 @ 9:58AM
Obama is perceived as intelligent because of the time that he spent in academic circles. He was able to observe and take on the coloration of college professors, but it was nothing more than mimicry. He speaks gibberish, but does so in a manner that sounds thoughtful. His act doesn't wear well. Over a year into his Presidency, and his professorial manner just seems boring, and there is nothing else to him.
When John McCain picked Sarah, she was a raw political talent, which showed itself immediately, but was unpolished and not quite ready for politics at the national level. Since the election her growth in power and charisma has been incredible. I would submit that her IQ is higher than his, and we haven't begun to see what this remarkable lady has to offer us.
JP| 3.31.10 @ 9:59AM
I'm not a big fan of the former Govenor of Alaska. But I prefer her over Mitt, the Huckster, and Ron Paul. If it came down to them over her, I'd pick her.
As far as IQ and the Presidency goes -well, before he became President FDR was considered to be a moron. And Hoover's nickname was the Wunder Kid (Stanford educated, engineer and all that).
Ned| 3.31.10 @ 10:50AM
FYI - Look further into the Hoover slur - he was extremely accomplished as an engineer, and the "Wunder Kid" business was an attack by lesser people jealous of his abilities
JP| 3.31.10 @ 11:37AM
Ned,
I've read quite a bit about Hoover. And the Wunder Kid tag wasn't a slur. I think you miss the point of this thread. Hoover was a brilliant engineer, businessman, and a decent politician. One could argue he probably was one of the most intelligent persons to ever sit in the Oval Office.
Yet, he his Presidency was a disaster for this nation. His predecessor, Coolidge didn't like nor trust him. As it turns out FDR and Hoover's statists idea were pretty similar. Hoover was the cause of the 1929 Crash, but the period of 1929-1932 was a period of one disasterous decision made after another.
Melvin| 3.31.10 @ 3:41PM
JP, you are much more fluid in this than I am. In your estimation was 1929-1932 a series of unfortunate events or by design.
I don't know if it would be fair to compare then to now, but there are similarities from a cursory glance?
roger | 3.31.10 @ 10:03AM
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From a rising star in the conservative movement.
owyheewine| 3.31.10 @ 10:04AM
A couple of observations. First, there is a bias toward (eastern) liberal arts educated politicians. Seems like those who attended the same cookie cutter cumbyah squishy liberal institutions, and read the same 50 books getting degrees in Sociology and French Art History think that those with simular education are qualified as a result of their education.
Second, lawyers are by training masterful liars. I mean, that is what they do for a living, if not by outright falsehood, then by deception. There is a general lack of being able to discern between a glib tongue and actual intelligence.
The poster boy of my argument is our old friend Algore. I mean, he got a D in the only college science course he ever took. Yeah, I know he retook it and got a C.
Melvin| 3.31.10 @ 3:43PM
"Masterful Liar" thank you owyheewine it kind of just rolls off the tongue quite easily.
davelnaf| 3.31.10 @ 10:20AM
Any question about the intellectual capabilities of the average academics is always overblown. Their primary talent is as repositories of information and to provide insights about that information that most of their students would not likely come up with on their own. But take away this talent and there is not much left.
Creativity is a rare commodity in the professorial or academic class, so rare in fact that, together with their lack of real world knowledge, the typical academic is stunningly unqualified to run anything other than a classroom. And we have one of them as president.
james| 3.31.10 @ 10:31AM
Mr. Codevilla,
This is interesting and, as usual with your work, provocartive. But in this case - political acumen and leadership qualities - it is somewhat irrelevant.
Political effectiveness, for good (Palin) or evil (Obama) has nothing at all to do with 'intellect.' It has to do with instinct, character, understanding of human nature, integrity, faithfulness. Or the lack of these things. The SAT doesn't measure any of this. If it did, Obama would never have graduated from high school.
I'll bet Hillary! aced her SATs (and I'll bet Obama did not.) But neither one of them should ever be allowed near even the town council much less the WH. Harry Truman never went to college.
Obama got into Columbia because Columbia is run by people like him. I'm willing to bet my life, fortune and sacred honor that his SAT scores, especially the math, were not only not superior, but sub-par.
But more important, I don't care. Nor do I care about Palin's. The most useless Useful Idiots I've known in my long life all got very high SAT scores, and don't know who Frank Marshall Davis was.
Immanuel Goldstein| 3.31.10 @ 10:42AM
We've seen all this before. The Democrats pick intellectual poseurs, pseudo intellectuals who talk down to us and try to assert their ivy league credentials as proof of their superiority. Does anyone think of John Kerry as anything other than a buffoon? And poor Al Gore, a pedestrian thinker tried so hard to sound like an intellectual that he ended up sounding like Professor Irwin Corey. It's embarrasing to see this run of mediocrities, from Obama to Kerry, to Gore, to Clinton, to Mondale, to Dukakis, to Carter, to Humphrey, to Johnson, to the Kennedy brothers, to Stevenson being touted as Presidential material. You have to go all the way back to Truman, for a Democratic President or candidate for President who was worth a damn.
Anthony| 3.31.10 @ 9:08PM
Immanuel, Very well said and very astute. I love the Irwin Cory analogy to Algore. Shalom and a belated Happy Passover.
JeffT| 3.31.10 @ 10:50AM
The only difference between Palin and Obama is that Obama took the "Verbal Advantage" course years ago to sound "smart." Palin speaks from the heart and uses her naturally flawed linguistics. When Obama is taken off-guard, he sounds as dumb as a rock.
victor| 3.31.10 @ 1:41PM
JeffT:
"he sounds as dumb as a rock."
Hey now, don't insult rocks like that.
After all rocks are very usefull, you can build roads, walls, fences and even houses.
What can you use Obama for?
WilliamInWien| 3.31.10 @ 11:14AM
There are "suits" and there are "empty suits". Empty Suits provide "empty words". By the way, I thought there were requirements to be called "Professor" as opposed to "instructor", "assistant professor" and "associate professor" all before reaching full "Professor". Common Sense cannot be taught, even by a full professor!
Anthony| 3.31.10 @ 11:21AM
Raw intelligence, possessed of a college education, and having common sense, although not mutually exclusive of each other, nonetheless, are amorphous and for the most part, unquatifiable concepts. Many people are not in possession of all three.
Obama is perceived, mostly by the elite LEFT, as being very smart, well educated, nuianced and sophisticated. All factors the elites deem essential to their sense of superiority. Left, however, is the operative word here. His detractors, such as myself, see him as arrogant, lacking common sense, ignorant of world/human history, dangerously naive and extremely doctrinaire.
Palin is seen by her supporters as smart, not the best educated, possessed with a great deal of common sense, great instincts about human beings and human nature, having a moral compass that rings absolutely true, but most of all, in possesion of "people" instincts that her supporters (like me) gravitate to, like moths to the light. Her detractors, well, we know what they think, no need to waste time here.
Bottom line, as the author suggests, we are in a class war; the Elites vs Us. What really seperates us is that one side possesses the "liberalism gene", the other side does not. And that folks, is where we are at.
pomdter| 3.31.10 @ 11:36AM
I have discussed Obama's smarts with some of his supporters and have found that without any objective measurement, "smarts" is in the eye of the beholder. Most Obama supporters see him as smart, because, relative to them, he is. I think most critics see him as smart because he has a great ability to convince people that the wrong answer is actually correct.
JP| 3.31.10 @ 11:41AM
Funny, once you get the President away from the mic, his intelligent, cool, eloquence is gone. In many ways, he sounds like Bush but without the accent. Yet, most people think of Bush is a ignorant Southener and not someone who graduated from Yale and Harvard.
I blame the caroonists who created Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn.
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 3.31.10 @ 3:37PM
JP, Wile E. Coyote is the cartoon equivalent of B.O. Once that elegant, pompous "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius" talk stops, the dumbass still blows himself up with T.N.T. and/or falls off the cliff. B.O. stinks!
Melvin| 3.31.10 @ 3:46PM
I knew Disney was behind all this. Damn Mouseketeers they're nothin but trouble.
bob s| 3.31.10 @ 11:50AM
Two thoughts... the first: it seems that most of the posters here have danced around this, but haven't put it into words- there is a big difference between "intelligence" and "wisdom". The second: the late, great William F. Buckley once made a comment about LBJ that is more than appropriate for BHO: "He is a man of his most recent word." Gotta love it!
Allen Hurt| 3.31.10 @ 11:53AM
Abe Lincoln didn't go to Harvard. His son did. Who did we hear from?
IQ is a minor factor in an individual's ability to think well. Great minds have a synthetic, creative intelligence that sees connections between things not seen before. That can't be taught in school. Palin has a much more intuitive, fluid, innovative mind than Obama.
victor| 3.31.10 @ 1:28PM
Which one of them can think on their feet and put two or three related thoughts together?
PS The Teleprompter-in-Chief doesn't count.
Tom Geer| 3.31.10 @ 11:59AM
Obama is more facile than smart. While he can think in large terms, he appears to be unable to think with any complexity. Many of his positions and pronouncements remind me strongly of B.S sessions when I was a college freshman.
ATLmedia| 3.31.10 @ 1:06PM
Anyone remember- we were ruled by 'regular guys'w/Prez GWB. Didn't turn out so well.
The "who need bank regulators, who needs weapon inspectors, who needs to tax the rich" anti-intellent crowd had its way, & now, we're screwed. The smart crowd is working on it, but it will take more than both of Obama's terms
(his re-elections a no brainer {pun intended} if Palin runs)
to fix this mess.
victor| 3.31.10 @ 1:26PM
Hey ATL,
Tell me or show me the data that proves that hiking taxes on the rich brings in revenue.
Here in New Jersey, they were doing just that and now 10-20% of them left and took 80 Billion dollars in wealth, revenues and economic growth.
Michigan is another one that is losing taxpayers by the 1000's and they are going under fast.
BTW if you study SarbOx, you will find they did not predict Madoff or FannieFreddie.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great.....doff-case/
Your turn.
Larry| 3.31.10 @ 1:37PM
I don't know about that. When Bush was President, unemployment was at 4%, Home prices were high, and we had the Muslim terrorists on the run.
Remember, all the crap started when the Dems took over Congress. While I fault Bush for not being fiscally responsible and not fighting for himself against the idiotic rage of the Left, he was a good and decent man who presided over the end of the Reagan Economic boom and extended by 5-6 years.
Besides, under Bush my family was earning six figures. Under Obama, we're on food stamsp.
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 3.31.10 @ 3:40PM
Michael Smerconish, is that you? Idiot!
Indy Voter| 3.31.10 @ 1:17PM
For me, it's simple, Palin loves our country, supports liberty, proposes free market solutions, and will defend the Constitution. POTUS is an elitist, shreds the Constitution, his policies are all about the nanny state and redistribution of wealth, surrounds himself with leftist advisors...no thanks. Nothing else must pass and we must make him a lame duck in November 2010.
JimH| 3.31.10 @ 1:42PM
It's interesting how the MSM attitude has changed. Remember when the brainboy Best And The Brightest screwed up Vietnam? A little commen sense was regarded as a good thing then. Being an intellectual and being intelligent are two different things. If my plane went down in the Yukon, I'd rather depend on Sarah's skills then the One's abiliity to organize the local Inuit to get me out alive.
Dai Alanye | 3.31.10 @ 2:03PM
This subject has been over-commented upon but I'd like to add my two cents worth. First, lets thank Codevilla for an insightful article.
Intelligence as measured by IQ is an over-rated quality, inferior to rationality. I say this not from spite but long observation. In general, intelligent persons make nearly as many bad decisions as ordinary folk but are better at making up justifications and avoiding the consequences. I speak, unfortunately, from sad experience.
The causes of bad decisions by intelligent people are emotion and willfulness, and an unwillingness to learn from their own mistakes or those of others. Obama's IQ is at least fairly high but his rationality factor is quite low. As Reagan said about liberals in general, it's not so much what he doesn't know as all the things he knows that aren't so.
Sarah is far from stupid but her strongest quality is a rational approach to decision making. Had she by some miracle become President instead of Obama, can anyone think she would have made the plethora of mistakes he's been guilty of?
Certainly not, because she seems to have a plenteous amount of that elusive quality called common sense. Unlike Obama she is able to think her way out of a maze rather than deeper into one. He, on the other hand, when young acquired a basket of foolish beliefs—including a belief in his own superiority—and can't seem to unlearn them. And his success in passing Health Care Deform should serve to enhance the ego that's a cause of many of his difficulties.
So let's wish our country a reign by rational politicians rather than intellectual or—perhaps far worse—pseudo-intellectual ones.
Margie| 3.31.10 @ 2:36PM
Well said, Dai!
Mojo Risin| 3.31.10 @ 2:13PM
Before Obama's term is up he'll be exposed as a fraud beyond what we are pondering now and with that I here-by proclaim I am more than qualified to be president, considering the standards/qualifications by which Obama was elected. I wouldn't have done any of the things he's done, showing his disrespect for American history, the apologies, bowing, childish smack-down of opponents, 90+ days to make a decision on Afgan troop levels, and reliance on serial lying.
Shouldn't it be humbling to be elected President of The United States and how does Obama show it, date night. Humility, he's entitled!!!
Has Obama done anything yet that is of a direct benefit to the American people...NO???!!! When elected I will simply do the exact opposite of what Barack has done, working to reverse his incompetent decisions.
For being such a genius, isn't Obama revealing his lack of common sense and overt contempt for over half the population. Is that smart???
Margie| 3.31.10 @ 2:39PM
Psuedo-intellectuals=Book smart but brain dead.
Intellectual, isn't that possessing lots of knowledge? Yes, but to the Left it means you must have the Ivy league indoctrinated Leftist knowledge. The true intellectual is the honest one with the knowledge.
Go Sarah!
Kenneth E. MacAlister| 3.31.10 @ 3:55PM
Having a degree from a prestigious university doesn't make a person intelligent or guarantee they have common sense. B.O. knows what he was indoctrinated with well & that's all he knows. He obviously flunked Economics 101 & Constitutional Law. I think the left & some elitist "moderates" (B.O. supporters like P.Noonan, K. Parker, D. Brooks, M. Smerconish, etc.) are determined to paint Sarah Palin as being dumber than asphalt because they know very well B.O. is worse than being dumber than asphalt. Intelligence & common sense are gifts from Almighty GOD. Some, especially those on the left, choose not to use those GOD-given gifts.
"You Can Lead A Leftist To Knowledge, But You Can't Make It Think!" - A Very Wise Old Man
david| 3.31.10 @ 4:09PM
Hey Bob S, excellent point. One can be intelligent, smart, bright, knowledgable, or whatever, but unless one has wisdom (knowing how to apply what you know), all the smart stuff is useless.
I also agree with the person who posted that far too many politicians are lawyers. Let me confirm that. After being in the legal business for 24 years, I can attest that the vast, vast majority of lawyers do not know the first thing about management of time, money, people, resources, schedules, or anything else. I have known two attorneys who have had their sh_t together, and I suspect that is because their schooling and working experience was in the engineering field. They understood how to put things together - how to make things work.
An attorney does not know how to manage a secretary, a paralegal, a file clerk, and himself, and all of these flippin' arrogant jerks think THEY are the ones qualified to run local, state, and federal governments. I say vote 'em out. It's enough that we have to put up with them as judges - we sure don't need them making all of the decisions for our country's and its citizens well-being
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.31.10 @ 5:04PM
Toby Keith....."I Love This Bar"!
I love this site. I get really good stuff every time I come here.
God bless you folks. Pray to God we don't meet in gilly suits someday.
Anthony| 3.31.10 @ 9:20PM
Ken (Old Texican) , I love you dearly dude, I really do, Baylor degree and all. And we do love your posts, but what the hell, or as you Texans say, what in Sam Houston, is a gilly suit??
Sam Houston| 4.1.10 @ 1:49AM
http://www.ghilliesuits.com/
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.1.10 @ 10:16AM
Anthony,
Check the link below.
Ken
Dustoff| 3.31.10 @ 5:05PM
How about this.
Your in a small plane and crashed in the middle of No-where.
Who would you want in the seat next to you?
Ken (Old Texican)| 3.31.10 @ 5:13PM
Dustoff,
been there, got the teashirt...Death Valley for goodness sake.
My red headed wife is a lot like Sarah. She has the tea-shirt too. One day, just for fun, I will post the letter we wrote to all our patients across the country who saw our disappearance on the news.
Speaking of "just for fun" enjoy, all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL7ifSxp9xU
รถมือสอง | 3.31.10 @ 6:23PM
Thank for good article.
fwb| 3.31.10 @ 7:14PM
A key point is that we judge others based on our own intellect.
I've not seen an elected person in close to 40 yrs of voting I consider smart.
Jeff| 3.31.10 @ 10:04PM
I ,for one ,am tired of the "Geniuses". Let us never again elect any intellectual elitists to high office.They always end up wrecking everything because they actually believe it their duty to rule over us rather than to keep the nation strong and allow us to make the rest of it work.
poptoy| 3.31.10 @ 10:15PM
Whoa! The Kenyan and brains? No such thing.
rdman| 3.31.10 @ 11:11PM
Following is my take on Obami...
Behind the nice guy facade, Obami is completely ruthless, despotic and tyrannical, oppressing people, taking away their constitutional rights, their freedoms and their dignity.
The law of the Chicago ghetto jungles gives Obami the perverted rationale for using intimidation and force when it suits his ends. He believes he is a law unto himself, cynically living in the world of realpolitik where what matters is having the might to prevail, regardless of right or wrong.
It is impossible to be intimate with and dangerous to trust a person like Obami, since he takes every sign of friendliness or cooperation as a sign of weakness and therefore as an invitation to take advantage of others. Treacherous and immoral, Obami has absolutely no compunction about lying, cheating, stealing or reneging on his promises. He will resort to any unconstitutional illegality or ruse to get what he wants. He will blatantly and outrageously lie repeatedly so endlessly and vehemently that it begins to be accepted as the truth. The smallest hint of opposition from others will bring an avalanche of retaliation from him.
Obami is able to destroy because he does not identify with anyone else. His egocentricity allows him to see only himself in the country, and if the country does not reflect him, he will eventually hate the country so much that he will attempt to destroy it.
To quote the philosopher Hillel, “If you are not for yourself, who will be? But if you are for yourself alone, what are you?”
rdman| 3.31.10 @ 11:26PM
My take on what Sarah Palin shares with the great American majority:
"Inner-directed, authentic and genuine, self acceptance, everything she seems to be. Self-assured, self-generating, energetic, adaptable, physically attractive and popular. Ambitious to improve self, becoming outstanding, a kind of human ideal, embodying widely admired qualities. Others are often motivated to want to be like her in some positive way."
Sarah connects with the majority of We The People. This explains why the “Elitist Inside-the-Beltway Government Class” and their useful idiots are going berserk and launching scurrilous attacks on Sarah and her family (even her special needs baby, Trig is not spared). In view of these appalling gutter attempts of personal destruction, the silence from the GOP leadership is deafening and revealing.
Polyester Mather | 3.31.10 @ 11:51PM
REally, Angelo-- WFB never dragged MIT into the equation, albeit that Vannevar Bush was then its president .
As to the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book, since Adams is prominent among them, a conservative could do a lot worse.
JmsA| 4.1.10 @ 12:15AM
Just want to make sure: One of the folks being discussed here once said that the American Army had liberated Auschwitz, as well as alluded to in somewhat off the cuff manner as to there being 57 states in the union, right? Just checking.
Pingback| 4.1.10 @ 12:19AM
Political Intelligence « The View from Alexandria links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Yosemeti Sam| 4.1.10 @ 1:13AM
" ... Teachers who have evaluated generations
of students do notice that certain types of human beings are more agile and inventive in their use of language than others..."
There you go: BHO has demonstrated his
inventiveness the use of language - lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after ...!
ACynic| 4.1.10 @ 10:27AM
Academic achievements says nothing about how well a person will perform in hi office.
The academic geniuses that guided FDR and Hoover and Carter, etc. , literally destroyed the lives of millions of Americans. These morons were so intelligent that they felt that the most intelligent of all were the left leaning arrogant elitist intellectuals from whom they took advice.
Reagan, a half-wit as defined by the ruling elites, was one of the best presidents in american history; certainly the best of the 20th century. He was too stupid to realize that intellectuals were the smartest people on earth, so he followed his own path.
Palin understands what motivates regular folks, what they hold dear, and the corrosive impact of a smothering big-govt. ruled by and for the multi-millionaire elites.
She has the smarts to learn what she needs to know.
Obama - and the liberal progressive elites - believe that he already knows everything there is to know, and that regular folks are too f^^^^n stupid to comprehend his socialist plans.
I'll take Palin any day.
At least she actually had a real job once out of college, unlike Barry Hussein.
jen| 4.1.10 @ 11:33AM
Many people think one is "brilliant" if they speak vaguely, with a lot of words. Here is my atrociously poor attempt to write Obama-speak:
Let me be perfectly clear. In regard to the Palestinians, the historical dilemmas and problems of this ethno-geographic generation of individuals, relative to their promises and additional agreement concerning the written word in the form of pseudo-truces offering inclusion to those who, for the most part, are of the same, if not exact, type of reasoning relative to their own historical grievances of the recent and not-so-recent past, which have,to be frank, also affected the concerns of, or the emotional negative qualities expressed by similar groups related or otherwise linked to them in an anthorpological way or even as a a manner of speaking regarding their....blah, blah, blah. Hope and change. Blah blah blah
I know many of you are familar with Orwell's writings about bureaucratic langusge. My attempt is a poor example -- read his essay, if you have not. That's academic speech and Obama speech. Lots of prepositional phrases is the key. But he looks earnest and sincere as he recites tham.
jen| 4.1.10 @ 11:34AM
Please excuse typos.
Gene Car| 4.1.10 @ 4:23PM
Sarah is a woman and Obama is a man. Women tend to possess a higher level of 'noetic' or ' poetic' undersatnding than men, who perhaps have a stronger inclination towards abstract, rational scientific thought. Palin has demonstrated a capacity for both. I'd bet on her any day.
larsenwhipsnade| 4.1.10 @ 7:04PM
I don't know Sarah's I.Q. and I don't care. She has great things going for her that I like:
1. attractive
2. patriotic
3. knows what work is about
4. values family and humans
5. scares the hell out of progressives (liberals)
I'd support her even if her only true attribute were #5.
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Ed | 4.2.10 @ 8:50AM
I have never understood why so many people believe Obama is so smart. Since he's been in office he has made one mistake after another.
Rich Rostrom| 4.2.10 @ 4:57PM
The last 50 years have seen the rise of a "meritocratic" intellectual elite. This elite is not a closed social class.
For instance: Eight of the present Supreme Court Justices are graduates of Ivy League law schools; 14 of the last 22 appointments were Harvard or Yale grads. This is not traditional: only 30 of the 112 Justices have been Ivy Leaguers, and none were appointed to the Court till 1888.
But the present Court has six Catholics, two Italian-Americans, two Jews, two women, a black, and a hispanic. These are all smart people. The system has been designed to be open to smart people of any background.
But it has also created a self-identified "intellectual elite" class, and over the last 35 years this class has moved well to the left of the rest of America.
Obama is a classic member of this class. He displays all its signifiers, and they love him for it. Palin is not; she displays a completely different set of identifiers, which enrages them. So did Bush, though not as flamboyantly.)
Neither of them is stupid. The difference is that Obama identifies as an "intellectual", while Palin does not; and Palin rejects their standard political gospel. (If you're Left you're OK, even if not an intellectual. If you dissent, you can be tolerable, provided you have the right credentials or the right "affect", or at least show enough to demonstrate respect.)
Nick| 4.4.10 @ 12:05AM
Mr. Rostrom,
Your post is dead on.
Sarah Palin is also hated because she did not kill Trig, a burden to liberal elites.
Not just because this is dogma to leftists, but for the simple fact that most them have done it themselves or know someone who has.
Trig is a living, breathing reminder of the evil they try to justify.
Gerald Stephens| 4.3.10 @ 4:42PM
'President of the Harvard Law Review' ?
Almost something one would closet in the absence of publication. Obviously there are none or the title page(s) would be plastered all over the cover of Time. Interesting that given his minions' (servile dependents) dramatizations of his intellectual prowess, the only writings attributed to him were arguably ghosted.
His election represents the most exquisite scam in the annals of American history. I truly can not wait to read the final chapter.
Gerald Stephens| 4.3.10 @ 4:57PM
GOODNESS...
I forgot: Corpse -man.
Directly out of the mouth of the Commander-in-Chief in person!
Fred | 4.10.10 @ 2:59PM
I guess I am a lucky guy. As a committed and dedicated political observer I have been able to take advantage of a special talent that I discovered as a young man. I have a sense of smell that has a direct connection to my brain and I can detect bullshit through electronic connection. The very first time I ever heard Obama speak...I was overwhelmed with the smell and detected a superior brand of the pure unadulterated brand of the product that shouted, almost screamed bullshit !!! I can smell dishonesty, sneakiness, lying, and ignorance. Not that he is stupid...but there are about 14 different types of intelligence...and he does not posess the kinds that will produce a successful presidency. His legacy will be sad pages in the history of out nation. You do not have to be a brain buster to be a successful president. YOu must have personal integrity, a fiber of strength to always do the right thing, and you must care about your electorate.
Obama fails all of those tests as president...and before he became presient he had only a record of failure and secrecy....but, Wow, he can preach.
Gimme the purity, honesty, energy, experience and track record of a Palin any time.
We gotta thow the bums out. We have been trick-f==ked.
Joe Bauers| 6.29.10 @ 8:10AM
Are you high?
No, seriously. Are you high? "Keep in mind that none of those who pronounce themselves on Obama's and Palin's intellects have the slightest knowledge of what they may be relative to one another"
Have you heard Ms. Palin speak? Have you attempted to tease some fragile bit of intelligibility out of the word salad that she vomits forth when attempting to speak extemporaneously? Did you not notice that she had to write "cut taxes" on her hand by way of a cheat sheet - as if there is a Republican politician in the land who doesn't say "cut taxes" every 10 seconds like clockwork? Did you not notice her claim to read "all" newspapers? How she never submits herself to questions from HER SUPPORTERS that she hasn't screened in advance, much less from reporters?
How can you delude yourself like this?
Slim Tyranny| 6.29.10 @ 10:11AM
Obama attended top academic institutions, graduated in the top 10% of his Harvard Law class, and was hired to teach constitutional law at an elite law school (Chicago, which is NOT a liberal bastion by any stretch).
On the other hand, Palin drifted between SEVERAL undergrads before graduating without honors in a worthless degree, at which point she turned her academic non-strength to TV sports reporting.
Obama is smarter than Palin, and you all know it, too, which makes this column and the comments even funnier.
Dhalgren | 6.29.10 @ 12:50PM
If someone cannot genuinely detect that Obama is more intelligent than Palin, then that person has zero ability to read any living person.
Obama is a lot of things. He's a weak president. He's surrounded by the wrong people. He's doomed to a single term. But he clearly possesses a superior memory, intellect, and ability to communicate than Ms. Palin. This article is the laugh of the day.
Dan | 4.28.11 @ 10:26AM
OBama is an Economic illiterate (and a moral one as well).
Palin is brilliant.