For years now, the American people have been told by the liberal
media and other establishment figures about President Obama’s
superior intellect. We have been repeatedly told that Obama is “the
smartest person in the room.”
Naturally, most conservatives never bought into this myth. What
with, among other things, his declaration he had
visited “57 states with one to go,” his reference to the
“Austrian language” not to mention his inability to
discern the Maldives from the Malvinas. As Bret Stephens
wrote in the Wall Street Journal in August 2011, “I
just think the president isn’t very bright.” Stephens concluded,
“But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and
self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence.
Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump.
The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.”
Yet the liberal media would not be deterred: President Obama is
the smartest man in the room, if not the entire world. And if that
wasn’t enough, President Obama apparently believed his own
publicity. As noted in Stephens’ article, Obama reportedly claimed
he was a better speechwriter than his speechwriters, a better
policy director than his policy director and a better political
director than his political director.
Now consider this observation I
made last August:
But the liberal media can’t protect President Obama forever. The
liberal media can’t protect Obama from Mitt Romney. Obama has to
stand on his own two feet when he faces Romney one on one in three
presidential debates this fall. With no teleprompter to guide him,
Obama simply isn’t intelligent enough to be in the same room with
Romney let alone qualified to fill an entry level position in one
of Romney’s companies.
So it was when President Obama and Mitt Romney finally came face
to face last Wednesday. In less than ninety minutes, the myth of
the President’s intellect had been shattered as the American people
finally came to realize that Obama was, in fact, not the smartest
person in the auditorium at the University of Denver. Simply put,
Obama did not belong on the same stage with Romney. Sometimes a
picture is worth a thousand words, as is the case with the
cover of the latest issue of the New Yorker featuring
Romney debating an empty chair.
Obama’s lackluster performance raised doubts even amongst his
staunchest supporters. “Comedian” Bill Maher, who with much fanfare
had given the Obama Super PAC Priorities U.S.A. $1 million last
February,
tweeted during the debate, “I can’t believe I’m saying this,
but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter.” While most
people who voted for Obama didn’t donate $1 million to his
re-election campaign, no doubt many of them are feeling buyer’s
remorse.
Chances are Obama will be more vigorous and may acquit himself
better in the next two debates. But he can’t make his record any
better and he won’t be as good as Romney. It would come as no
surprise if those performances aren’t as strong as that of Vice
President Biden in his debate with Paul Ryan later this week. Could
it be that Obama is the weak link on the Democratic ticket?
Of course, the liberal media isn’t going to abandon him
wholesale. They will continue to make excuses for him as former
Vice-President and current President of Current TV Al Gore did when
he attributed Obama’s
poor debate performance to Colorado’s high altitude. Some like the
Democratic Underground claim that Romney only won because he had a
cheat sheet masquerading as a handkerchief while others like
Michelle Goldberg of the Daily Beast simply
argue that Romney plain lied during the debate and that Obama
allowed him to get away with it.
Nonsense!!!
The liberal media simply can’t face the fact that Barack Obama
isn’t the genius they glorified to their readers, listeners, and
viewers. They cannot fathom the possibility that Obama is far less
intelligent than Mitt Romney, that he has accomplished far less in
life than Romney, nor can they fathom that he is unable to stand on
his own two feet against him. But if the liberal media finally come
to the realization they can’t protect Obama from Romney, then his
fall will come fast and furious.
With that said, I don’t underestimate President Obama one bit.
Aside from a sympathetic and sycophantic media in his pocket (at
least for the moment), he still has over a billion dollars at his
disposal and has a powerful organization that is skilled at getting
out the vote. Given the lengths he has already gone to retain his
office, President Obama is a man who plays for keeps and this can
never be discounted.
Yet it is worth noting that both The
New York Times and
his biographer David Maraniss have made the case that Obama
doesn’t like debates in the first place. Well, he certainly doesn’t
like debating Romney. Why would he? Obama knows he is simply no
match for Romney.
But sitting in the Oval Office isn’t an entitlement. It is a job
that must be earned and then earned again and debates are part of
the electoral process. Should Mitt Romney prevail next month, it
will be largely on the strength of this first debate in which he
established himself as a credible, viable alternative to Obama.
Should this come to pass, it would mean this was the moment that
Obama demonstrated to the American people that he was unable to
handle the responsibility entailed with being the President of the
United States. It would also be the moment Barack Obama
demonstrated to the American people that he was simply not
intelligent enough to be in the same room with Mitt Romney.
