Obama, intellectual or empty suit?

[kcal09]

Much has been written about how intelligent this President is. GWB is well known for being a B/C student at Harvard. Many thought the man is a doofus. Most of the other recent Presidents accomplishments were well known upon entering office. President Obama is said to be one of the most accomplished and intellectual presidents of our time. Where is the proof? We all have to allow our grades to be perused. Our scores viewed and our board certifications viewed if we want any chance to get on insurance panels and hospital credentials. All I know about this President is he talks well when speaking from a teleprompter. He doesn’t do well when talking without it.

Is he really that smart or is it all a smoke screen created by his handlers? Grandiose ideas but where is he when the dirty details are to be hammered out?

An interesting article.

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/when-the-legend-becomes-fact-print-the-legend/?singlepage=true

[svelte]

I don’t think I’ve noticed a difference between him speaking off the cuff and using a teleprompter, seems to do well either way to me.

Usually a leader will need to surround him/herself with good people and trust them to work out the details. In most circumstances, leaders just don’t have the time to get down to the dirty details on every issue. From what I’ve seen, Obama knows this. The last President that did a great job with this (IMHO) was Ronald Reagan…though I didn’t agree with some of his positions, I think he did a great job of finding quality people to work out details along the lines of his wishes.

[markmax33]

He sounds just like the last 8 presidents+. How can we violate the Constitution today? What war can we pick? Who can we sanction next to plan the next war? I can’t believe this guy gets the noble peace prize and then starts 3 wars illegally and doesn’t even get the Congress to vote for the authorization.

[Anonymous]

This thread, idiotic or worthless partisan rhetoric?

[ucodegen]

[quote=pri_dk]This thread, idiotic or worthless partisan rhetoric?[/quote]Both.. it all depends upon how people respond.

It is true that Bush Jr would trip over his lower lip every time he spoke and that Obama has a better speaking presence. That said, I am always careful with people who have a quick and smooth sounding answer to just about everything. It ends up being too much sound-bite and not enough reflection and introspection. A quick nice sounding phrase does not adequately deal with some subjects, though the American public seems to have been brought up thinking that way.

Personally, I think there are ‘stones that can be cast’ at both Presidents.. To adequately cover the issues of both would take more time than I have right now.

[briansd1]

Obama is very intelligent and well-educated at the same time. Obama is also very gutsy to have recognized his moment and seized it.

Some people lack education so they think that Russia, Cuba and Vietnam are all in the same region because they are all commies. George W. Bush and many who loved him are like that. Plus Bush didn’t have the intelligence to read the telepromter either. Palin and her supporters are in that league.

I would put Clinton and Obama in the same league of very high intelligence. Clinton can recall and intelligently discuss details of policy. Obama is not as good because he has less experience. But Obama has more strength of character and doesn’t suffer from flaws such as pigging out on junk food and politically inconvenient sexual habits.

Reagan was a nitwit who was going senile and suffering alzheimers in the White House. Reagan benefited from the work of Volker and Greenspan. The huge deficit spending and military build-up created a boom and made American feel good, hence Reagan’s popularity.

I admire intellectuals who can talk about different subjects. But most Americans prefer someone they can watch a game or have beer with.

Our society does not reward intelligence per se. It rewards what you do with it. We are a superficial society that judges people on their degrees, jobs, cars and houses.

I recently met a hotel concierge from Iran who lacks formal education. But we talked about US policy and I could tell that he was highly intelligent and very well aware.

With regard to Obama, there’s no doubt a race angle. Certain people have certain expectations of blacks. So it’s annoys them to no end that Obama is so “perfect.” Obama is too much of a “golden boy” except that’s he’s black.

I call it the don’t-hate-me-because-I’m-beautiful syndrome. Some people hate those have everything but don’t appear to have paid their dues.

I think that Obama’s election is very significant and quintessencially American in that anybody can make it America. It also means that America is changing — for many of Obama’s detractors it’s not longer “our” America (you know… our San Diego, our Santa Barbara, our Los Angeles… are not the same, so we are moving to Colorado Springs or Spokane, WA).

[poorgradstudent]

I think it’s common for two highly intelligent, educated people to disagree on policy issues. I’ll cite two examples of very intelligent men I strongly disagree with on a lot of issues: Newt Gingrich and Anton Scalia. Both are incredibly intelligent men. Both have opinions on how the world should be that appall me.

I do think the Left over bashed GW Bush’s intelligence. While he may have lacked the raw intellect of Bill Clinton (or Newt Gingrich) or even Nixon, he certainly wasn’t an idiot and is more intelligent than your average person. He tended to pander to less educated voters and play up his “Good ‘Ol Boy” act. I’ve seen his IQ estimated between 115-125 based off his SAT score, which seems pretty reasonable.

Estimates for Obama’s IQ score tend to roam all over the map. Obama is a Harvard Law grad, and law school is challenging even at a lower tier school like Thomas Jefferson here in San Diego. Obama is probably in the same ballpark for IQ as Bill Clinton/Newt Gingrich, somewhere in the 120-135 range.

[markmax33]

[quote=briansd1]

Reagan was a nitwit who was going senile and suffering alzheimers in the White House. Reagan benefited from the work of Volker and Greenspan. The huge deficit spending and military build-up created a boom and made American feel good, hence Reagan’s popularity.
[/quote]

You seem to imply that Clinton didn’t benefit from Greenspan? Those low interest rates boosted tax reciepts and let him “balance” the budget. It wasn’t through Clinton’s intelligence or policy.

[briansd1]

[quote=poorgradstudent]Obama is probably in the same ballpark for IQ as Bill Clinton/Newt Gingrich, somewhere in the 120-135 range.[/quote]

Intelligence is not just reasoning as an IQ test would measure. There’s is raw intelligence, and there’s intelligence combined with character and finesse.

Newt is porky-pig intelligent. He’s petulant and vengeful in a take-no-prisoners kinda way. Nixon too.

I believe that it takes a great amount of intelligence to read the environment and present yourself in a socially attractive way.

[scaredyclassic]

That situational intelligence is what distinguishes vermin supreme from the pack.

[an]

[quote=briansd1]I believe that it takes a great amount of intelligence to read the environment and present yourself in a socially attractive way.[/quote]
Didn’t you just describe GW Bush right there? It takes great amount of intelligence to read the environment and present yourself in a socially attractive way “to get elected 2 times”. With that reasoning, lets see if Obama is as intelligent as Bush to get himself elected the 2nd time.

[briansd1]

[quote=AN][quote=briansd1]I believe that it takes a great amount of intelligence to read the environment and present yourself in a socially attractive way.[/quote]
Didn’t you just describe GW Bush right there? It takes great amount of intelligence to read the environment and present yourself in a socially attractive way “to get elected 2 times”. With that reasoning, lets see if Obama is as intelligent as Bush to get himself elected the 2nd time.[/quote]

No. Presenting yourself in an attractive way is not the same as getting reelected by pandering to people’s weaknesses. That’s smart political strategy but it lacks strength of character.

Nixon got elected twice but he was a jerk. I don’t believe there’s any question about that.

I was responding to poorgrad, comparing Obama to Gingrich. Obama and Clinton are presentable, likable characters. Gingrich is a porky-pig jerk.

[briansd1]

[quote=markmax33]

You seem to imply that Clinton didn’t benefit from Greenspan? Those low interest rates boosted tax reciepts and let him “balance” the budget. It wasn’t through Clinton’s intelligence or policy.[/quote]

So how come GWB took a surplus and created a huge deficit, with even lower interest rates?

markmax33, I meant to say that Reagan started the credit binge. It would be like living paycheck-to-paycheck and then suddenly you get a 10k credit card that you use to fuel discretionary spending. The Reagan years are when college kids and everybody else started getting easy credit cards.

Bill Clinton reformed welfare as we knew it. He certainly benefited from the Internet Revolution. In the end, Clinton left us with a well-managed economy and a nice budget surplus.

George W. Bush’s term started off with 2 disastrous wars and even more credit-fueled consumption based on home equity extraction and home valuations that would disappear before the end of his second term.

George H.W. Bush, the father, was extremely intelligent in a spy-master kind of way for, after all, he was the head of the CIA. GHWB was kinda haughty and aloof so people didn’t warm up to him. I admire GHWB more than Reagan though. I believe that, as VP, he was the éminence grise throughout Reagan’s term.

[blahblahblah]

[quote=briansd1][quote=markmax33]

You seem to imply that Clinton didn’t benefit from Greenspan? Those low interest rates boosted tax reciepts and let him “balance” the budget. It wasn’t through Clinton’s intelligence or policy.[/quote]

So how come GWB took a surplus and created a huge deficit, with even lower interest rates?
[/quote]

Not taking sides here, but there really was no “Clinton surplus.” The illusion of a surplus was created by borrowing from social security. This article gives a pretty good overview of the trickery involved. During his time in office, the national debt increased 26% from $4.5T to $5.7T. You can see this for yourself over in the data section at treasurydirect.gov.

It’s also worth mentioning that this had been going on long before Clinton became president, so he isn’t to blame for coming up with it. And his government was a model of sound fiscal policy compared to the two knuckleheads we’ve had since then, so please don’t take this as criticism. I just don’t like to hear these old myths repeated as if they are facts. Spending has been out of control since Ronnie Raygun rode into town off of one of his B-movie sets.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

[quote=CONCHO]…since Ronnie Raygun rode into town off of one of his B-movie sets.[/quote]

CONCHO: Don’t be so quick to judge. Ronnie and Bonzo protected Culver City from Japanese spies and Nazi saboteurs during WWII. Its true, the internets said so.

[Author]

Posts