The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
No sooner did Paul Rahe suggest here on Ricochet that confidence in Obama would soon "collapse" than Bret Stephens published this in the Wall Street Journal:
I just think the president isn't very bright.
Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers....
Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent. At the height of the financial panic of 1907, Teddy Roosevelt, who had done much to bring the panic about by inveighing against big business, at least had the good sense to stick to his bear hunt and let J.P. Morgan sort things out. Not so this president, who puts a new twist on an old put-down: Every time he opens his mouth, he subtracts from the sum total of financial capital.
Bret Stephens has never been a fan of the president's, of course. But this? As little as a week ago, unthinkable.
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Apr '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
I wonder how this will all eventually redound to the MSM that has been shilling for him for 3 years or more.
Dec '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
He is like a dog that chases cars, and finally catches one.
Oct '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Peter, you left out the best part of his column which he ended, "Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does."
Mar '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Mr Obama is bright enough to be in the Harvard faculty lounge - or Prof. Ayers' lounge. That is the problem.
Edited on August 9, 2011 at 10:57amMay '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
David, Mr. Obama got to the Harvard Faculty by privilege, not intelligence, that's the main problem with it.
Jul '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
I'm afraid I disagree....lots of us have been thinking this for a very long time. Stephens rather puts a fine edge on it, though
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Peter, I was just signing on to post this article. I believe I said something similar to Jonah Goldberg during one of our immortal podcasts. Far from this being unthinkable, it's what I began to suspect even before his election. It's not that Obama is actually stupid, it's that his inexperience and misguided ideology echo off each other, each enlarging each. When his ideology fails, he hasn't the experience to modify it, when his inexperience is revealed, he falls back on his ideology. It creates the same effect as stupidity, especially when it's all wrapped up in an arrogance that will never allow him to find that beautiful place where one says, "Holy canoli, everything I ever thought I knew is wrong!"
Jun '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Rascalfair
I'm afraid I disagree....lots of us have been thinking this for a very long time. Stephens rather puts a fine edge on it, though · Aug 9 at 4:09am
And a lot of us have been saying for some time that there's a sociopath behind the mask. We are entering dangerous territory now. This will not end well.
Jun '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Thanks for that insight, Andrew. I have never been able to say Mr. Obama is "stupid," since by any objective measure he is intelligent. I think you have nailed it, a pernicious feed-back loop between ideology and inexperience confronted with intractable challenges.
May '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
"The Smartest President in American History (yuck, yuck)."
One "yuck" is sufficient, although you can add "yecch" "blech" and "feh" if you wish.
Apr '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
I'm here to post in this very important conversation!
Apr '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
I have thought the same thing since the first week of Obama's presidency. He is a vastly overrated speaker, and his judgment is poor. One of his first acts was to return the bust of Churchill that Tony Blair had presented to Bush. Forget what that says about his poor judgment in offending our closest ally. As an old professor of mine once told me: "I've never met anyone who was sane who didn't like Churchill." It's kind of a nice shortcut: you can pretty much know all you need to know about a man by learning that he doesn't like Churchill.
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Obama's greatest defect is his vanity (which comes from a Latin root meaning "emptiness"). He must always be the smartest fellow in the room, and that means that he is inflexible and simply cannot learn. If you cannot acknowledge that you do not know what you do not know, you will be trapped.
Apr '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
While I agree with the aritcle, Mr. Clavan, Dr. Rahe and other posters here, there is something that just bothers me about Obama and the current situation. I understand that he had a very rigid and well-defined ideology when he came into office and did his best to make his progressive vision for America come true. But now, almost 3 years later, with everything collapsing around him, his poll numbers shrinking and millions of people genuinely hurting, he HAS to know that these things haven't worked. While I don't expect him to come and say "sorry folks, I screwed up", I also don't expect him to continue to double-down on this charade. Even yesterday, in the midst of a debt downgrade and melting stock market he talks about more gov't spending at his ridiculous speech. Even Carter with his "burn a dollar" and "don't take long trips" was trying something new - even if they were doomed to fail. Obama just keeps charging away at the same windmills.
I know the words "Manchurian candidate" get bandied about a bit too much and I don't like conspiracy theories. But I'm beginning to wonder.
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
This AP story provides further fodder for the idea espoused by Stephens:
Stupidity would be an apt word.
May '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Pilgrim
...I have never been able to say Mr. Obama is "stupid," since by any objective measure he is intelligent. I think you have nailed it, a pernicious feed-back loop between ideology and inexperience confronted with intractable challenges.
One does not need to be stupid to be wrong. Since very, very smart people often disagree, and of the two, only at most one can be correct, being very smart and simultaneously very wrong is a common thing.
In fact, the smarter one is, the more impervious one becomes to the arguments of others because one becomes so adept at formulating one's own counter-arguments. Coupled with the natural tendency to confirmation bias, this makes smart people impregnable in their opinions.
It's only through experience and deeper self-awareness, including awareness of one's own confirmation bias, that one can begin to escape this kind of self-made ideological prison. I struggle with this personally, and I challenge everyone else to do so as well.
Obama is smart, but clearly does not have the experience or self-awareness necessary to see outside his ideological bubble. I hope this experience opens his eyes enough that he doesn't continue to double down on failed policies. But even if he does see the light, it's tragic that the reeducation of an unwilling Obama requires the country to go through so much trouble.
Edited on August 9, 2011 at 3:58pmDec '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
So, rather than being unintelligent, he is simply insane? Einstein defined insanity by doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
I'll buy that.
Dec '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
I've never thought Obama was smart. I know what smart is. Whenever I go to conferences, I see these other mathematicians presenting their work and I have to ask "How did they come up with that brilliant idea?" or "How did they have the patience to see through those awful calculations, I would have been sure they didn't work?"
Most of them are inarticulate in their native language, let alone English.
But they are brilliant nonetheless. I saw none of that in Obama. I suppose I always think mathematics is the sieve of true genius, but even in the fields Obama was in, there were no new ideas or clever reworking of old ideas or the ability to solve problems.
He just repeats tired old tropes in an arrogant and pompous manner and I suppose Americans took that for intellect. (Hey, it works for most college professors.) He doesn't even make a particularly good con man, despite his clear ambitions in that area.
Still, I'm never enamored with "smart" in our leaders. Character, modesty and a bit of wisdom worked for Washington and Coolidge. It's liberals, not conservatives, who need ubermensches to rule over them.
Apr '11
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
I've worn my "Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot" t-shirt so much it has faded almost to illegibility. But I won't have to renew it. Just in time, BHO has made the welkin ring with his demonstration in fact of the sentiment. He has never accomplished anything, let along ever recovered from set-backs or overcome obstacles. He has never had a mentor, guide, or close associate, from his grandfather to his wife, who loved America. He will never muster the resources to recover. The Democrats must rely on lies, blind yellow-dog loyalty, and Republican fecklessness next year.
There is the curious fact that he sometimes appreciates the irony in his experience, as when he remarked during the campaign that he seemed to be a tabula rasa on which people projected their hopes, and his remark about misunderstanding how ready "shovel-ready" projects are. But he learns nothing from these insights into the disparity between reality and expectation. He goes on expecting the same damned foolishness.
Jun '10
Re: The Smartest President in American History. (Yuck, Yuck.)
Perhaps we have yet another proof of the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 1:2: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."