Thursday, September 1, 2011

God Save us from Another Cerebral President

A liberal at Politico has taken the original step of questioning the intellectual capacity of a GOP candidate for president

Funny, no one on the left ever questions the intelligence of laff-a-minute good-for-nothing-but-government Maxine Waters or gaff-master good-for-nothing-but-government Joe Biden. Dim bulbs flicker across the liberal landscape, but progressives persist in smearing successful conservatives (George Bush got higher grades than Al Gore, remember?). Here’s the latest poop throwing monkey attack:
Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: lightweight, incurious, instinctual.
Strip away the euphemisms and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: Is he dumb — or just “misunderestimated?” (Politico - Is Rick Perry Dumb?)

Cerebral presidencies are rarely successful

Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama. All supposedly highly-intelligent, all dismal failures.  A president doesn’t need to be a genius, he just needs to be an effective manager and a bold leader, traits not normally found in ivory tower eggheads.

There are different kinds of smarts. There’s book smarts, street smarts, and an ability to think on ones feet, evaluate information and make good decisions using a combination of logical thinking and gut instinct nurtured by experience. Those of us with working class dads who never saw the inside of a college classroom can tell you how we marveled at the man’s ability to smell a rat and avoid making stupid mistakes. 

Leadership takes that special kind of smarts, and intellectuals usually don’t fit the bill. The best leaders, be they sergeants or generals are smart, but not the brainy Newt Gingrich intellectual type. They are interested in ideas only for their practical use, not as an academic pursuit.  Good leaders can ingest information, often conflicting, presented to them by experts. They can evaluate that information against experience and empirical evidence and pull the trigger without the dithering and the drama.

The two most important qualities to look for in a president are Philosophy and Judgment

Philosophy tells us where the candidate wants to lead the nation, and judgment tells us if he can take us there or not. Our best leaders picked good people and trusted them, encouraging open debate and then synthesizing the information to craft policy. Putting philosophy aside, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George Bush were all very good at this. Barack Obama is not, and he's ill-served by an inept staff to boot.

Rick Perry has demonstrated these successful leadership qualities in his 10 plus years as Texas Governor:
“If he doesn’t know the answer, he’s going to find someone who does,” the lobbyist said. “He recognizes good help and brings ’em on for advice. He’s not going to know every foreign leader — but he has the good sense and instincts to pick good people who help him make good decisions.”

“Pilots execute flight plans,” Miller said. “They have a plan, they fly a certain pattern and that’s the way he’s always operated — he has a flight plan for what he’s trying to do and he executes.”

Mike Baselice, Perry’s longtime pollster, said his client is of the Ronald Reagan school of management: “Trust people and manage well.” (Politico - Is Rick Perry Dumb?)
Indeed, it’s the presidents who get too far in the weeds who get into trouble

Think Lyndon Johnson with maps of Vietnam on his desk planning bombing raids or Jimmy Carter making unilateral and ill-considered moralistic decisions on foreign policy that redounded greatly to our nation’s detriment. I’ve seen sergeants and colonels make the same mistakes during my military career.

A president can’t do it all anyway; the galaxy of subject matter is too vast for any one brain to comprehend.  I had the great fortune to study colonels and generals up close during my last few years in the Air Force. Like presidents, people who are in charge of vast enterprises are not the technocrats figuring out every problem. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were not writing code while running their respective companies as CEO. They are leading a team and managing its efforts.

The best leaders take the long and broad view, set the tone and transmit the game plan, leaving their experts to solve the Rubic's Cube.  David Harsanyi explains…
That doesn't make them "dumb." What makes a person dumb is repeating mistakes when all the evidence tells him to stop for his own good. We will witness this human shortcoming when the president rolls out his new "stimulus" package.
Some ideas, goes Orwell's saying, are so dumb only intellectuals can believe them.
On the other hand, reflexive anti-intellectualism (a misguided belief on the right that was spurred by having to share the word "intellectual" with Cornel West) is also destructive. If you're going to propose more than hope in 2012—say, some policy—you have to be prepared with scholarly backup. (Harsanyi – You Don’t Have to be Smart, Just Right)

65 comments:

Always On Watch said...

God deliver us from arrogant intellectuals of all stripes!

Anonymous said...

Anyone but what we have! Look what this pseudo smart stuff has gotton us. While I have concerns about the guy, I do think he has,at this time, the best shot at taking out Zero.

Z said...

One Dem suggested that more Gitmo detainees would sink the island and who heard THAT in the msm? :-) THERE's an intellectual for you!

Harsanyi is good...think "another ineffective Stimulus program? MORE borrowed money?..it's finally going to work?"

I've never been sure Obama's very bright, let alone an 'ivory tower egghead' but he or someone who is advising him sure is bright in the art of PR (not TOO difficult when you've got a media completely in the bag for you, of course). The headlines today make it look like Obama had to pick another night for his debate next week because Boehner's a nasty ol' guy who insisted (see my post later on today) and not because Obama shouldn't have selected the night of a big, well planned debate by Republicans.

Sometimes, I think AMericans have come down so hard on the side of PERSONALITY and LOOKS and CHARISMA in a candidate that we should be able to look at a slate of Cabinet Picks and heads of important departments from which to vote! "Okay, here's the two pretty guys who speak glibly and convinced each party to pick them.......now you're supposed to vote on the people they picked who'll be advising them!"

Anonymous said...

You think Lincoln was not cerebral? You think Washington and Jefferson were not cerebral?

Leaders are forged by their experiences, and one's leadership capability has nothing to do with whether one has been to college or not.

All of the generals and colonels you venerate were college educated. In the 20th Century, only one of our presidents did not have a college education.

Just because one president might be more pragmatic than another doesn't mean he's not cerebral.

Ducky's here said...

Is Perry the flavor of the week?

They come and go so quickly on the Rethug scene that I get the impression you don't know what you want.

But you're all waiting for the poll dancer to enter the race.

Chucklenuts redux, such a deal.

Always On Watch said...

Jack,
You think Lincoln was not cerebral? You think Washington and Jefferson were not cerebral?

Those examples are from over a century ago.

Fredd said...

I believe that Braniac Obama will face a primary challenge from the Smartest Woman in the World:

Let the brain cells 'get ready to rumble!!!'

And the last genius standing at the end of the Dem primary will face in the general election what the media will most assuredly label an idiot Republican.

I'd rather be led by an idiot who learns from their mistakes, than a genius ideologue who considers giant blunders resume enhancements.

Always On Watch said...

Z,
...AMericans have come down so hard on the side of PERSONALITY and LOOKS and CHARISMA in a candidate...

We live in the Age of the Cult of Personality -- and the Age of the Cult of Physical Appearance.

Why voters cast their ballots for a particular national leader is a mystery to me.

I've noted this: no bald President elected since Eisenhower. Apparently, since JFK, Americans prefer a natonal leader with a full head of hair.

Always On Watch said...

Duck,
Chucklenuts redux,

Really?

GWB and Perry can hardly be called friends or of the same ilk, the latter in many ways.

Ducky's here said...

And the last genius standing at the end of the Dem primary will face in the general election what the media will most assuredly label an idiot Republican.
-------------

If Romney gets the nomination, probably not.

Bachmann, Perry, Palin, L'il Ricky Retardo ... absolutely.

What ever happened to the pizza man? I liked his idea of stopping immigration with a moat. He's no egg head.

Silverfiddle said...

Ducky: I can always count on you to seize upon the superficial and miss the deeper point.

This is not an endorsement of Perry. He is just the example I use to talk about leadership.

Jack: I did not say good leaders are not smart. What I said was intellectuals usually make bad leaders and I gave examples.

The men you mention were indeed educated, but they were all practical men, interested in ideas not as an academic pursuit, but for how they could be employed in some useful fashion.

Silverfiddle said...

@ Ducky: What ever happened to the pizza man? I liked his idea of stopping immigration with a moat.

Hahaha! You continually reveal yourself to be a reliable propaganda vessel, Ducky.

Obama made the moat comment, not Cain. Maybe you got confused because they are both black?

Go to YouTube and watch the raw Cain video (not the lefty chopped up version). The man was making a joke. Anyone with a brain and an interest in the truth can see that, but the truth doesn't matter to the tools on the left, does it?

Shane Atwell said...

As the Lincoln and Jefferson examples above indicate, modern intellectuals aren't bad because they are intellectuals. They're bad because they are leftists. What we need is a rational president if we want to continue the tradition of Jefferson. Neither Obama nor Perry qualify.

Ducky's here said...

Silverfiddle, you're statement that Perry is a great leader indicates you don't know much about the structure of Texas government. The governor is a weak official and follows the legislature rather than leading.

Haven't seen much leadership from him and I maintain that Texas has benefited greatly from very strict mortgage regulations which kept them largely out of the property bubble. Nothing to do with Perry.

Ducky's here said...

Yes you were correct about the moat, sort of. I forgot that pizza man wanted to add alligators.

"I just got back from China. Ever heard of the Great Wall of China? It looks pretty sturdy. And that sucker is real high. I think we can build one if we want to! We have put a man on the moon, we can build a fence! Now, my fence might be part Great Wall and part electrical technology...It will be a twenty foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top, and on this side of the fence, I'll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!"

Silverfiddle said...

@ Ducky: you're statement that Perry is a great leader indicates...

I made no such statement. Here's what I said:

Rick Perry has demonstrated these successful leadership qualities in his 10 plus years as Texas Governor

I base that upon the eyewitness testimony I quote.

You may want to check the prescription on your reading glasses.

Anonymous said...

I've never accepted the media-generated notion that Hillary Clinton or Obama are particularly smart. Where's the evidence? Neither has written, said or done anything that strikes me as particularly brilliant. Neither has the faintest trace of a sense of humor -- a faculty all truly bright people possess in abundance -- except for "engineers."

Humorlessness is pretty reliable sign of dull-wittedness.

We have seen plenty of evidence that John Kerry has a mediocre intellect at best. Al Gore gives the same impression. Neither of them demonstrates any apprecible sense of humor either.

Short of administering an IQ test to all candidates on national TV and publishing the results how could we know how smart any of these people really are?

I suppose it's "smart" to achieve success in jockeying yourself into a position of power and influence where great green gobs of geld just seem to pour into your coffers as if by magic, but if we were to measure intelligence by the RESULTS most of our leaders achieve, we would doubtless get the impression that they are pretty dull witted.

An awful lot of people with high SAT scores get into Ivy League colleges. Some are genuinely brilliant in their special fields, but it's almost a cliché that extraordinarily intelligent, highly creative individuals are woefully lacking in common sense.

I happen to be a great admirer of Beethoven, but if he were with us today, I doubt very seriously that I'd want him as our president. He'd be too busy doing much more important work to be bothered anyway.

In the same vein most of the creative geniuses I who have captured my imagination and enriched my life would make lousy politicians.

There's a world of difference between being smart and being shrewd.

Also being highly intelligent is no guarantee of anyone's being dependable, loyal, forthright, kind-hearted, or moral.

My first impression of Rick Perry, as I've said more than once, tells me he's more an Elmer Gantry than a Fulton J. Sheen. America today with its disgusting penchant for idolizing of Rock 'n cRap stars would doubtless fall more easily for a Rick Perry and fail to appreciate a Bishop Sheen.

If Winston Churchill were alive today, he wouldn't stand a chance even of getting nominated much less elected. The same is true of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison.

Washington was no intellectual. Jefferson, Adams and Franklin agreed that his intelligence was "not of the first rank," but he made up for it in dedication to duty, perseverance, and strength of character. The other Founders, however, were most definitely intellectuals of the highest order.

I wish they were around today, but it's very likely the media would make short work of them.

~ FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

OFF TOPIC:

What's happened to Jez and Fr. Gregori?

And where is Jersey?

Hope we haven't scared anyone away?

~ FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

Intellectuals should be locked in rooms and only allowed to pass their written ideas under the doors. Smart people with good common sense would then read and discard most of them while implementing the good ideas far better than the intellectual ever could.

Silverfiddle said...

Conservativesonfire: Excellent observation! Thanks for the laugh!

FT: Jersey, Jez and Fr Gregori don't scare that easy.

Jersey McJones said...

I'm here, I'm here. I just have family up for the week, plus work, plus home renovation, etc, etc. I have a lot on my plate right now.

Silver,

You put far too much emphasis on the personality of presidents.

There's a lot more that goes into the relative success or failure of a presidency, epecially a first term presidency.

There're the balances of power on the Hill, in the courts, and among the states. There's domestic and foreign events. There are economic conditions that by definition mostly predate any given first term. There's popular sentiment, and the press, and so forth.

It's also very hard to measure the relative success or failure of a presidency in general, because it is a subjective and relative measurement.

Ask a military contractor what they think of the Bush administration and you get a very different answer than you would get from a construction worker.

Obama's cerebral and "cool" style runs into a problem not with his leadership skills or abilities but with the rather uncerebral and uncool politics of his politic foes. They want a loudmouth cowboy who shoots from the hip, and Obama is certainly not that. But, when it comes time to make important decisions, he is just as firm as any prior president.

He can't reinvent himself now. That would be foolish. But he can be more assertive with the opposition - and with his own herd of cats that is the Democratic Party!

Now, remember, the knock on Perry's brains didn't originate from Democrats. People in his own party and from his inner circle have said Perry isn't the brightest bulb in the box. He certainly does say things sometimes, with far too much conviction, that are awfully stupid. I mean, it's one thing when a politician says something that you know obviously isn't true, but it's another thing entirely when you it seems the politician acctually believes it. Perry seems to fit into the latter. But I can't say for sure yet. I haven't examined him enough, and he having been Texas governor, with the constitutionally weakest state executive in the nation, doesn't tell us much.

He certainly seems driven. But it takes more than just drive to be a good leader - it takes smarts too.

JMJ

Anonymous said...

Conservativesonfire:

This country was founded by intellectuals based on their ideas.

Anti-intellectualism is why America is retarded today, and it's why America's children will largely grow up to be complete morons.

Destroying and controlling ideas is exactly where the death of freedom and liberty begins. I'd rather live in a country of intellectuals than a country full of morons who can't even think.

Rob said...

I dunno that "smart" is the right word for Hillary. Maybe more like "ruthlessly cunning." And scary as hell.

Christopher - Conservative Perspective said...

Jack, I believe the conservativeonfire meant pseudo-intellectuals as that is what the WH and staff are as current events reveal.

JMJ, I believe you have missed the point on "personalities", it is what goes into making those personalities before elected as POTUS that matters.

Good post Silver.

Anonymous said...

>Obama's cerebral and "cool" style runs into a problem...

...when it hits the reality that he's not really that smart and that he's quite a dork. (Ever seen him on a bicycle or trying to throw a baseball?)

Anonymous said...

>There are different kinds of smarts.

That reminds me of the saying that there's a certain kind of stupid that you can only get in grad school. Some of the biggest fools I have ever met or interacted with have been big-name PhDs from Ivy League schools. High school to college to grad school to a position in academia is the perfect recipe for a highly degreed moron.

Silverfiddle said...

Jack: I am not anti-intellectual. This post is in response to a liberal claiming Perry is not smart, and he uses the usual east coast, inside-the-beltway definition, which his advanced degree from Ivy League.

Education is important, I'm not minimizing it. What I am saying is that empirical evidence shows that that is no guarantee of success.

Speedy G said...

"A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one." - Benjamin Franklin

Jersey McJones said...

Bastiat, you seem biased, anti-intellectual. That's rather childish.

And so, Jack hit the nail right on the head (I was trying to avoid the topic). America is dangerously anti-intellectual. We loathe academics, scholars, etc.

Watch Bill O'Reilly, the Harvard educated Bill O'Reilly, pretending to be the common man. It's hysterical. Several prominent Fox News hosts do this, even though they are highly, Ivy League, educated.

They are pandering to anti-intelectualism.

We are going to seriously regret our anti-intellectualism one day. We should be regretting it now, but we're too God damned anti-intellectually stupid to see it.

Christopher,

What I was saying is that I do not believe Obama's intellectual disposition has much to do with the troubles in the country, or with his presidency.

JMJ

Speedy G said...

This country was founded by intellectuals based on their ideas.

The founding was 235 years ago. The hard thinking was done then. It's time to pursue happiness and prevent all the smarty-pants from punching any more loopholes into our Constitution.

Speedy G said...

Jersey,

Shove your intellectual revolutionary vanguard up Snooky's snook.

Speedy G said...

Men with their heads full of answers no longer ask questions.

Jersey McJones said...

Speedy, there are more inconsistencies in your last few posts than a gay Southern Baptist liberal.

You really don't understand the Constitution or the Founders - or reality.

JMJ

Trekkie4Ever said...

Ft, Fr. Gregori has been ill, but is finally on the mend and is posting again. Jez, is around. She posted a comment on my blog.

I remember a part on I,Robot where Spooner yells at Dr. Blake and says, "You are the stupidist smart person I know!!" Or something to that effect.

I have two uncles who never stepped a foot in a college classroom, but through hard work, hard lessons and tenacity are now very successful wealthy men. My deceased grandfather, who was also WWII veteran, opened up a gas station and was successful.

It takes a person with courage and tenacity to get ahead.

Anonymous said...

>Bastiat, you seem biased, anti-intellectual.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm totally anti-intellectual. Well, except for being in academia and all that...

And yes, I am definitely biased. I'm biased against poor scholarship, lazy thinking, emotionally driven decisions, and the plague of political correctness that pushes reality out in favor of the revolution du jour.

>We loathe academics, scholars, etc.

No, just the pseudo-intellectual ones.

Bd said...

Yeah, lets get someone even more stupid than Bush back in the White House, like Rick Perry, to finish the job of destroying the middle class.

Anonymous said...

"... I'm biased against poor scholarship, lazy thinking, emotionally driven decisions, and the plague of political correctness ..."

Three cheers for Bastiatarian!

Rah! Rah! Siss Boom Bah!
Chickolacka! Chickolacka!
Hah! Hah! Hah!


You GO, man.

Mistaking the assimilation and glib, mindless regurgitation of trendy, manipulative cant and rhetoric for sound thinking is The Curse of Our Age.

~ FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Leticia. I'm sorry Fr. Gregori has been ill, but glad to hear he's on the mend. Please tell him he's been missed if you get the chance.

I disagree with Jez most of the time, but enjoy sparing with him. Jez is a "him," by the way. His name is Jeremy. He told me that shortly after I asked him if Jez was short for Jezebel -- an allusion he didn't appreciate.

~ FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

Jersey,

The place just isn't the same without you.

Glad you didn't get washed away by Irene.

You're wrong most of the time, but we like you anyway.

You can take that as a compliment.

~ FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

Rob,

Hillary is, indeed, frightening. Ugly too. Her hideousness is more than skin deep. It's part of her soul.

Jefferson said,

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye upon them [public offices] a rottenness begins in his conduct."

The same should be said for women -- especially flint-eyed, humorless, pointedly unfeminine types like Her Heinous.

~ FreeThinke

Speedy G said...

You really don't understand the Constitution or the Founders - or reality.

lol!

The Constitution...it's the adamantine loadstone that keeps Laputa (the whore) perpetually floating in the air (Swift, "Gulliver's Travels").

The Founders... magical astronomers who once were not bound by the Constitution nor limited to the geographical territory of the floating Laputa.

Reality... in the name of "consistency", what does THAT have to do with the above two, again, Snookums???

Reality

Finntann said...

I think most of you confuse educated with intelligent.

Anyone with a little time and a decent memory can get good grades and a degree or two.

I'll grant that Obama is well educated, I haven't seen anything indicative of anything beyond average intelligence.

The other important thing to remember these days is that most of the words that come out of a politicians mouth don't originate in their brains... You can listen to say, Stephen Hawking on tape but you don't make the mistake of attributing that intelligence to the player.

Most politicians are consumate actors. The good ones stick to the script, the bad ones look like fools... or in other words, themselves.

Cheers!

Z said...

Leticia, my grandfather came here with ZERO English at 9 years of age....with a father, a mother who died within 2 months of landing at Ellis Island, and 3 older sisters.

he learned English by picking it up in school in 3 months (no 'BILINGUAL CLASS' necessary) and, by the time he was about 30 (barely finishing high school), owned the 3 best gourmet butcher markets in Troy, NY...employing his sisters' husbands, his father (My great grandfather) and supplying sugar and flour to the neighborhood during WWII.

It's only the Left which feels you can't get ahead...and that non English speakers need special language classes (which unionized teachers make much more for$$)...and everyone needs welfare. "The soft bigotry of low expectations" is a very ugly thing. I think my dear Grandpa would have rather slit his wrists than take any aid. As it is, he bemoaned till the day he died that, because his mother died on landing in America, they had to put the youngest daughter in an orphanage for six months. That was all the welfare my family ever took, and they came with absolutely nothing.

Our relatives, and those who still come to America because they love this country (not those who come with their hands out) have always wanted a president who expects the best from America's people; who encourages us with lower taxes and trust that we'll make it ......the sad pallor hanging over this land now is something that would have been foreign to Grandpa, a foreigner who became more American than some Americans I know.

Z said...

Finntann said...
I think most of you confuse educated with intelligent."

Wow, Fintann...that was what we always said about the grandfather I waxed way too long about above, (sorry. once I get going about that great man, I can't stop)....he didn't get a college education or even high school, I don't think, but he worked hard and was smart and succeeded. Still, his greatest wish was that his sons and grandchildren DID get a higher education...and we did.

I'm glad you agree about Obama's intelligence; I never quite get why people are always saying how smart he is. What's the evidence? Except that a guy that young could get a publisher to publish TWO autobiographies of a young guy who has done nothing to date with his life; that's pretty good, I guess. (I'll always wonder about that one)

Silverfiddle said...

@Bd: ...to finish the job of destroying the middle class.

Too late! Obama beat him to it!

Jersey: Judge Napolitano, Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams are all PhD's, and they are all heroes of the tea party right.

As someone else already said, we are not anti-intellectual, we are just anti-pseudo-intellectual (Al Gore, Barack Obama, Cornell West, etc.)

Al Gore is especially repugnant, since he's an intellectual sissy mental midget because he refuses to debate anyone who disagrees with him. There is nothing more anti-intellectual than that.

Silverfiddle said...

Ducky:

I apologize for overlooking your "flavor of the week" comment.

At least we have a diversity of flavors here on the right.

You guys are stuck with one flavor: An Ocrapwich.

Have fun with that.

Anonymous said...

Obama is cerebral all right.

His presidency reminds me of a severe case of CEREBRAL PALSY.

~ FreeThinke

Anonymous said...

Ocrapwich, eh?

Is that any where near Ipswich?

And here I thought Ducky lived on a steady diet of IPECAC.

Live and learn.

~ FreeThinke

Silverfiddle said...

FT: I meant to type O'Crapwich. It's an Irish thing.

I remember poor Great Grandpappy Silverfiddle, God rest his soul, coming briefly out of a deep fog of dementia in January 2009...

"President Brock O'Bauma! Great God in heaven, we've elected and Irishman!"

He went downhill fast after that...

Most Rev. Gregori said...

"Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama. All supposedly highly-intelligent, all dismal failures."

They were all supposedly highly intelligent only in their own pea brained minds and those of dim-witted liberals.

Jersey McJones said...

FT,

Right back at ya'! I think the world of all you guys and gals. We share that most special and important human bond - the ability to debate and argue. In the end, that is how humanity moves forward.

If two heads are better than one, than theoretically a million heads would always think great things. Unfortunately, the lack of thinking is what too many other heads have in common.

I am proud to be among a blog-clique who believe in thinking and spirited debate.

Thank you for the compliment.

Speedy,

"The Constitution...it's the adamantine loadstone that keeps Laputa (the whore) perpetually floating in the air (Swift, "Gulliver's Travels")."

You really didn't need the parentheses. Jeez man, do you think I'm a moron? (You really need to get past the idiotic notion that people who disagree with you are by definition idiots).

That said, you are all over the place. Make up your mind.

Finntann,

You really can't see Obama's intelligence? Really???

I'm not saying the man is some genius. I don't know. But he's obviously very, naturally smart. You see it in his charisma, in his ability to own a room, in how literally everyone who knows him describes him.

Again, I don't know exactly what his IQ is, or even if such a thing is measurable (I'm not a big fan of the whole "IQ" thing, and that's from a guy who's alledgedly pretty "smart"). But Obama's certainly above average.

He handled his rise and power very well. And he maintains a personal relationship with the American people that we haven't seen since Reagan (a man who was alledgedly not so smart, but obviously quite the osmotic autodidact - like an intellectual sponge).

Ciao! ;)

Silver,

"...Judge Napolitano, Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams..."

"...Al Gore, Barack Obama, Cornell West..."

How'd you fit Gore into that???

I've seen West debate and talk heavy stuff off the cuff. I would not dismiss him if I were you. He's a walking encyclopedia - and an expert on religion.

Barack Obama is a very serious and heavy thinker.

Al Gore? Well, he's a very interesting character, but I just can't imagine why you lumped him in with West and Obama, let alone as some kind of mirror to Sowell or Williams... maaaaybeee Napolitano???

I'm not a fan of Sowell or Williams, but I will say they are at the very least impressively knowledgable people. Napolitano is a loudmouthed ginzo. I've known a million of them. Hell. I'm one of them.

Thanks for all the fun, Silver. After a hard days work, this is a great respite, and great exercize for the mind.

JMJ

Anonymous said...

>Barack Obama is a very serious and heavy thinker.

Oh, my. I don't think I've laughed so hard since, well, Obama's last speech.
Obama is such an intellectual lightweight that I sometimes feel bad about making fun of him, since I have a policy of not making fun of the intellectually handicapped.

Finntann said...

Jersey, do you really think charisma is a measure of intelligence?

Perhaps charisma is one aspect or possible manifestation of it, but I've known some pretty stupid people who were charismatic and well liked.

As far as Obama goes, yeah, he's somewhere on the right of the bell curve. Can't say I've seen anything from him that would put him to the far right of it.

"he maintains a personal relationship with the American people"... and you were doing so well up to there.

Reagan pretty much held onto his base... Obama seems to have alienated many, both left and right. One need look no further than his popularity numbers to see that.

98ZJUSMC said...

Hahaha! You continually reveal yourself to be a reliable propaganda vessel, Ducky.

Obama made the moat comment, not Cain. Maybe you got confused because they are both black?


To DUmmies like Ducky, blacks are best not seen or heard. Just so they keep voting like zombies for Democrats and know their place on the plantation.

Rethugs....Ooooh, never heard that one before.

*facepalm*

98ZJUSMC said...

I've never accepted the media-generated notion that Hillary Clinton or Obama are particularly smart.

They are not. If I had to bet, I would say GWB's grades were better than SCOAMF.

...Clinton would be worse than Emperor Training Wheels.

98ZJUSMC said...

Jersey, do you really think charisma is a measure of intelligence?

He must have a very high opinion of used car salesman.

98ZJUSMC said...

Obama's cerebral and "cool"

Oh, so that's what he needs his telewoobie for.

Cerebral? Hardly.

98ZJUSMC said...

Yeah, lets get someone even more stupid than Bush back in the White House

We have that now.

98ZJUSMC said...

Still, his greatest wish was that his sons and grandchildren DID get a higher education...and we did.



I wonder if, today, he would feel the same way.

Speedy G said...

Jeez man, do you think I'm a moron?

Was that a rhetorical question? ;)

Trekkie4Ever said...

FT, I could have sworn Jez was a woman!! I believe he corrected me one time when I addressed him as a him???Glad you cleared that up. I will let Abouna, know.

Z, most people are quite capable of learning the language here, and busting their bums to get ahead in life. Back in the old days, there were no free hand-outs, you worked, you earned and you lived. Hard work does pay off. We have the proof from our own families.

Anonymous said...

PRiZE RETORT of the THEAD:

"Yeah, lets get someone even more stupid than Bush back in the White House."

"We have that now."


TOO-SHAY!!!

~ FT

TOM said...

"God Save us from Another Cerebral President"

So lets have idiots who don't even know what Paul revere did, as our President. No thanks. I'll stick with people who have an education comprehension above the third grade.

Silverfiddle said...

TOM: You obviously didn't get past the headline...

thanks for stopping by.

TOM said...

Your headline said it all, as a good headline should.