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Good question — 19 Comments

  1. Yes, to all, with some ignorance thrown in.

    Barack, by a combination of skin tone and political leanings which make his intellect and his wisdom unassailable, and by virtue of being glib and smooth and charismatic (in the right circumstances): is thought to undoubtedly possess the wisdom to be an excellent POTUS. He does not.

    Barack is educationally ignorant in two critical areas a POTUS ought not be ignorant: economics and history. Barack might overcome these handicaps via being nimble, via being adaptable, and via shrewdly listening to and learning from advisors who have suitable knowledge. Sadly, I see no evidence Barack is nimble, adaptable, or shrewd. Instead, I see evidence Barack is either intellectually incurious, or is flatly lacking in judgment and reasoning.

    Barack is further ignorant of how to accomplish things other than winning elections, i.e. how to manage himself and others, how to reason and come to best decisions, how to then ensure the implementation of decisions, how to turn on a dime if circumstances change, how to doggedly weather storms if necessary.

    Therefore, in addition to everything Shrinkwrapped mentioned, Barack also misleads both himself and America out of simple ignorance. No one notices b/c no one dares think that about a black Democrat.

    We – me included – have virtually trained ourselves to not even consider whether or not a black person of stature might be ignorant in crucial areas. It’s something we felt we must not say aloud; felt we must not even consider in private. Yet, it is simply the case – barring some unforeseen revelation – that Barack is ignorant and lacking skills in crucial areas. The sooner we begin retraining ourselves to see that, the better off we will be.

  2. As an ex-liberal who thought he was smart.

    I am charitable.

    I think Obama and most leftist politicians (including Republican leftists) just do not understand economics 101.

    That doesn’t mean that people on the right understand economics 101 any better except that their instict is right.

    This is so terribly important that more people understand what led to this crisis and what we could do to get out of it and/or prevent it in the future.

    Identity politics does NOT get us closer to those goals.

    I can only hope that Obama sees the light and leads the country in the right way. Currently (and unfortunately) he is not leading the country the right way.

  3. I agree with Me.

    This is a particular breed of politician, backed by think tanks with carefully crafted talking points, and armies of activist orgs masquerading as “grassroots” groups working to secure his election.

    They’ll tell you ‘they all do it’ and to some degree that is true, but this is an art that has been perfected into a weapon by a group that is more akin to Al Qaeda than a political party – they are at war with you while you are oblivious to their existence, they plot and lay the groundwork for their coup while you see only the shining facade, hear only the beautifully drafted ‘mission statements’ and eloquent speeches. They use your own tools against you just as the the 9/11 hijackers used frequent flyer miles as disguises.

    This particular politician is an empty vessel with a lovely mirrored facade, in which people see their own high ideals reflecting back at them. They hear the lofty speeches and believe he wants what they want, believes as they believe.

    They don’t see the gritty underpinnings, the MoveOn.org machination, the ACORN muscle, the Rezko dealings – yet.

    This particular politician is floated and supported by people who wanted power more than anything else, by a political machine more powerful than even that which the Clintons had built.

    Obama will push agendas that would shock us all, but he has us distracted and numb with the spending orgy, as he moves to accrue and solidify more power – and he may get away with it, because as you slap the one hand that is reaching into the cookie jar, you can’t keep slapping without looking abusive, so he will get away with many seemingly small things – and not so small things like pulling census taking under his control…

    I don’t think there is anything that can stop him at this point.

  4. “Is He Really This Ignorant?”

    I’ve long lost count of how many times I’ve seen that question after he’s spouted off on some issue, and would then read how it HAS to be some Machiavellian maneuver on his part (because he’s supposed to be so damned smart).

    When this happens enough, Occam’s Razor rears its’ head and suggests that the most likely answer is “YES!”

  5. Without his voice, his still climbing self-confidence and poise, Obama would not have reached the White House. As Karl Rove(may I quote him- though he’s no paragon of scrupulously fair political discourse) noted in the Wall St. Journal yesterday, Obama constantly ascribes opinions to his opponents they don’t actually hold. He also engages in newspeak-and will no doubt add some terms of his own to the lexicon. His mastery of facts is weak.
    There was a time early on in the campaign when I enjoyed hearing him speak. But once it became clear that he was fluttering “hope” and “change” about in every speech without offering specifics, I grew to despise and fear the mastery of his delivery. He ran on charisma, he invited the country to partake of his grandoisity.
    Fouad Ajami had a great piece in September comparing the adulation of the crowds at Obama rallies to the Arab politicians like Nasser that Ajami saw spellbinding Arab masses when he was younger.
    I guess, I should want to say here that I can no longer judge

  6. I think it was last week the husband and I were wondering to one another if we’d ever experienced a presidency in which the president seemed so profoundly out of his depth. We hadn’t, we decided. I absolutely don’t get the appeal; never did.

    Baklava, too right – doesn’t it say something when people unschooled in economics but running households or businesses have a sense that incentives and pricing work, and that self- (or family-) interest tends to be more powerful than “patriotism” or duty to a larger entity? Even combat soldiers, patriotic as they are, often say (I won’t say “admit” because there’s no need to use a negatively loaded word for this utterly normal feeling) that when the time comes actually to pick up weapons and fight, they do it first for their comrades in arms, and only thereafter for their country. And then the concept of “government efficiencies” – wha?? Why the Left clings to Keynes (at best), I dunno.

  7. If one stays away from Obama’s speeches, and waits until what he says is put into print, it takes on a whole different light. No big smiles, roaring adoration, swooning women imagining him in the shower, just the statements, plans, and promises in black and white.

    So imagine it coming from the mouth of Pelosi, Reid, Franks, Dodd, Bush, Carter, Hillary Clinton, even Bill Clinton. Would it then get the pass the left gives him now?

    Once again, our MSM has us isolated from the rest of the world for the most part. Unrest about the various bailouts that exist everywhere are bubbling up. You would never know it by watching American news organizations, or reading American based papers and magazines. One of the biggest things that has always bothered me is no matter what network the source of the news is, we are only watching what someone else has decided we should see – or at least how we should see it. Cable and satellite TV and the Internet are eye opening godsends.

  8. Obama is politically astute, but not all that smart is my reading. However I do see some intentional prevarications but I am sure they are rationalized by the liberal (once again) intellectual arrogance. Remember when you were a kid and your parents used to say “This is going to hurt me more than it does you but I’m doing it for your own good” ?
    Perfect example – universal health care issue. He backed off the single payer system when it looked like it wouldn’t fly and instead will set up a government backed system for those who opt into it. What will happen is that the government system will be so highly subsidized that it will eventually drive the private companies out of the market – leaving us with a single payer system.

  9. finally something with a relatively short answer (for me).

    Are Barack Obama’s exaggerations and outright falsehoods the typical stock in trade misstatements of politicians, intentional lies, unintentional errors, or something novel to our political experience?

    they are not typical stock trade mistatements, in fact, stock trade mistatements are not that either.

    for if one compares prior history with current hsitory, we have been acclimatized to think that such misstatements lies and things are normal. to quote stalin, everything now is normalized.

    in other words, in the 1800s lies got you out of office, corruption got you out of office, moral terpitude, and graft, and using the public money all woudl get you out of office.

    after the 60s crowd, and the constant drone of politicians are all liars, we normalized that they were and accepted that they were. talk about subtle mind games… just as constant harping that a theif running a corporation is a natural part of capitalism, like a man making a withdrawel from a bank is just another customer.

    all this is VERY novel to the american experience, who by throwing out the bad, only needed to consider each sides meritocritous answers.

    but after this, we did not change our tactics in skepticism in the right direction for a state that was no longer predicated on merit. we are using flintlocks, they have switched to chambered rounds. our tactics havent changed, theirs have, and every dip stick who is young, believes the side that lies, as if there are no lies.

    in other words, in a world in which the argumetns are presumed to be valid, and not lies or for consumption, one picks he optiosn they like best. in a world in which there are lies, one realizes that too sweet is not a better choice.

    a lifetime in training in dual thinking gets them to do this. get them to accept a false reality mentally in the face of a real reality and its contradictions to the false one, and you get them to think dually, and live in a kind of delusional state. they then protect this by finding like minds, and like people in a isolation tank, they create a reality for their brains to work on (using whats fed them).

    we talk about it all the time but dont realize it because we are always defaulting to a merit argument not a REAL argument… a merit argument refuses to table the validity of the arguments before choosing. consensus, and processes like dialoging to consensus which is a process in which one embeds the change agents desires in others and gets them to think they did it so its more acceptable.

    there is more… but this is the major gist of it…

    i could describe more, but all it would amount to is getting into process of how to turn the meritocritous state into a feudal state in which the people using the process become the defacto new leaders displacing merit. remember producers work on merit, parasites work on cargo cult and have no merit so must displace as they cant compete (which is why competition is bad, parasites are incomplete and will fail in a fair competition, so they have to get the others to quit before it starts, or funnel things through beuracracies so that they can touch it and lay claims).

    sigh

  10. American middle schools and high schools need to teach home economics (the real thing) and critical thinking. I mean, not that I am capable of critical thinking. I’m not, because I’m too emotional. But at least I know it.

  11. whoever trained obama growing up, trained him in wrong principals, wrong outcomes..

    think about the people in this circle and what they have actually done? why not have a child, raise it with the doctrines non principals… guide him, give him huge self esteem… a blessed life with the illusion of ability…

    you end up creating a person who seriously and honestly beleives whatever was poured in his head.

    now take him, put him up like a post turtle… that same guiding thing… and he is a puppet that can implement everything they want since he has a lifetime training in being receptive to it.

    it sounds science fiction, but is it? is it really such to make the perfect groomed person? a living political bomb in which could only work if he never stayed in a place long enough to find out the truth. hop scotch up, and place the bomb and let it all happen as eveyrone digs into the confused country.

    the country is being dismantled and its being done so fast that by the time people START saying woah, its already done…

    On February 11, Bloomberg Business News reported that China was seeking “guarantees” for its US Government debt (Story Here), and it now appears they got it. Well placed senior sources at the US Embassy in Beijing CONFIRM the formal written agreement was delivered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her recent trip to China.
    This means that in the event the US Government defaults on its financial obligations to China, the Communist Government of China would be permitted to physically take – inside the USA – land, buildings, factories, perhaps even entire cities – to satisfy the financial obligations of the US government.

    In early February nine U.S. States began the process of re-asserting their Sovereignty pursuant to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the US Constitution; declaring null and void any actions by Congress that violated the Constitution.

    remember when the immigrants marched coordinated on communist workers day all over the country? that was a show of force, control, and coordination.

    things are happening right in front of you, but in a meritocritous society, you reflexivley put a positive spin on it and go on your way..

    we havent noticed that the guys arguing slippery slopes and implications of things against the left are more often right than wrong (even if it took the AMAs prediction in the early part of the last century to come true now. they said that medicare and medicaide would lead to socialist/communist medicine and htey didnt support it).

    in russia, most of the work against the good middle class that had to be done for them to switch it all around, was done by the thug class.. the class we have been building for 40 years. when the crap hits the fan, they do the work naturally… you saw them in katrina, watts, and other places… they are the ones that turn a city into a war zone triad…

    but who wants to talk principals of operation and methods to move things a certain way… they are too busy arguing as if the points they are lying about are valid…

    everyone is so concrete, an chess and politial games are abstraction games and a game like chess where you maneuver things all over so they converge.

    your watching years of maneuvering coming to convergence. list out the biggest things and its like a wish list an anemy would have if they wanted to cause trouble.

    men alienated to the point were many of the young hope for an invasion just to change sides.

    men have nothing to fight for. no sexy women, no familes (compared to before), a court system that also alienates them and is unfair to them, so they will be sour if it comes time to save the place

    promoting effeminite men, the kind that dont really fight, and give up easy, and like appeasement. (notice i didnt say gay).

    dumbing down the population.. breaking their reasoning ability.. make them hate their own protection.

    disarm the public… remove the missile threat, open up the borders for entry of agents who coordinate riots and operate (like in wwii and after).

    remove the productive capacity, so there is no way to ramp up and get that individualist drive going to protect itself.

    fracture the population so that no one likes each group and each group will sell each other group to the same buyers (meaning everyone sells everyone out believing they are to be rewarded).

    the list goes on and on..

    but who puts them ALL together and thinks about why so many pieces have been arranged in which things arent good… (and out of this picture is all the things the other states that would think of doing something are doing)

    meanwhile we sit around the campfire still trying to figure out which one of the two choices they are giving us is better than the other…

  12. When I was younger I used to think that when politicians said stupid things it was because they thought that was what the public wanted.
    I do not think so now. They are as genuinely stupid as the people who elect them and the MSM who fawn over them. When I hear that Clinton or Obama are intelligent ,why? Show ONE thing either of them has ever said that is worth remembering, for its sensibility. Just one thing. A lot of people are impressed because they hear other foolish people (the MSM) cheer him on.
    No one can say they weren’t warned.It is all in his unread-able memoir.

  13. There is no question- we are absolutely screwed. Has a political class ever been so divorced from reality?

  14. I don’t think he is all that unusual in what he says or how he says it.

    What is unusual is his immunity to criticism because of the COMBINATION of 1) social anxieties of the urban intelligentsia related to criticizing African Americans in public and 2) New Class solidarity with one of their own.

  15. In the parlance of genteel political euphemism, he is the turd that wouldn’t flush. An indicator of just how shallow the kiddie pool we call American Statesmanship really is.

    Seriously now, folks; in a world where Paul Krugman is taken seriously as an economist, Barney Frank speaks from anywhere that is not a jail cell, to have an Obama as president is no great leap.

    This situation will not persist. We lived on Big Government as long as McMansions and American Idol were the big attention grabbers in the daily life of the average American.

    The lack of food, shelter, and individual liberty are about to become deeply personal experiences for everyone who refuses to kneel to the new order. Unfortunately for Barack and his peers, there’s not an iota of a chance they can rape the rich and screw the kulaks this time around. We’re not in for a rough patch or for inconvenience – we’re at a cusp.

    Bring it. You can’t fix a problem nobody will name.

  16. Agree. Knowing his followers as neo must similarly intimately know (family members, old friends) these are the true believers that make it possible. And thankfully, most of them aren’t armed.

  17. From the post linked to… “Bridey said…
    But I would say Obama is not a father figure at all. Rather, he’s something that has vastly more appeal in this stuck-in-adolescence society. He’s not America’s daddy, he’s America’s boyfriend.

    Obama anticipates desires, offers the sweetest, most longed-for promises, and vows to make every cherished fantasy come true. What you hear in the voices and see in the faces of his admirers is not the admiration and respect due to Daddy, but the heat and passion of a lover. In America today, this is much, much better.

    A dictator by instinct and inclination? Could be. But not Daddy. Oh, no.”

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