Obama in Moscow:
Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you.
D’OH!!!
The man is a Laff Riot!!!
That’s the way to “hit the Reset button”, Mr. President. Remind the Russians of perhaps the stupidest thing they ever did.
(Can you imagine the teeth-grinding rage of a person like Putin, a guy who has clawed his way to the top on sheer wit, cunning and brutality, having to deal with this lightweight and take him seriously? I almost feel sorry for Putin.)
Can you imagine if any Republican said this? How about if Sarah Palin said it? Geez.
Bottom line: The guy is a smooth-talking ignoramus: not all that smart, not well-read, with a wafer-thin resume.
Some people who are paying attention don’t call our President His Holiness Messiah Barack I or even just The One: We call him J. Danforth Obama!
Hold on to your hats, folks. We are in for at least 3.5 more years of comedic hijinks.
Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: David Brooks — traitor! — says that Obama has restored, get this, dignity to the presidency, sorta like George Washington! “Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity.” So, whatever his defects as, you know, president, we an at least admire his deportment! Duh, no, can’t agree with that one. George Washington would not have set off the Quayle-O-Meter nearly so often. This guy Obama is “dispassionate” until someone disagrees with him even a little, then he gets downright grumpy. I will agree that he is wise to be reticient when he does not have his teleprompter handy. I must say, Mr. Brooks is putting a pretty thin veil over what is turning out to be a big, steaming chunk of buyer’s remorse.
Brooks goes on: “The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact.” Gadzooks! That better not be right! If Obama’s cultural effects are as destructive as his policy impact, at the rate we are going, we are going to return to paleolithic conditions, and maybe even be reduced to communicating in a system of grunts and squeals like our primate cousins.
A significant cultural effect of Mr. Obama’s presidency has already been determined. We are now a culture where the rules applied to Governor Palin by the Democrats and their running dog lackeys in the media and the entertainment industry — destroy the enemy at any cost, by any means — will be and must be applied to everyone who wants to play the game of politics. That is cultural degradation, and it is irreversible. But if that is how the combat is now conducted, only a fool would play by chivalric rules. So be it. On to 2010 and 2012.
UPDATE II: Yow! Check out this picture. Medvedev shows a cringing, needful, almost-supine Obama, which one of them is the biggest and baddest guy in the room . Hint: It ain’t the skinny guy with the bicycle helmet.
UPDATE III: Obama being dignified.
UPDATE IV: To clarify: In my original post on this theme, I asked this question, “This is my proposed Quayle Test. Ask yourself: How each time Obama says something stoopid, would the press would have crucified Dan Quayle for it?” Obama fails this test pretty darn frequently. I am not trying to be mean to Dan Quayle. Gerald Ford got similarly unfair treatment. Barack gets the kid gloves treatment. He shouldn’t. The rules should be the same for all politicians. Ha. As if. We’ll never live to see the day.
UPDATE V: A commenter accused me and this blog racism. I spit on that accusation. But I mention it for an important point. Mr. Obama chose to run for president, and as he has told us: “I won”. Yes, he did. And as president, he is going to be subject to the exact same degree of criticism, fair and foul, reasoned or crazed, which every president gets. More, he is going to get the same mean-spirited treatment that his supporters dish out.
Mr. Obama’s race is not going to be a way to intimidate his critics into silence. No one is going to play that. This is a democracy, and the people will not behave with courtly decorum, even if David Brooks thinks they should. Mr. Obama is made of stern enough stuff to take the criticism. There. I said something almost fair and even nice about him.
And for what it’s worth, one of my great political regrets is that Colin Powell — who is every bit as Black as Mr. Obama — did not run for president in 1996. I would not only have voted for General Powell, I would have worked for his campaign. For one thing, President Powell would not have failed to kill Osama bin Laden in 1998, when Clinton could not pull the trigger. The world would be a different and better place.
I assume that Obama’s supporters will routinely accuse his opponents of racism without any basis, for the entirety of his term in office. That is how they play the game.
Fair warning: It won’t make anyone shut up.
Bottom line: The guy is a smooth-talking ignoramus: not all that smart, not well-read, with a wafer-thin resume.
In reality, I think the bottom line is actually a bit worse than you suppose. Not only is our President an educated ignoramus but he shares a failing common to a great many of our educated elites: He doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. He is ignorant of his ignorance.
“… the bottom line is actually a bit worse than you suppose.”
Ha. You would not dare to dream in your worst nightmares what paranoid things I actually SUPPOSE.
Here — can’t you tell? — I am trying to be fair, moderate and reasonable!
Worst of all, he is ignorant of being the mark.
When you don’t know who the mark is, you’re the mark.
Is it possible to impeach a president for being a complete doofus? This guy is as bad as Biden – oh, wait, impeach them both if we can – but then we’d have Nancy the Liar as prez – it just keeps getting worse! It’s going to be a LONG 3.5 years. This guy is most definitely a ONE-TERMER!
Next up: Remind the French of the Louisiana Purchase.
Following that: Remind Mexico that Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California used to be part of their “country”, at least by Spanish Imperial decree.
Remember that Barack Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review.
And John Kerry; did you know that he served in Viet Nam?
Obama is like an obnoxious teenager, making one smart aleck remark after another because he thinks they’re funny. How did America come to this?
Maybe he’s planning on selling Alaska back to Russia. At least then someone would develop Alaska’s energy resources.
I swear, this character is making Jimmy Carter look like a deep thinker.
Tex Lovera – very true.
(And by “Jimmy Carter,” I mean “Jimmy. Effing. Carter.”
Did Quayle ever say anything this clueless? I know he had some trouble with spelling, but when it comes to making stupid and offensive remarks to foreign leaders, I don’t think he was in the same league with Obama.
I’ve decdied that for the good of the country we should bring Bill Clinton back in 2010. But, you say, that’s unconstitutional! No- here’s how it works. Bill runs for the House of Representatives in 2010 from Arkansas, New York or wherever he can get elected, and is elected Speaker of the House as soon as Congress convenes in January of 2011. By then, Obama and Biden will surely have done something impeachable, so they are impeached, tried, convicted and removed from office, and the Speaker of the House, Bill Clinton, assumes the Office of the Presidency for the remainder of the term. That would be less than 2 years, so he’d still be under the constitutional limit of 10 years and 2 elected terms.
Why Bill? I’m a realist- Clinton is the only one the Dems might be willing to back in the battle to remove Obama. Clinton is no stranger to rough and dirty politics, so he won’t get rolled by the Chicago machine, and while there are a lot of things I don’t like about Bill Clinton, I’m pretty confident he won’t sell out the country to Chavez or Ahmadinjad.
How about it- Bill in 2010!
The first reform which is going to be needed is to suspend the voting rights of any fool or mentally ill American who voted for this doofus until the trillion dollars in debt is repaid.
Step 2 is confiscation of Obama’s, Reid, and the rest of the 435 Democrats earnings who voted for this debacle without reading it.
My gosh, what did Dan Quayle ever do to YOU to be insulted so badly??
Sell Alaska back to Russia? We can’t; they don’t have the money and besides, when China forecloses on out debt, they’ll get first pick of states they want at the bankruptcy sale. (and China won’t allow a ‘shaft-the-bondholder’ deal ala GM and Chrysler.)
A Haiku
Obama has failed
The worst President ever
Jimmy Carter smiles
I was wondering did he ever correct himself when he said that he didn’t know what a particular word was in “Austrian”? Yep, when he steps in poop he just holds his head a little higher and wonders who stinks because it couldn’t be him. Of course the media continues to ignore the fact – even celebrating it at times – that the Emperor/Messiah has no clothes.
I could think of one or two things the Russians did over the course of, say the 20th century, that might have been even stupider than selling some land they weren’t using.
With all respect, Imperial Russia really had no use for Alaska. It was a money sink.
And this gaffe is dwarfed by Hilary’s idiocy in Mexico. She was taken to see the Mexico’s national icon: the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary which is kept in the immense shrine of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. And she asked “Who painted it?” (Hint: the appearance of the image was a miracle.)
Seriously, I have academic colleagues who continue to tell me how smart this dolt is.
Sad.
Tex: Yes.
“…one or two things the Russians did over the course of, say the 20th century…”
Jerry: To clarify, plain old stupid, not evil-stupid.
JeanE, Kelly: Read my old posts. I like Dan Quayle fine. He was not the dope he was made out to be. I am saying that Obama should get the exact same treatment, and if he did, he’d be a figure of uproarious mockery from sea to shining sea.
Rich: Never give up any land, dude. They are not making any more of it. Sorry, but it was stupid.
Video diary of Barack Obama, Russia 2009
The latest news, facts, curious.
You can watch here:Barack Obama-Russia 2009-online video
You racists. These insults to our Leader’s intelligence is racism straight up. So what that Putin made his bones in the kill or be killed — literally — Soviet system torturing dissdents in Lefortovo Prison? (Can you imagine Putin coming into your cell and putting a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches down on the table and announcing that you and he “are going to have a little chat, da?” Shudder.) Obama’s like way tougher and shrewder. After all, he was a community organizer in South Chicago for… what? … like .. eighteen months and rose through the affirmative action ranks of American politics. Obama will own this guy.
“You racists.”
That didn’t take long.
(Though I think Janeane is kidding. I like her vehemence, whatever she is trying to say.)
JorgXMcKie posted at July 8th, 2009 at 1:39 pm: Seriously, I have academic colleagues who continue to tell me how smart this dolt is.
Sad…”
Yeah? If they think Obama is so smart, ask them what Obama’s ACT, SAT or LSAT scores were? Google “Bush SAT” and you can find his in an instant. Same for Gore and Kerry. We know Quayle and McCain were academic low achievers. But Obama? Nuthin’
Obama’s documentary record is weirdly AWOL.
Our faithful watchdogs in the media sure did a bang-up job getting the facts on behalf of the American people.
Feh. (Spits on ground.)
Regarding all your responses that Obama is a one-termer and incompetent: however bad he is from policy and foreign affairs, never forget this a Chicago machine socialist. He will knee-cap any domestic opposition for the greater good. He is anything but stupid when it comes to the knee-capping. Watch Census manipulation, the Acorn billions, vote theft, the media character assassins (Dowd, Olberman, Alter, Klein, et.al.) If Obama’s plans come to fruition, he really won’t have to give a shit about the conservative opposition. Remember, 45% of the voters are already in his pocket. They would vote for Hitler if he was running with a ‘D’ by his name. All Obama has to do is disintermediate 6% of the vote (steal, suborn, trick, persuade) and he is President for life. Our very own Papa Doc. Solution: Conservative counterpart to Acorn, Approach vote verification the same way the Dems do: go for the jugular and win only, and do whatever is required to stop the White House capture of the next census. BTW, where are the conservative Billionaires??? Where are the conservative equivalents of the NEA, AFL-CIO, etc which donate 99% to Dems, come hell or high water? Every wealthy person in the US who is not already a brain dead captive of the Left needs to be digging deep into their still lined pockets and contributing to conservative causes and 527’s while they still have anything to give. The national chamber of commerce better wise up and realize doing deals with the devil only postpones your trip to hell.
It’s worth mentioning today’s headline, above the fold, in the New Yorbama Times —
‘Obama Resets Relations With Russia’
Now think about it…. that’s a cute reference to the (mispelled, mind you) reset button…. which itself was a PR stunt by Obama/Clinton to frame their message.
Which, apperently, the New York Times is shamelessly happy to do right along with them. Is there a word for “shameless” multiplied by ten?
Wow, the New York Times is left-biased, and the earth is round!
It’s not the bias that leaves me floored, that’s old news, fit to print. It’s that the New York Times feels no desire to even bother hiding it at all that leaves me breathtaken.
Didn’t a Russian English language news feed provide a more honest and balanced report on fourth of July Tea Parties than most American networks. Wasn’t it literally ‘Pravda’ out of Russia that just recently warned the US about a “descent into socialism”? Didn’t the Chinese recently have to take economic steps that (in their own interests) could be interpeted as trying to protect the viability of the US dollar against an economically insane US government?
What was that song the British army band played as Corwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown?
‘The World Turned Upside Down’.
Dav Eka: You won’t hear me saying this guy is a one-termer. Not yet. The GOP is in a shambles. It is way, way to soon to predict a defeat for Obama.
Anonymous should know better than to look at news sections of the NYT for anything.
Janeane, you want to see racist? Here enjoy.* [Disclaimer: the source is Russian but is NOT an official media organ.]The funny part, for those in the know, is that the caricature captions are actually intended as sort of a back-handed compliment to Obama. In the traditional “Big Brother” way. I wonder if Obama actually has a clue about the attitude towards black foreigners in SIC. Although that little bit haven’t bothered African socialist dictators…
* Quick translation:
O’s caption: “Comrade colonel, I’m tired of daily blackening my face with shoe polish!”
P’s caption: “Who would’ve thought, major, that our routine agent conservation’ operation will end up this way?”
Correction:
“routine integration operation”.
Closer to original.
Russian racism is indeed blatant, but also innocent. You know how in the US people say, “Black is beautiful”? Well, in Russia people say, “White is beautiful”! Can you believe it?
And if you try to teach Russians to be racially sensitive, they say, “Let you Americans be racially sensitive. You Americans exploited and oppressed black people. We Russians never exploited and never oppressed black people. So we Russians have nothing to be sensitive about!”
So there you have it: Russians, the other white people.
It is very true that Russians are struggling against enormous odds to save their country. Lately in the US we do mostly squander enormous blessings.
So here’s a thought, if Russians keep fighting their odds and we keep squandering our blessings, where is it all gonna end?
It is very true that Russians are struggling against enormous odds to save their country
Well, in Russia people say, “White is beautiful”!
Do they, really.
Lex, to your UPDATE II: there might be a different explanation to Medvedev’s body language [photos by AFP/Getty]
The sad part is that the Obama administration doesn’t even know the basics of diplomacy. Even if they personally disagree with the last administration’s foreign policy stances, they cannot completely reverse those stances the second they take office. They have to gradually move away from those policies in order to maintain a view of solidarity to the outside world.
Christ, you’d think Hilary Clinton would know better.
With all due respect to Mr. Brooks, the dignity that President Obama brings to the White House has not been evident since President Gump.
TK4212 (sounds like a machine part, one of many; are you?):
You mean Medvedev, not Putin? Understandable mistake, your boss made it, too. And Russia noticed. Oh, wait:
and Putin does not even need to size him up, he just announces to the world that Putin is a good and straightforward man with a oood soul?
Who DID what?
All your questions (intended to be rhetorical) can be answered pretty easily: just look up reactions to Bush’s speeches in the archives. Of this and other conservative/libertarian blogs. Then you’ll see your carefully constructed disdain falling to pieces.
Tatyana,
I really, really think Janeane was being sarcastic about that racist quip.
Lex,
I don’t think selling Alaska, which they could not develop, was the stupidest thing Russia did. Really not. The money came in very useful at the liberation of the serfs. That was not stupid at all, only too little and too late.
Helen: I know she was.
Obama reminds me of a snot nosed college kid – never done a thing in his life but is assured that he’s smarter and superior to the rest of the world in every way. The fact he’s 47 and comes off that way is pretty disturbing to me. His sanctimonius statements about everything make me want to vomit.
Obama is not popular in Russia not because he is black. Russians are wary of Obama because they think he is a budding Communist. They were ruled by his type for 70 years and they can smell a proto-Commie from across the planet.
This post is unfair to Quayle. Muc like Bush and Ford, the press picked on him even though he only made a few mistakes. He probably made fewer mistakes than others in similar roles. Many Quaylisms were actually jokes that were then attributed to Quayle. I’ve met a few senior officials who said Quayle was one of the more impressive and intelligent politicians in DC.
Hi Tatyana,
I’m not sure what you meant, though thanks for the resonse. I did not mean Medvedev. I meant that in 2001, Bush referred to Putin as a good man because Bush could see Putin’s soul. I thought that made Bush like a fool in Putin’s eyes. I do not recall any criticism on conservative blogs back then, just the opposite, I noticed people being a little embarrassed but insisting bush was right. Liberal blogs thought he was a fool too, but then they would.
With obama I was not referring to Medvedev either. I did not really refer to Medvedev and obama or Putin and obama mich at all. I’m not sure what it matters what medvedev thinks, maybe it does, maybe not, my impression has been that Putin matters.
I am a little curious, since you seem to be russian as to whether you think Obama spending a night alone instead of going out was a deliberate snub, and whether that’s effective or offensive. I’m not sure whether he meant it delibaerately, but he surely does not seem to be sucking up to Russia.
and tk4212 is not so much a machine, but rather a reference to Star Wars. Tk421 is the number of one of the stormtroopers. Somebody else had tha, I added a 2 at the end of it. And no, I do not identify with a storm trooper, I just like the movie.
Lex, to your Update V, an illustration.
tk4212 Says, “…in 2001, Bush referred to Putin as a good man.”
Here is complete quote you are referring to,
“I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul.
“He’s a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that’s the beginning of a very constructive relationship,”
Where did Bush call Putin a “good man”?
He called him trustworthy and openly commited to Russia’s interests. Russia’s interests may not be good for the US, but Putin was open about it.
SeanF,
From observing Republican reaction, I think Obama’s real fault in the eyes of many is that he’ simply too good – too smart, too irenic, too dispassionate, too well-spoken, and too well liked by many all across the world.
You do realize that your basically making a variant of the old, “Don’t hate because I’m so beautiful,” don’t you? Do you really believe that non-leftist dislike a political figures out of jealousy instead of disagreement with his political views. Are you so wrapped up in your own self-righteousness that you cannot conceive of anyone disagreeing from any motive save base emotion?
Beyond the opposition to his policies, there is intense resentment over the very palpable sense elitist entitlement that Obama and people who support him exude. Look at your description of Obama. He’s smart. He’s dedicated to peace (presumably at any price). He’s to dispassionate (presumably to “rational”.) He’s to well-spoken. He’s too popular.
None of these are attributes of an accomplished and proficient individual in any field of endeavor. Instead, they are the superficial attributes of the members of a particular subculture in America. Before becoming President, Obama had no accomplishments of any note to his name. He has never proven himself accomplished at anything beyond running political campaigns. He made his personal fortune by writing two books about himself even though he had never accomplished anything beyond having a mildly unusual background.
Yet, people like you fawned over him to such a degree that it evoked comparisons to religion. You believe that Obama deserves to be president because he is from the correct subculture and looks like it. It is the same as pre-industrial societies selecting leaders first and for most based on the membership in the aristocracy. Such leaders not only had to belong to right social class but also to look, speak and act like an aristocrat. They could be blithering idiots as long they had the right pedigree. At the same time, they hated people who rose owning to merit. They undercut them and destroyed the meritorious because the aristocrats knew that they kept power only if most people believed that who the aristocrats were was more important than what they could do.
After the 60’s, the American left stopped being the party of the people and started to think of themselves as the party of the elite complete with the all trappings of elitism. Prior to the 60’s, Democrats reveled in the humble roots of their political figures. They loved to trumpet contrast such Harry Truman, a failed haberdasher with a high school education, against the old money, ivy league educated Dewey. Today, leftist savage a Truman-like figure like Palin and idolize a Dewey-like figure like Obama.
Ever since the 60’s, the left has increasing become the party of money and privilege yet they have had zero accomplishments since that time. Unable to point to their own successes or to promote new ideas, they instead fall back on the emblems of privilege as their claim to power. They say, “look at us, we look like leaders! We went to the right schools. We have the right speech patterns. We have the right backgrounds. Similar elites in other countries approve of us. Clearly we look like what a true leader should look like.”
The quayle-o-meter is a powerful concept because it demonstrates the vast gulf between a position earned by merit versus a position granted by membership in a class. Just like his utter lack of accomplishments, Obama’s many, many gaffes and misjudgments are papered over just like the aristocrats of old used to paper over the failures of an idiot king.
Shannon, I deleted SeanF’s comment. It was off-point. This post is about the media giving Obama a free ride. I am not here to give some guy a platform to talk about Obama’s purported wonderful qualities.
Lex,
Dang, I was going to key a post off of it.
Well, you can make your point just as well without him, maybe.
I have zero tolerance for off-point comments from my ideological opponents: Engage what I have written or go elsewhere.
I know I have a heavy hand in this regard.
Lex,
Not a problem. It’s your post and your decision. I’m probably to lenient.
Candide. fair point, you are correct. I posted the original quote on this board, and then paraphrased my own post from memory, making an error in the process. Bush did not say Putin was a good man, Bush said Putin was straightforward and trustworthy and that Bush had a sense of Putin’s soul. I thought that made Bush look simple, and I still do.
I’d say you could look at my original post, but they seem to have cut it. Why??? I was not obscene, offensive, or off topic, I just disagreed with the prevailing point on the board. I thought it was interesting that people were ripping into Obama for things when Bush had done, in my opinion, worse, without a similar reaction. my point was that your/our/people’s reactions, if you stop and think about them, might say more about your on thought processes and emotions than about either man.
but I guess introspection and or thinking out of step with the norm are frowned upon here? And given the sensitivity I’ll let pass with but little comment this irony: that expunging the record of posts offering differing thought is a little, um, soviet…
and sorry for the edit, I meant your own thought processes, not your on.
Don’t you think it’s possible that Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin are perceived to be ignorant/unintelligent, not because they are conservatives, but because they were both plucked from obscurity and thrust into the national spotlight as VP candidate? The burden of proof was on them to demonstrate they were prepared to be president and their initial appearances in the press were poorly managed by their own campaigns and objectively totally disastrous.
It may be inaccurate or unfair, but it’s the unfairness of the power of first impressions. It’s the fault of a shallow media, perhaps, but not of a partisan media.
I just don’t think your attempt to paint Obama as an idiot because of his gaffes is going to be successful. Nobody (who is not blinded by partisan hatred) believes that Obama does not actually know there are 50 states in the US. The American people have already formed their first impression of Obama as intelligent, thoughtful, and well-educated and will see any gaffe from that framework. He took two years on the campaign trail very artfully building that image and it’s going to take more than a few misstatements on his part to tear it down. Likewise, although Biden’s gaffes are worse and more frequent than Obama’s, the fact of his 35 years in the senate–as the senator with the most bipartisan respect from his colleagues–means that his gaffes are seen as gaffes and not as indications of his basic intelligence and understanding. Sorry.
“…your attempt to paint Obama as an idiot because of his gaffes…”
You are not paying attention. Obama is not an idiot. He is much, much worse than an idiot.
I am saying that the exact same things that Obama does would have been seized upon by the media to discredit and mock a Republican, and the mockery would have been repeated and drummed out until it became conventional wisdom.
Actually, sorry, no, Biden’s repeated errors of fact and common sense show that he does not belong anywhere near serious power.
I do agree that Palin was poorly prepped, and I think the people in McCain’s organization were either negligent or more likely malicious — they saw McCain was going to fail and wanted an excuse to protect their resumes.
Ok, but what about your double standard? You call Obama an “ignoramous,” in part, based on shakey speculation of which books you believe he hasn’t read, and quote Kissinger saying, essentially, there is no learning-on-the-job as president. Yet you seem to think Sarah Palin was qualified to be Vice President when she has demonstrated pretty big gaps in her basic understanding of the federal government. (And, yes, McCain’s age and health history highlighted the fact that the VP should be ready to assume the presidency on “Day One.”)
She certainly has not demonstrated the encylopedic knowledge that you, yourself, claim is necessary to be CiC. What military history/theory has she read? What ecomonic theory has she read? For that matter, what books has she even claimed to have read? If we can assume Obama hasn’t read anything he hasn’t mentioned in an interview, why should we assume that Palin has some vast knowledge that she has still not displayed? She can now give as many interviews as she wants and I still haven’t seen the evidence. The point is, the onus was on her to prove that she was ready to be president and she did not and still has not demonstrated that. Obama had the same onus, was hammered hard by Clinton and McCain on that point for two years, and clearly passed that test to the satisfaction of most Americans.
I called Obama an ignoramus in the strict sense that he is egregiously ignorant, meaning “not knowing things”. I do not think he is actually stupid. He is smart enough to get elected and be very destructive in that office.
As to Gov. Palin, the issue is not whether she is qualified to be VP. The question is the abusive way she was treated, and the ridiculous cocoon of non-investigation and non-reporting that smoothed Mr. Obama’s path to the White House.
Mr. Obama has zero credentials to be president. The only thing Obama has is a soothing speaking voice and diplomas from two schools which are considered to be good, though we do not have his academic records from either place. I am not particularly impressed with someone for the mere fact that they graduated from Columbia or Harvard Law School. He was the head of the law journal, and was well-liked, but did not write an article but wrote an autobiography instead. Weird. Why was that tolerated? He never practiced law. He had one job ever as a community organizer and he was not good at it. He was a popular lecturer at U of C law school, which is not hard to do. He did no research and published nothing. He was involved in politics unsuccessfully at first, then he let himself be coopted by the Machine. He had a lot of luck in his Senate run, when his opponent imploded due to the revelation of supposedly confidential records locked in a court file — how did the Tribune get that stuff, anyway? What did David Axelrod have to do with it? Then he spent his time in the Senate running for President.
It is not overstating the case to say the guy has never done anything, and he has certainly never run anything and been responsible for results, except get elected president.
Gov. Palin actually has superior credentials.
Everything you say about Palin can be and should have been said about Obama.
In fact there are a ton of fascinating angles on Obama that a reasonably unbiased or even simply money-driven media would have investigated.
Mr. Biden is has repeatedly shown himself to be ignorant and to have poor judgment. He is no better than Gov. Palin, from what I can see, and on the substance of his views, far worse.
Obama was not “hammered” by McCain. McCain barely touched Obama, for reasons known only to himself. Hillary ran much harder against him. McCain should have been attacking Obama all along. It was one of his many failures.
I have never said anyone needs to have encyclopedic knowledge to be CiC. (I am sure I never said that. Where do you think I said that?) It would be nice to see, but I don’t think it has ever happened. The best prepared Commanders in Chief in the 20th C have been Eisenhower, for obvious reasons, and FDR who was Asst. Sec. Navy, and actually (largely) ran the department, for eight years. Truman, a combat veteran, and the head of the Truman committee that investigated and policed corruption and fraud in the war mobilization during WWII was probably just behind them in experience and knowledge.
We had our three best CiCs when it mattered most: WWII and the early Cold War. Thanks be to God.
I doubt Pslin would see violence as not ending slavery or the end of the Cold War coming because people just didn’t like the government (as opposed to how much they liked it in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968).
I’ve known people all my life who interpret American history as Obama does. It has never been my experience that they know the history – what they know is their interpretation. They don’t consider, for example, that the U.S. from the beginning assumed any territories annexed, bought, etc. would come in as equal states. This makes American “colonialism” different from the categories he is likely to use.
This may not be stupid but it does mean interpretations weren’t tried by the bracing world of fact – or, too often, were set in stone with too little sense of historical context. How much we judge people’s intelligence on their ability to accommodate fact is, of course, a matter of opinion.
I can be arrogant, so would like to cut Obama sone slack. Still, arrogance about economic cycles, science, others’ motives, huge health care plans, his role as president can (and does) betray a lack of understanding how much humility is appropriate in such circumstances.