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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on August 09, 2011, 06:02:16 AM
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Is Obama Smart? A case study in stupid is as stupid does.
By BRET STEPHENS
www.wsj.com
The aircraft was large, modern and considered among the world's safest. But that night it was flying straight into a huge thunderstorm. Turbulence was extreme, and airspeed indicators may not have been functioning properly. Worse, the pilots were incompetent. As the plane threatened to stall they panicked by pointing the nose up, losing speed when they ought to have done the opposite. It was all over in minutes.
Was this the fate of Flight 447, the Air France jet that plunged mysteriously into the Atlantic a couple of years ago? Could be. What I'm talking about here is the Obama presidency.
When it comes to piloting, Barack Obama seems to think he's the political equivalent of Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager and—in a "Fly Me to the Moon" sort of way—Nat King Cole rolled into one. "I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."
On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."
Of course, it's tempting to be immodest when your admirers are so immodest about you. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.
I don't buy it. 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.
Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché? As for the small speeches, such as the one we were kept waiting 50 minutes for yesterday, we get Triple-A bromides about America remaining a "Triple-A country." Which, when it comes to long-term sovereign debt, is precisely what we no longer are under Mr. Obama.
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.
Then there's his habit of never trimming his sails, much less tacking to the prevailing wind. When Bill Clinton got hammered on health care, he reverted to centrist course and passed welfare reform. When it looked like the Iraq war was going to be lost, George Bush fired Don Rumsfeld and ordered the surge.
Mr. Obama, by contrast, appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn't. In politics, a failure of communication is always the fault of the communicator.
Much of the media has spent the past decade obsessing about the malapropisms of George W. Bush, the ignorance of Sarah Palin, and perhaps soon the stupidity of Rick Perry. Nothing is so typical of middling minds than to harp on the intellectual deficiencies of the slightly less smart and considerably more successful.
But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
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RIGHT ON THE MARK.
BOOM.
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If the entire MSM would have treated Obama like they did the GOP candidates in 2008, he would have never been elected.
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If the entire MSM
For the 99th time - this "entire MSM" does include FOX, the biggest cable news outlet by far, who ran anti-obama rev wright stuff 24/7.
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For the 99th time - this "entire MSM" does include FOX, the biggest cable news outlet by far, who ran anti-obama rev wright stuff 24/7.
FOX news was the SOLE voice in all of MSM. What don't you understand about that? Even though they may have individually the biggest audience, it was only them against CNN, MSNBC, the parent companies of ABC, CBS and NBC, and Telefutura and Telemundo who are always pushing for the Democrats due to the immigration issue. And what about the newspapers? The only outlet questioning Obama's relationship with Wright and bringing up real concerns about his experience and ability was FOX. Wasn't there a cover up of stories that would have hurt Obama? Didn't it come out after Obama was elected that reporters went out of their way to attack all GOP candidates, but try to deflect anything that might shine a negative light on Obama? How soon do you forget!
Stop being a dunce and accept the fact that Obama did not have to deal with any hard criticism or intimate look into his life and his REAL political perspectives. Too soon for you to revise the history of events that took place in 2008.
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tHIS IS THE BRILLIANT LAW SCHOLAR MAL, 240, VINCE, BENNY, ANDRE, GAREBEAR, LURKER, etc TRY TO SELL US ON?
LMFAO!
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Barack Obama's $1.1 Million Botanical Garden -- Er, $100,000 Gazebo
Newsbusters ^ | September 7, 2008 | Tom Blumer
Posted on Sunday, September 07, 2008 3:37:55 PM by SJackson
Barack Obama's $1.1 Million Botanical Garden -- Er, $100,000 Gazebo
By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive)
September 7, 2008 - 14:35 ET
The media and the Obama campaign (but I repeat myself) are comparing the "experience" of'the Democrats' presidential nominee to that of the GOP's vice-presidential pick -- meaning, one must assume, that the debate over his experience vs. John McCain's is over, in McCain's resounding favor.
Let's look back a couple of months at a post I put up on July 14 (with minor revisions) that gives a, uh, concrete example of one of Barack Obama's management "experiences" -- one that the national media has (of course) totally ignored.
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Barack Obama's $100,000 Gazebo
Here's an interesting story I found in the Chicago Tribune archives (obtained from ProQuest library database; for fair use and discussion purposes):
ENGLEWOOD IS EYED FOR BOTANICAL GARDEN
Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.: Jan 15, 2000. pg. 5
A group of politicians, school administrators and community activists unveiled a plan Friday for a $1.1 million botanical garden in the city's Englewood neighborhood.
The proposal calls for a walk beneath the "L" tracks on Princeton Avenue, from 59th Place to 62nd Place. Backers said they hope it will help spur redevelopment in the impoverished area, boost neighborhood pride and soften the impact of traffic and pollution from the nearby Dan Ryan Expressway.
State Sen. Barack Obama (D-Chicago) said he planned to seek state funding for the effort and estimated that ground could be broken in early 2001.
The proposed garden also would include a gazebo, a parrot sanctuary and a walk of fame.
Gee, that sounds exciting. Let's go visit:
(Google Maps image is more than likely from before the Sun-Times visit described below occurred, and before the related report and video were posted.)
Imagine that. No garden. No parrot sanctuary. No walk of fame.
How can that be? What happened? The Chicago Sun-Times tells us the answer, while revealing that "at least" there's a gazebo -- but not much of one (video is at link; HT Jennifer Rubin via the TIB All-Stars July 12 collection at Weapons of Mass Discussion):
Obama's $100,000 garden grant wasted
He vowed to 'work tirelessly' to build an oasis for Englewood. It never happened.
July 11, 2008
As a state senator, Barack Obama gave $100,000 in state money to a campaign volunteer who failed to deliver on a plan to create a botanic garden in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods.
..... what was supposed to be a six-block stretch of trees and paths is now a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.
Kenny B. Smith, whose nonprofit group got the money, said it was spent legitimately, mostly on underground site preparation. But he admitted Thursday that the garden is a lost cause because other government money never came through.
..... Smith -- an early Obama supporter who gave $550 to his state and congressional campaigns -- said he gave his paperwork documenting the work to a state agency and no longer has it.
..... a reporter walked the site last week with a landscape architect from the Illinois Green Industry Association who found no evidence of the work Smith cited. The only major changes since 2000: A gazebo was added, and some trees were cut down.
Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said through a spokesman he wasn't responsible for monitoring the work; the staffs of Gov. Blagojevich and former Gov. George Ryan were.
..... In 2001, at Obama's direction, a $100,000 Illinois FIRST grant went to Smith's group. The garden site was part of Rosewood Estates, an affordable-housing development being built by the group, whose unpaid board chairman was Brian Washington, a Sun-Times security guard.
Plans called for more than 50 homes, but only a dozen were built, Smith said.
The remaining $1 million for the botanic garden was never raised.
Those legendary $400 hammers for the military have nothing on this $100,000 gazebo.
A trifling matter? I don't think so. More like a revealing one:
•Obama feels no sense of responsibility for the results of money directed to someone HE chose. This isn't "the buck stops here" of Harry Truman fame; this is "the buck went somewhere else."
•Gubernatorial staffs aren't responsible for monitoring projects like this. State agencies are. If the agency involved didn't do their job (according to the article, it's the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity), that's one thing, but the blame-shifting to other pols is either hopelessly naive (a legitimate possibility, given the candidate's seemingly endless well of ignorance) or irresponsible.
•If you look at the full text of the press release that announced the project, you'll see that Kenny Smith was on hand, and that he made representations about how he was "work(ing) with a variety of governmental agencies and not-for-profit groups to secure funding this project including the Chicago Transit Authority, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the American Society of Landscape Architecture. We have made some progress ...." My bet: Smith had, at most, met with these orgs once or twice, and was blowing smoke about the realistic chances of getting money. For a nominal $550 in campaign contributions, Smith got 100 grand, which "somehow" has mostly gone bye-bye. Bottom line: Obama got hustled. Did he even look into how the rest of the "fund-raising" was going before directing the release of the grant funds?
•Perhaps that's why Obama seems oddly indifferent to what ultimately happened. The response from his spokesman (and not the candidate) is tired boilerplate about "provid(ing) residents with a livable neighborhood." Zzzzzz.
The larger point is this: The guy is hopelessly gullible, can't even get a $100,000 grant right, and now wants to have the final say in matters relating to a $3-plus trillion federal budget and a $14-trillion economy in a town chock full of con artists and tricksters.
Yikes.
It would be cool if some enterprising photo-opster could make up a "Barack Obama $100,000 Gazebo" sign (or something more clever -- use your imagination), take some pictures at the site, and post them. Until that happens, this will have to do:
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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This dirtbag couldnt even get a Gazebo properly done. and you fools trusted him with the country?
Morons.
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That article was highly racist and incendiary. I demand that a MOD remove it immediately.
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That article was highly racist and incendiary. I demand that a MOD remove it immediately.
The one about the gazebo?
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This requires, probably, it's own thread but....
I find it absolutely amazing and incredible how Obama is able, at least in his delusional mind, speak in such a dis-associative way about anything and everything that is going on right now or since his term began.
He gets infront of the microphone and speaks about events as if he is some being from another planet/dimension that has just landed on this planet and that he just discovered all of this stuff that's going on. Whether it's about the debt crisis, this countries sad fiscal state, the economy, the last 5 years, his entire term as Senator etc....he speaks as if he just woke up from a 50 year coma and is shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, at what is going on.
He has zero concept of leadership, none.
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This requires, probably, it's own thread but....
I find it absolutely amazing and incredible how Obama is able, at least in his delusional mind, speak in such a dis-associative way about anything and everything that is going on right now or since his term began.
He gets infront of the microphone and speaks about events as if he is some being from another planet/dimension that has just landed on this planet and that he just discovered all of this stuff that's going on. Whether it's about the debt crisis, this countries sad fiscal state, the economy, the last 5 years, his entire term as Senator etc....he speaks as if he just woke up from a 50 year coma and is shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, at what is going on.
He has zero concept of leadership, none.
That is because he can count on the support of
95% of blacks
Delusional guilt ridden whites
Enviro Kooks
MSM pundits, reporters, and commentators
College kids not mature enough to sift through his lies
College Professors who agree with the hard left agenda
Govt employees who support this chaos
All of which amount to about 40-45% of the nation to support him and not hold him to account for anything he does.
Were Obama a white republican pol - his ratings would be 29% at best.