Monday, June 02, 2008

Not So Smart, But Still Proud

Not So Smart, But Still Proud

This article from The Daily Standard follows Obama on the campaign trail, and finds a guy with precious little intellectual curiosity. As can be seen by this excerpt:

So how, pray tell, is Obama staying informed about what's going on in the world? When he's pressing the flesh at crummy rural diners and speaking before 75,000 adoring acolytes, he's talking, not listening. Don't you think a guy who might be president would be obsessed with world events? Don't you think that obsession would have driven him into the race? And don't you think as a potential wartime leader he might be using his downtime to study, just in case he wins? For instance, Barack Obama obviously knows nothing of war, but he could help himself if he opted to read some Thucydides rather than watch SportsCenter.

Obama has made a habit of coming across like a man who doesn't know what he's talking about. That's bothersome enough, but what's more worrisome still is how comfortable he is with not knowing what he's talking about, and how convinced he seems that his rhetorical flourishes will obscure his ignorance. That strategy may work on the campaign trail, but it certainly won't help him govern.

You add it all up, and you got a guy who despite his high cognitive abilities doesn't know what one needs to know to be president. Jimmy Carter was also "a bright guy," but as a president and a free-lancing ex-president, his naivete and arrogance made him a functional dunce. If Obama really thinks the lesson to be gleaned from the Cuban Missile Crisis is that a president should always sit down with our enemies, then perhaps the same could be said of him.
Just another little peek at a man who would be president, but lacks the qualifications to be one, other than as another affirmative action hire. But for this job, there must not be any affirmative action. It is just too important. Yet the democrats seem bent on making his electoral defeat a point of pride. Unless they know something I do not, which would be something else great that can be achieved by losing the election. But one thing is sure - this guy is never going to occupy the Oval Office. Carter was bad enough. We can not afford another mistake of that magnitude.