Posted on 05/16/2008 10:26:42 AM PDT by imd102
In an earlier column, I raised the matter of whether, and how, Senator Barack Obama's conspicuous intelligence may act as a barrier to his being elected president. [SNIP]
In recent years, Democrats have nominated presidential candidates who are far more intelligent that their Republican counterparts. Common sense might suggest that high intelligence is necessary to be president, and conclude that we should applaud such nominations. Election politics, unfortunately, usually punishes the more intelligent nominee.
Start with Nixon. Hubert Humphrey had a remarkable mind and while Nixon was no slouch, Humphrey always struck those who knew both men well as way ahead of Nixon in intellect....In 1976, Jimmy Carter (a nuclear physicist by training) made Gerald Ford seem something of a dunce (indeed, Lyndon Johnson had once said that Ford was incapable of chewing gum and thinking at the same time). Carter's Southern drawl, however, made his intelligence less than conspicuous, enabling him to win at least one term. But Ronald Reagan, whom no one will ever accuse of being an intellectual (his favored briefing material as president was Reader's Digest) trounced the elitist Carter in 1980, and then the far more mentally agile Walter Mondale in 1984.
Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry all were far brighter than their GOP opponents (George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush), but only Clinton made it to the White House. Clinton played down his intelligence and education (Georgetown, Oxford and Yale Law), and played up his bubba image....
Maybe Americans are ready to reconsidering wanting to elect the less intelligent candidate. And maybe Democrats can effectively deal with this bogus charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at writ.lp.findlaw.com ...
I guess the more important point is that he was wrong about what he was writing. In particular, I believe that the elder president Bush was probably the most intelligent president we’ve had for many decades, and Reagan and Ford were very underrated. However, I think he has a point that voters don’t like candidates that come across as too intellectual.
Obama might not be “too elite” to get elected, but he is definitely too Marxist.
“Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry all were far brighter than their GOP opponents”
The Towering Intellect of Mike Dukakis??? Huh?
Al Gore who flunked out of divinty school and failed his science courses is just a major thinker!
Pa-LEASE!
One thing I do know—he is SUCH A WHINER!!!!!
I called my two Dem Senators today—Biden and Carper—about Feinstein’s amnesty amendment to the Iraq supplemental bill.
Then I told their staffer to have these two, as superdelegates, to call Sen. Obama and tell him to stop being such a crybaby about the “appeasement remarks” by President Bush. I told them the President didn’t mention Obama by name, and everything the President said was factually and historically accurate.
I also gave the Biden staffer what for because of Senator Pottymouth’s swearing yesterday.
I then called Sen. McConnell’s office and asked why more GOP Senators aren’t joining in to defend the President on his remarks and to tell Obama to stop being such a crybaby.
The GOP once again risks losing an advantage by sitting around and letting the Dems run to the microphones and shape public opinion.
"Like George W. Bush, with his Harvard MBA, is "dumber" than Al Gore, who flunked out of Vanderbilt Divinity School??? "Must be awfully embarrasing, then, that George Bush got better grades than John Kerry at Yale.
Original thinking is on vacation when Barack Obama gives a speech. That’s why he needs to say “Just Words?” when quoting great speeches. The men who uttered them first did so at the risk of their lives. When Barack repeats them, they are in fact “Just Words”.
“In 2007 he said that he would meet, in the first year of his presidency, with Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela. Three of those are listed as state sponsors of terror. They fund and support Hezbollah, Hamas, and others, and Iran is actively helping kill our own soldiers in Iraq.
So, by his own words, to meet with the without condition, he is an appeaser.”
This is a non-issue. Just because you meet with someone doesn’t make you an appeaser. You are an appeaser only if you make some concessions to them. Reagan met with the leaders of “the evil empire” and he was certainly no appeaser.
There are many reasons he is not qualified to be POTUS - lack of experience, Rev. Wright issue, etc.
Weren’t Bush’s GPA’s higher than Kerry’s?......
"Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry all were far brighter than their GOP opponents” Keep in mind that they are so smart that only one Democrat since 1964 (44 years ago) has won the position of POTUS with a majority of the electorate. And that was Jimmy who promptly thrown out on his butt after four years.
Notice that all the examples are of leftist/dhimmirat geniuses and conservative dunces.
Of COURSE, you have to be dumb to be a conservative, duh!
What an arrogant ASSumption on the part of the author of this piece.
John W. Dean, of the “Watergate” Dean’s?
I thought he was dead.
Note that Obama will NOT release his transcripts. Easy to act too intelligent when being fed Duval Patrick’s lines.
“I don’t think you can call John Dean of the Nixon White House a “liberal”, despite his being a bit of a hero to them for helping to bring down Nixon.”
John Dean is a real SOB
That’s the problem with the leftist paradigm, the leftist worldview -
they believe that some are more “perfect” or elite than others,
and therefore have the knowledge, wisdom, and the OBLIGATION to make decisions in the lives of others. This is just an assumption on their part, due to their worldview.
This needs to be challenged. They think they know more about running businesses than any businessman running his own business. CHALLENGE IT.
DEMAND to know what they know about small business, and what gives them the right and the authority to tell those who DO know how to run businesses how to run them differently.
DEMAND to know how they can possibly know how any individual child needs to be taught, better than the parents that are raising them.
EXPOSE these arrogant asses for what they are.
A quote from the Oxford Dean of Students during BillyJeff's tenure: "Fat, stoned and stupid is no way to go through life son."
Bush also beat Kerry’s scores on the military assessment tests.
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