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Does Barack Obama Have a Learning Disability?
American Thinker ^
| July 23, 2010
| Michael Applebaum, MD
Posted on 07/23/2010 3:03:18 PM PDT by neverdem
Does Barack Obama have a learning disability (LD)? It seems like an outlandish question to ask, but the actions of President Obama suggest that he may suffer from one. Consider:
Learning
Learning is "the cognitive process of acquiring skill or knowledge."
Intelligence is defined as
capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc. or
1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations
: reason;
also :the skilled use of reason
(2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)
There is a relationship between learning and intelligence.
Intelligence is measurable.
IQ tests "are designed to measure your general ability to solve problems and understand concepts. This includes reasoning ability, problem-solving ability, ability to perceive relationships between things and ability to store and retrieve information."
It follows that a
learning disability affects a person's capacity or ability to learn or understand, to grasp truths, facts, meanings, and relationships. So what demonstrations of LD can we find in Obama?
Presidential Appointments
The president has recruited a number of key appointments who appear to have LDs.
According to the definition she accepts and publishes, she is a
health illiterate: "Health literacy is the ability of an individual to access, understand, and use health-related information and services to make appropriate health decisions."
Somewhere along the bucket brigade of learning -- i.e., "access, understand, and use health-related information" -- all the water spilled, since she certainly failed to "make appropriate health decisions." Hence, her self-recognized and personally lamentable fatness.
Clearly in the domain of sick care, health illiteracy despite medical training is evidence of an LD.
Holder is pursuing a lawsuit alleging that "the state of Arizona's recently passed immigration law, S.B. 1070" "unconstitutionally interferes with the federal government's authority to set and enforce immigration policy."
However, during a House Judiciary Committee meeting, Holder
admitted to not having read the law, despite
repeatedly voicing concerns about it, especially about "
racial profiling." His statements must have been based on hearsay.
Holder's
bio states that he attended law school and is in the practice of law.
Holder should have acquired a grasp of hearsay, absent an LD.
Geithner is a person who demonstrated an
inability to properly do his own taxes even with the help of a mass-market consumer tax preparation
software package used by people without a financial background.
It would be expected that a person nominated for Treasury Secretary would be able to figure out how to do taxes, unless an LD was present.
Clearly, BHO was unable to learn how to recognize individuals qualified for appointment.
The Supreme Court and Professorship of Law
BHO
claims to have been a professor of constitutional law.
[BHO] ... has regularly referred to himself as "a constitutional law professor," most famously at a March 30, 2007, fundraiser when he said, "I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution."
He was not really a law professor. He was a "
senior lecturer," though the
University of
Chicago (U of C),
where BHO served as a senior lecturer, claims that he was "regarded as" a professor.
Persons
other than constitutional law professors claim respect for the Constitution. Absent an LD, certainly at some point in his career, BHO should have learned that respect for the Constitution is not limited to law professors or senior lecturers -- e.g.,
The Founders.
... last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections.
It would appear that a U of C "constitutional law professor" did not learn how to analyze U.S. law. (
BHO also should have learned about hearsay during his legal training, absent an LD.)
ADHD
In 1972, Jeremiah Wright
became pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. BHO became a member in 1988.
BHO admits that Wright was his spiritual leader,
married him to Michelle, and baptized his children. BHO
took them to Trinity United Church for sermons.
Assuming he cares about his children, it is reasonable to expect that he would have paid attention to the words from the pulpit and been aware of what his kids' spirits were being fed.
He did not and was not.
Further, assuming the same, one would have expected conversations between parents and children discussing the contents of the sermons, their takeaway lessons, what his children may have learned from their friends in attendance, etc.
It stretches credulity that in about twenty years' worth of attendance (around 1,040 Sundays, though he claims not to have gone
every week), a number of them with children in tow, BHO never heard Wright speak "controversially" or learned of Wright's positions, either directly at church or indirectly from family, friends, newsletters, etc
Never -- unless BHO suffered from LD, or perhaps
ADHD (or mendacity). ADHD is considered by
many not to be a learning disability. However, LD can
coexist with ADHD. And ADHD can be an
adult condition, possibly from an undiagnosed childhood ADHD.
This could explain how over the many years BHO spent attending church, the nature of Wright's sermons eluded him.
Anyway, LD, ADHD, ADHD-associated LD, or a combination, the presence of a condition inimical to learning is problematic. Those who believe in the exceptional nature of the office might say that this is even truer in the case of the presidency.
It is not beyond possibility that an episode or episodes of inattention or inability to understand will compromise the nation.
Perhaps one already has.
In the matter of the Gulf oil spill, some have suggested that
presidential inattentiveness contributed substantially to the suffering and damage. Although others might argue that the delay was a variation of a brilliant political move (
H. L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and hence clamorous to be led to safety] by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."),
James Carville, renowned for his political acumen, certainly felt otherwise.
The Harvard Counter-Argument
Some might argue that BHO's attendance at Harvard Law where he graduated
magna cum laude is conclusive evidence against an LD.
They would be wrong.
Despite his pedestrian undergraduate achievements, Harvard Law gave him entry -- some suggest under
intriguing circumstances.
He was elected to the editorial staff of the Harvard Law Review (HLR).
Until the 1970's the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the president of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank....
That system came under attack in the 1970's and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition. The new system, disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review.
...the Review has two other goals. First, the journal is designed to be an effective research tool for practicing lawyers and students of the law. Second, it provides opportunities for Review members to develop their own editing and writing skills.
Without a "paper trail" to evaluate his abilities, basically only his grades remain. His Harvard transcript was
never released (neither were the Occidental and Columbia transcripts). His graduation magna cum laude appears uncontroverted.
And if one were to assert that the grades are still from Harvard, and the world regards these students as America's best, even BHO himself would have to assert that
he "believes in Harvard exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the students at
University of Bridgeport believe in
Bridgeport exceptionalism" -- i.e., there is nothing special about a Harvard grade.
This essay is not offered as a professional diagnosis.
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: obama
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To: 4Liberty
41
posted on
07/23/2010 4:41:16 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: musicman
42
posted on
07/23/2010 4:41:55 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: 4Liberty
43
posted on
07/23/2010 4:42:50 PM PDT
by
musicman
(Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
To: 4Liberty
44
posted on
07/23/2010 4:42:54 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: musicman
45
posted on
07/23/2010 4:47:04 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: Fractal Trader; Fred Nerks; null and void; stockpirate; george76; PhilDragoo; Candor7; rxsid; ...
Does Barack Obama Have a Learning Disability?
Thanks Fractal Trader.
46
posted on
07/23/2010 4:47:41 PM PDT
by
LucyT
To: org.whodat
47
posted on
07/23/2010 4:48:28 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: neverdem
he ain’t got no learnin’disability he’s a liar
48
posted on
07/23/2010 4:48:28 PM PDT
by
MissDairyGoodnessVT
(Free Nobel Peace Prize with oil change =^..^=)
To: neverdem
I don’t know about Barrack Hussein Obama, but anyone who is still backing him or believes anything the Hybrid says certainly has a Learning Disability.
49
posted on
07/23/2010 4:50:51 PM PDT
by
Venturer
To: LucyT
50
posted on
07/23/2010 4:53:11 PM PDT
by
ExTexasRedhead
(Take back our country on November 2, 2010.)
To: Snickering Hound; All
Perfect size for Robert Reich!
51
posted on
07/23/2010 4:53:34 PM PDT
by
stephenjohnbanker
(Support our Troops, and vote out the RINOS!)
To: Snickering Hound
His ghouls on the Ruling Classes Death Panels will ship you to a hospice center for elimination. I call it AuschwitzCare with the same outcome as the original.
52
posted on
07/23/2010 4:54:39 PM PDT
by
ExTexasRedhead
(Take back our country on November 2, 2010.)
To: LucyT
all it takes is a small purchase of Styrofoam fake Columns to become Pres. Is this a great country or what?
53
posted on
07/23/2010 5:00:45 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: LucyT
All it takes is a small purchase of fake Styrofoam columns to become Pres. of the US. Is this a great country, or what? s/
54
posted on
07/23/2010 5:03:42 PM PDT
by
4Liberty
( How do you spell "moral hazard"?: $ 19, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0, 0 0 0.)
To: neverdem
Robin of Berkeley thinks he was either sexually abused as a kid, fried his brain on dope, or maybe dropped on his head (the last one could be fake but accurate). See
A Shrink Asks: What's Wrong with Obama? for a compelling diagnosis.
To: neverdem
O'Bama already knows everything, so having a learning disability in not a factor.
The O'Bama Administration is well on it way to disaster. The media will tell us about his broken heart when he leaves office after one term. That will be the voting public's fault because they didn't have the ability to envision the glorious things he had planed for us.
56
posted on
07/23/2010 5:18:07 PM PDT
by
oyez
(The difference in genius and stupidity is that genius has it limits.)
To: neverdem
No, he doesn’t have a learning disability. He has a mental disorder, Pathological Narcissism. Also he’s never done anything on his own.Someone else always told him what to do, where to go, paid for everything. He’s a just a run of the mill, dirt bag, con artist with a mental disorder.
57
posted on
07/23/2010 5:43:18 PM PDT
by
mojitojoe
(When crisis becomes opportunity, crisis becomes the goal.)
To: Seaplaner
He is not, however, stupid.
______________
How do you know? Facts, evidence, and don’t say Harvard, we all know how that went down and why.
58
posted on
07/23/2010 5:45:14 PM PDT
by
mojitojoe
(When crisis becomes opportunity, crisis becomes the goal.)
To: neverdem; Norman Bates
Zero doesn’t have a Learning Disability, he is just gnosiophobic.
59
posted on
07/23/2010 6:13:41 PM PDT
by
PJBankard
(Gnosiophobia. True cause of Liberalism.)
To: donhunt
Possibly, but for sure about his supporters!
60
posted on
07/23/2010 6:35:48 PM PDT
by
Theodore R.
(Rush was right when he said America may survive Obama but not the Obama supporters.)
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