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Posted on 07/29/2014 6:30:40 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
In the first volume of his magnificent three-tome biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris recounts the story of writer Owen Wister’s visit to the Roosevelt White House. Wister, a Harvard classmate of the president, “has lent [Roosevelt] a book shortly before a full evening’s entertainment at the White House, and been astonished to hear a complete review of it over breakfast. ‘Somewhere between six one evening and eight-thirty the next morning, beside his dressing and his dinner and his guests and his sleep, he had read a volume of three-hundred-and-odd pages, and missed nothing of significance.’”
For those unconvinced of Teddy’s erudition, Morris glances over the president’s reading list:
It seems safe to say that America’s 26th president was “smart.” But it was not he whom historian Michael Beschloss christened “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” Nor was it John Adams, nor the famously learned Thomas Jefferson, nor Woodrow Wilson, the only Ph.D.-president. That title, of course, belongs to Barack Obama (B.A., Columbia; J.D., Harvard), whose intellect is the stuff of legend. Only a MENSA standout like him could state that, in columnist Jack Kelly’s pithy summation,In the past year alone, Roosevelt has devoured all the novels of Trollope, the complete works of De Quincey, a Life of Saint Patrick, the prose works of Milton and Tacitus (“until I could stand them no longer”), Samuel Dill’s Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, the seafaring yarns of Jacobs, the poetry of Scott, Poe, and Longfellow, a German novel called Jörn Uhl, “a most satisfactorily lurid Man-eating Lion story,” and Foulke’s Life of Oliver P. Morton, not to mention at least five hundred other volumes, on subjects ranging from tropical flora to Italian naval history.
there are 57 states; Canada has a president; “Austrian” is a language; America is “20 centuries” old; Arabic is spoken in Afghanistan. He’s called the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) the Maldives, and declared it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to invalidate a law passed by Congress.
Well, even genius lapses.
Of course, none of these examples proves that Barack Obama is not intelligent. However much choom he might have inhaled, he was certainly eligible for the local gifted-and-talented classes, and he has two Ivy League degrees — which, for the moment, is still an accomplishment. He is assuredly not “the smartest guy ever to become president,” but he’s still out on the right-hand tail of the IQ bell curve.
One would do well to keep in mind Barack Obama’s intelligence (and its occasional hiccups) while reading Salon’s “The ‘Ted Cruz is smart’ trap: Why this garbage is false — and dangerous.” Author Nathan Robinson’s rigorous scientific analysis mocks Cruz for producing “angry pants-on-fire platitudinous drivel,” “using distortive, misleading rhetoric that no sober-minded individual could apply,” and reading Dr. Seuss.
Predictably, Nathan Robinson is certain Ted Cruz is not “smart” because Ted Cruz tends not to agree with Nathan Robinson.
Robinson is particularly alarmed by the report of David Panton, Cruz’s law-school roommate and college debate partner, who told The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin: “Ted’s views today politically are almost identical to when I met him. There’s nothing he says today that I didn’t hear in college.” “Ted Cruz,” Robinson declares, “does not in his life ever seem to have taken on board a single challenge to his worldview” — the implication of such a statement being that, if he had, he would have changed his mind. “[Panton’s] assessment, spoken about anybody,” writes Robinson, “should be convincing enough evidence for shallowness of mind.” No doubt a Ted Cruz who supported homosexual marriage, on-demand abortion, and a $15 minimum wage would appear to Salon writers much more intelligent.
Robinson’s essay is self-congratulation masquerading as high-minded critique, though that is not to say that all of his observations are wrong. Conservatives have long bemoaned the fact that educational institutions — even, and perhaps especially, elite ones — do not promote any “intelligence” that indicates more than good exam scores. As Robinson notes, where success is predicated upon relentless ambition, cultivation of a meaningful intelligence may fall by the wayside.
But the conclusion he draws from this is: Ted Cruz is not intelligent. Which is not just wrong, but indicative of the type of shallow thinking by which Robinson is purportedly disgusted.
Barack Obama and Ted Cruz (and Rand Paul and Mark Pryor and etc.) are, by any reasonable measure, intelligent men. But a cursory glance through the historical record proves that “intelligence” (whatever that means) and political competence do not necessarily correspond. In fact, enormously “intelligent” men were political dupes. Think Heidegger. Robinson’s is just another article perpetuating the political fetishization of intelligence, the liberal belief that if only our politicians were smarter, we could feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and repair the ozone layer, all with enough money left over to secure universal Head Start enrollment. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was promoting exactly the same belief when he absurdly suggested that “one-party autocracy” is not a bad gig provided it is “led by a reasonably enlightened group of people.” “Enlightened” — that is, smart; that is, like Thomas Friedman, not one of those bumpkins the hoi polloi usually go in for. Modern liberalism believes that there is an answer to every question and a solution to every problem — that is, provided someone smart enough is in charge. But the reality is that there is no brain in the world big enough for the task.
None of which is to say that there is not a requisite level of intelligence for managing the affairs of state. But the general irrelevance of intelligence as a measure of political competence suggests that voters would do better to scrutinize candidates’ other qualities — loyalty, humility, common sense — over the density of their gray matter.
Then again, a closer look at Joe Biden’s report card may not have been a bad idea.
— Ian Tuttle is a William F. Buckley Fellow at the National Review Institute.
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Replace TC’s name with OBlameA and it’s a perfect fit.
No one has ever, to my knowledge, published SAT scores, ACT scores, IQ tests, college transcripts, or anything to document that Obama is so darned smart. Jimmy Carter was supposed to have been extremely intelligent — nuclear engineer or something like that with the Navy.
Barry is in good company with Jimmuh.
In any prison, you can find hundreds of Barack Obamas. The only difference between them is Obama was the post turtle trained to use his skin color and sexual orientation to climb the political ladder with a lot of help from America’s enemies.
Intelligent? No.
Sociopath? Yes.
“...Obama...is still out on the right-hand tail of the IQ bell curve....”
***************************************************************************************
Yes, I agree...but he has not strayed very far from the “center” of the bell curve...a standard deviation perhaps. In any case, wherever he is on the IQ bell curve, he is likely well over on the LEFT-HAND TAIL of the Competence bell curve.
There’s actual “smart”, and then there’s “liberal smart”, which simply means supporting centralized authority.
B0dunhamsoetorosoebarkah’s mind is already made up. He has no original or creative thoughts. He refuses to comprehend or even listen to alternative views, data and theories.
Reminds me of a few mohammedans I have met. Everything that needs to be known is in “the book.”
Do we have his Columbia degree? In his one pamphlet he got up the energy to write back in the 90s, he wrote he “attended” Columbia and was born in Kenya. No one at Columbia even remembers him. How is that possible in a future president?
I forgot that Besloss said Obama was smarter than Tom Jefferson, lol!
Once your bona fides are established in this manner, you can proclaim all those who refuse any opinion on the platter as "stupid", thus making yourself even more intelligent in the eyes of your peers.
They don't distinguish between opinion and intelligence, making an upside down world where any sort of questioning or speculating about an issue in a new way proves you to be intellectually weaker.
Liberals never question the opinions they are handed, because being intellectually curious or open minded about issues is considered lowbrow or stupid.
It's a mental circle jerk, keep your ideas to yourself and work your wrist.
“O” is NOT smart. Look where THAT got us!!!
there are 57 states; Canada has a president; “Austrian” is a language; America is “20 centuries” old; Arabic is spoken in Afghanistan. He’s called the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) the Maldives, and declared it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to invalidate a law passed by Congress.
Well, even genius lapses.
One one else can and is willing to destroy Hillary Clinton with undeniable passion and logic like Ted Cruz
Marx, mohammed and Alinsky — it is frightening how effectively they can convince masses that evil is good — a most dangerous demonic combination in the quest for power.
Think back a few years and remember that they published article after article after article remarking upon Al Gore’s enormous intellect.
Considering that the guy is dumb as a post, how is it possible that they mistook his dimness of wit for smart? Leaving aside that this tells you all you need to know about the relative intelligence of the scribbling class... they thought he was smart because he agreed with them.
We’ve been told again and again that Reagan and GW were dumb, and that Gore and Obama were smart. Actual intellect and accomplishment doesn’t enter in to the equation. Conformity does. That, and scribblers scribble what they are told to scribble. Remember, fast forward in the time machine, how many articles and headlines and magazine covers have assured us that Michelle epitomizes the height of fashion, “just like Jackie O”. Really?
Someone who would write that would write anything.
I speak as one who scored well to the far right of the IQ curve at eighteen. Actually in the top one per cent of a group of Navy enlisted men who were all well into the triple digits. I say that IQ alone is limited in what it says about future prospects. On the one hand a low two digit score is an almost certain predictor of failure at most endeavors but on the other hand a super high triple digit score is no guarantee of success, if it were you would know me by my real name and you would see me on the TV news regularly.
Put Barack Obama in the big swamp trying to hold his own with a group of deer hunting, catfishing, timber cutting, bulldozer driving, jack of all trades
rednecks and he will look like the helpless idiot just as those people would at a diplomatic dinner. The difference is that to me Obama is an idiot in BOTH settings.
Hitting the nail on the head:
“Modern liberalism believes that there is an answer to every question and a solution to every problem — that is, provided someone smart enough is in charge. But the reality is that there is no brain in the world big enough for the task.”
Beschloss and the other MSM idiots called Reagan a likable dunce. Enough said!
I’m not one to demean intelligence. Too often we get into the trap of saying that smart people really aren’t effective, or that the “streetwise” person will always do better than a smart person. That’s not true. Smart people are very effective in life. They figure things out more quickly and easily than stupid people, or even people of average intelligence. However, history has shown that intelligence alone is not enough. It has to be grounded in morals and humility. Example # 1 of intelligence not grounded in morals and humility is the Woodrow Wilson, probably the most evil man we’ve ever had as president. I am glad to hear someone like Alan Dershowitz say that Ted Cruz is brilliant. I am glad he is smart and becoming more and more effective in using it.
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