tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post554903472051637025..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Once again, how smart is Obama?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85888721824414312502011-04-05T15:39:49.463-07:002011-04-05T15:39:49.463-07:00Okay, so it's safe to assume that the O man ha...Okay, so it's safe to assume that the O man has an IQ of about 125 and is very self-absorbed and incurious (sounds familiar). This wouldn't really be surprising to anyone except his most rabid fans, who won't be persuaded no matter what you say.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41231058660679688392011-04-05T00:54:03.622-07:002011-04-05T00:54:03.622-07:00Albertosaurus, I, for one, always read your commen...<i>Albertosaurus, I, for one, always read your comments with great interest. You're like our version of that guy in Dos Equis commercials, only you're real. Don't listen to morons - they're just being jealous.</i><br /><br />Ditto. Al's my favorite isteve commenter. I always look forward to his comments.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46826492064213747242011-04-04T12:45:38.033-07:002011-04-04T12:45:38.033-07:00"And didn't Michelle Obama graduate with ..."And didn't Michelle Obama graduate with honors from Princeton? Did you read her thesis?"<br /><br />I think a number of people have since it was surrpetitiously released on the web. Funny you should reference it as suggestive of proof of intelligence. I mean really funny.funny bonenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13515621865921237312011-04-04T12:28:18.665-07:002011-04-04T12:28:18.665-07:00"- though he may have learned Law and taught ..."- though he may have learned Law and taught it - didn't even practice it much."<br /><br />Apparently his colleague's "hated him" and considered him "lazy. Jhttp://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2010/03/chicago-law-professor-on-obama-the-professors-hated-him-because-he-was-lazy-unqualified-never-attended-any-of-the-faculty-meetings/<br /><br />I guess you could malign the source, but these were actual quotes from the people he worked with and they haven't denied them.<br />Mrs. O. had her law license revoked and was not allowed to practice after the early 90s. It's been hushed up as to twhat the offence was.torrentnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-89432336949735116732011-04-04T12:23:00.572-07:002011-04-04T12:23:00.572-07:00"President of Law Review plus top 10% of clas..."President of Law Review plus top 10% of class at HARVARD? "<br /><br />Sorry. Still not impressed. Let's just accept that he's intellectually mediocre and is president because he's not very American in a country whose handers have decided it should go go global. And of course he's president because of his race. Those reasons are as good as the reasons many other men have been president. We don't need to invent brains where none actually exist.<br /><br /> No grades or professoral evaluation; he has no legal writings of his own, which apparently is expected from one in such position. Sounds like an AA position. He has a reputation for taking credit for other people's work. I can't see him doing much "editing." Probably a name only sort of thing. It'll all come out eventually. But again, he's in that position--and probably more of a puppet than we can imagine--and that is all that really counts.<br /><br />As JFK said when told by an opponent that he had no mandate due to his narrow victory. "Mandate schmandate. He's there and I'm here."take onenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-91934222276786168352011-04-04T12:13:48.638-07:002011-04-04T12:13:48.638-07:00"Obama's IQ is highest in any given room ..."Obama's IQ is highest in any given room cuz everyone else's IQs get down on their knees when he's around."<br /><br /><br />Best image yet for the B.O. experience!take onenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30905921144386203792011-04-04T06:39:30.983-07:002011-04-04T06:39:30.983-07:00Thanks to whoever it was for inspiring THIS.Thanks to whoever it was for inspiring <a href="http://balooscartoonblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/obama-cartoon.html" rel="nofollow">THIS.</a>Baloohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08245765878554696634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-10109045225310923492011-04-03T10:53:14.025-07:002011-04-03T10:53:14.025-07:00"Two standard deviations is an ordinary IQ fo..."Two standard deviations is an ordinary IQ for an attorney. "<br /><br />We're going to have to abolish politicians if nearly every elected representative is 2STD above normal. Even they can't handle the job. If the genius of Reid, Kennedy, et. al. can't run this country, then bye-bye democracy.ErisGuyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09383064735664269791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69851728550643533192011-04-02T20:43:26.785-07:002011-04-02T20:43:26.785-07:00"but he's no genius, and isn't the sm..."but he's no genius, and isn't the smartest guy in the room unless he's alone with his wife."<br /><br />No, I believe he is the smartest guy in the room because people turn off their IQs in his presence. <br />It's like you'd be the loudest person in the room if everyone shuts up. Or, you'd be the tallest person in the room if everyone were to get down on his/her knees. <br />Obama's IQ is highest in any given room cuz everyone else's IQs get down on their knees when he's around. <br /><br />Hell, I'll bet Gaddafi is the smartest guy in any room in Libya, and Kim is the smartest guy in any room in North Korea. In the presence of 'greatness', it is only proper to make oneself dumb.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37509590372018118322011-04-02T10:40:21.709-07:002011-04-02T10:40:21.709-07:00but he's no genius, and isn't the smartest...<i>but he's no genius, and isn't the smartest guy in the room unless he's alone with his wife.</i><br /><br />Lol, beat me to it.Svigorhttp://majorityrights.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44207445307526137272011-04-02T10:34:52.645-07:002011-04-02T10:34:52.645-07:00There seem to be a lot of comments like this on is...<i>There seem to be a lot of comments like this on isteve recently.<br /><br />Is it the same low-wattage troll posting constantly or a concerted attack by a whole group?</i><br /><br />I don't know about any connection, or whether it's one troll or many. But I do know I was just thinking how riled up one or more trolls get at the suggestion that Barry the Savior's IQ is around 120.<br /><br />LOL.<br /><br />No, MCL does not mean top 10% (or didn't when his holiness was at HLS). Yes, the fact that he was not a NMS Finalist means a vanishingly small chance his IQ is over 130; not impossible, but very unlikely.<br /><br />115-130 seems to be the range. His IQ is in the normal presidential range. He's just as "dumb" as Bush or Kerry. Not "brilliant," and "the smartest guy in the room" only when watching television with the family.Svigorhttp://majorityrights.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61524167121087821262011-04-02T09:27:43.205-07:002011-04-02T09:27:43.205-07:00McKnight was one of the major references for Obama...<i>McKnight was one of the major references for Obama's HLS application. He was a professor of communications at Northwestern and deeply involved in the community organizing racket, where the two had met. His other major reference was Michael Baron at Columbia, who had him in a small senior seminar class, where Obama was a gunner.</i> <br /><br />Obama went to Harvard because of <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2348280/posts" rel="nofollow">Newton Minow, Martha Minow, and Nell Minow</a> - with an assist from Khalid al-Mansour.<br /><br />BTW, if the name "Nell Minow" rings a bell for i-Stevers, it's because she was chosen by the Obama machine <a href="http://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=minow+taibbi" rel="nofollow">to lead the counter-offensive against Matt Taibbi</a>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33417576483112542542011-04-02T09:02:33.200-07:002011-04-02T09:02:33.200-07:00There's not much evidence outside of HLS of hi...<i>There's not much evidence outside of HLS of his being academically disciplined for long periods of time at a high level, which is why his HLS years are so puzzling. They don't fit with the pattern he has set before and after his time at HLS.</i> <br /> <br /> <br />Except that if you actually sit down and read <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2124993/posts" rel="nofollow">the two known HLS pieces</a> [abortion & the AA controversy], then you quickly realize that the HLS years <b>do</b> fit with the pattern:<br /> <br /> <br /><i>has received <b>most</b> prominent attention</i> <br /><br /><i>the <b>merits</b> of the Law Review's selection policy <b>has</b> been</i><br /> <br /> <br />And, quite frankly, <a href="http://www.google.com/images?safe=off&q=%2B%22Breaking+the+War+Mentality%22" rel="nofollow">the Columbia anti-nuke piece</a> was written by someone who isn't fully literate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37526899296548699462011-04-02T00:53:51.825-07:002011-04-02T00:53:51.825-07:00BTW, in David Remnick's book "The Bridge&...BTW, in David Remnick's book "The Bridge" we have this:<br /><br />"McKnight agreed to write the letter [of recommendation to HLS]. He had the idea that Obama had not received exceptional grades as an undergraduate--'I don't think he did too well in college'--but he had been deeply impressed by his intelligence and commitment as an organizer."<br /><br />McKnight was one of the major references for Obama's HLS application. He was a professor of communications at Northwestern and deeply involved in the community organizing racket, where the two had met. His other major reference was Michael Baron at Columbia, who had him in a small senior seminar class, where Obama was a gunner. Baron spoke highly of Obama and gave him an A. It's probably safe to say that was Obama's strongest class. Baron appears to have been a postdoc who got his PhD in East Asian politics at Columbia in 1980 and then checked out of academia in late 1983 to work in private industry. <br /><br />That's all consistent with the view of Obama as fairly bright, but no towering intellect. There's not much evidence outside of HLS of his being academically disciplined for long periods of time at a high level, which is why his HLS years are so puzzling. They don't fit with the pattern he has set before and after his time at HLS.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88945391778717011232011-04-01T22:25:21.885-07:002011-04-01T22:25:21.885-07:00Not just putting in lots of physically demanding h...<i>Not just putting in lots of physically demanding hours like campaigning (amongst crowds that adore you), but actually staying focused and working through all the issues involved in the volume of case law one must master in three years at HLS.</i><br /><br />They take just one semester of torts. They don't know much case law.ben tillmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-75458970067969264852011-04-01T20:32:07.775-07:002011-04-01T20:32:07.775-07:00"Gore did very well at St. Albans and Harvard..."Gore did very well at St. Albans and Harvard in the humanities and to a somewhat lesser extent, social sciences. However his scores in mathematics and the hard sciences at both were mediocre."<br /><br />HBD angle: Gore is a son of a senator and a lawyer. He probably inherited a verbal inclination from both sides.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17331404995564896692011-04-01T20:19:26.837-07:002011-04-01T20:19:26.837-07:00“Well, the stat I heard is that the average IQ of ...“Well, the stat I heard is that the average IQ of Harvard students is 130, and approximately a half of their entering students are National Merit Scholars. That's consistent with 130-136 being about the right cutoff, with most of the scholars clustered between 130 and 145.”<br /><br />Well, you heard wrong. In 2007, the Harvard entering class had 285 Merit Scholars. The size of Harvard’s entering freshman class is around 1640 each year. That would be less than half, wouldn’t it?<br /><br />http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/454412-national-merit-scholars-2007-schools-have-most.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59406205091136825422011-04-01T19:40:40.155-07:002011-04-01T19:40:40.155-07:00I have to say I have no idea what his IQ is, but t...I have to say I have no idea what his IQ is, but the fact that they haven't released his academic transcripts does makes you wonder. Gore released his well before the November election, about halfway through the 2000 primaries and it showed that he scored a 1355 on the SAT ( pre-grade inflation.) whereas Bush II scored a 1206. Why wouldn't Obama release his scores? Especially after the election was over and done with? My guess would be that it is because he is below both of them. According to the Washington Post article on Gore's academic background, he had two IQ tests administered to him in high school and came up with scores of 133 and 134.<br /><br />Gore did very well at St. Albans and Harvard in the humanities and to a somewhat lesser extent, social sciences. However his scores in mathematics and the hard sciences at both were mediocre. He apparently never took a course in either math or logic at Harvard and got a C+ and a D in the two lower level science courses he took ( Insert Global Warming joke here. ) Despite this, I would say Gore strikes me as considerably above average for a D.C. politician IQ-wise, probably smarter than 90% of his colleagues and probably higher than all but a handful of nominees for the top two spots on the ticket historically. However the real smart guys in politics are those with prestigious and appointed cabinet posts such as Secretary of State, Treasury, Defense, and Attorney General or federal judges or Fed governors, guys like Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, James Baker, and Harold Brown.<br /><br />Now as far as political IQ goes, I'm sure Obama would probably rate a lot higher than either Bush II or Gore, his social and interpersonal skills are certainly better. On the other hand, when he meets someone not in awe of him or who thinks that they are supposed to be in awe of him like Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department he doesn't seem to be able to formulate a Plan B. This suggests to me that he isn't nearly as smart as guys like Nixon and Gore in non-verbal intelligence, so I'll go ahead and guess somewhere around 120 IQ or about 15-20 points below those guys.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-57503164110276305132011-04-01T19:38:44.480-07:002011-04-01T19:38:44.480-07:00"Part of the mystery of Obama's intellect..."Part of the mystery of Obama's intellect is that the concrete evidence is contradictory."<br /><br />Mystery = aura = magic. <br /><br />Same thing with the birth certificate. Was he born in Hawaii? Kenya? Where?<br /><br />Mysterious. Mythic. Aura! Like the birth of Jesus is shrouded in mystery too. <br /><br />Likewise, his academic record has become the stuff of myth. Because we don't know, we wonder... which adds to the aura.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44273402770762341082011-04-01T17:00:54.239-07:002011-04-01T17:00:54.239-07:00Part of the mystery of Obama's intellect is th...Part of the mystery of Obama's intellect is that the concrete evidence is contradictory. His claim to academic fame rest on his years at HLS. But his results there aren't foreshadowed by his earlier academic performance, nor his following career.<br /><br />1. He didn't seem to stand out during his years at his Hawaiian prep school. Nobody has been able to find, for example, any record of his having excelled on the PSAT as reflected in his being any variant of National Merit Scholar. OTOH, nobody has disproved this, so far as I can tell--for example, by presenting a list of his prep classmates that were National Merit semifinalists, but showing Obama to be absent, or proof that he took the test at all. I think the odds are good that he took the test but didn't do all that well on it.<br /><br />2. He went to Occidental, which is a very good but not fantastic school. If you apply some AA discounts, if he had scored at all well on the SAT he'd have likely been heavily favored for Stanford or an Ivy. As a Hawaiian he'd have probably gravitated to Stanford if he retained a West Coast bias. Obama doesn't strike me as the sort that would pass up a more prestigious school if the opportunity presented itself via high SAT scores. See his later transfer to Columbia.<br /><br />3. He doesn't seem to have left much of a mark at Columbia or Occidental. Part of this is, I suspect, his association with socialists while there. His friends from that era have enough wit to keep quiet about that, which adds to the paucity of actual information about him when he's not "on" his persona.<br /><br />4. His post-undergrad career was rabble-rousing in Chicago, and some light lifting doing rewrites of press releases for a newsletter.<br /><br />5. His HLS years, where he did very well. Most people say he was disciplined, but his earlier and later career don't reflect that, aside from his ability to stay "on" and suck up. Based on his presidential years I see no evidence that he's a grind; quite the opposite. His actual work product during HLS is ambiguous. During that time HLS was obsessed with race. His note for the HLR was mediocre to sub-par, and his election as editor tinged with the race question. His good reputation there mostly relates to his grades, and the process for assigning those seem somewhat opaque to this law school outsider.<br /><br />6. His post-HLS career. He wasn't very well regarded for his intellect by his colleagues at U of Chicago, where he didn't engage intellectually, and, based on his written test questions, was competent but not spectacular. He published Dreams From my Father, but I think the evidence is fairly good that Ayers had a hand in that. (I come to that conclusion reluctantly, because it seems so outlandish, but the quantitative analysis of the book's prose seems convincing to me.) He also blew a couple deadlines on producing a manuscript. <br /><br />Overall, I'd guess that he's verbally adept, probably has abysmal quantitative scores that dragged down his overall SAT scores and kept him out of the Ivies on his initial applications, and is socially pretty sophisticated. He can pick up and repeat other's arguments. I see little or no originality; his Columbia campus newspaper article was filled with boilerplate lefty notions, for example. He has a strong desire to be liked which leaks over into his thinking. (As a thought experiment, imagine Obama going to schools steeped in conservative thought rather than lefty teachers. Would he have been an iconoclast, like some conservatives at lefty schools? I don't think so. He isn't a terribly hard worker, and vastly overestimates his abilities. He's smart enough to be president, certainly, but he's no genius, and isn't the smartest guy in the room unless he's alone with his wife.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12152771100776119002011-04-01T15:51:41.127-07:002011-04-01T15:51:41.127-07:00"IQ of High School garduates[sic] is about 11...<i>"IQ of High School garduates[sic] is about 115. College freshmen are about 117. Collge[sic] students graduate with IQs of around 120."</i><br /><br />Has this commenter just arrived in a time machine from 1955? Message from 2011: <b>most</b> young Americans get a high school diploma these days, most as in over 70% -- and that's even in today's dumbed-down America. <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_105.asp" rel="nofollow">Look it up here.</a> Now if average IQ is 100 and the majority of people have IQs between 90 and 110 (that bell curve thing) then there is no way that high school graduates have either an average of, or need a minimum of, IQ 115. <br /><br />On to college. At least <b>half</b> of 21st century young Americans enroll in college. They don't all graduate, definitely, but lots of those who avoid science and engineering go on to pick up some kind of a four-year degree. I have done work related to community colleges and high schools and have met lots of young teachers. It is quite possible to have an IQ in the 90s and get an education degree and a job teaching. No, I'm not kidding and anybody who thinks I am really needs to get out more.CJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58015560914558895452011-04-01T13:23:54.349-07:002011-04-01T13:23:54.349-07:00It's 99% likely that Obama, who attended an el...<i>It's 99% likely that Obama, who attended an elite private school, took the PSAT, yet he does not show up on the directory of National Merit Scholars or National Achievement Scholars </i><br /><br />Does such a directory exist? Where?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24935504425828166132011-04-01T13:16:37.022-07:002011-04-01T13:16:37.022-07:00"Also note that National Merit Semi-Finalists..."Also note that National Merit Semi-Finalists score in the top 1% of PSAT takers which is a much more select group than the US population as a whole so that being a National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist would equate to more than an IQ of 136."<br /><br />Well, the stat I heard is that the average IQ of Harvard students is 130, and approximately a half of their entering students are National Merit Scholars. That's consistent with 130-136 being about the right cutoff, with most of the scholars clustered between 130 and 145.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46053033478002038092011-04-01T11:58:52.769-07:002011-04-01T11:58:52.769-07:00Not just putting in lots of physically demanding h...<i>Not just putting in lots of physically demanding hours like campaigning (amongst crowds that adore you), but actually staying focused and working through all the issues involved in the volume of case law one must master in three years at HLS.</i><br /><br />The dirty little secret of law school is that almost all the extra studying students do is unnecessary. Showing up, paying attention, getting the basics, and being smart is the formula for success on the typical class that's graded on the basis of a final exam. Almost all of the extra work law students do is because of the personality flaws that are typical of the group.<br /><br />-Osvaldo M.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-55559278475843066862011-04-01T11:53:12.547-07:002011-04-01T11:53:12.547-07:00Why would someone with such high verbal skill rely...<i>Why would someone with such high verbal skill rely on a ghost-writer, esp. before anyone knew him?<br /></i><br /><br />Writing is risk-taking. You've got to *commit* to putting something down on paper. And you have to be pretty motivated to write. Obama probably has neither quality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com