A recurrent theme in David Remnick's biography of Obama, The Bridge, is The Boredom of Barack: He was bored as president of the Harvard Law Review, bored as a civil rights lawyer, bored as a law school lecturer, bored as a state senator, and bored as a U.S. Senator. The one thing that really interests him is writing about himself. (Well, that and power and praise.)
Remnick quotes Obama's long-time Chicago political ally Valerie Jarrett recalling Obama's 1990s in Chicago (p. 274):
Later, after Obama got elected to the U.S. Senate [p. 444]:
In other words, it's safe to conclude that he had a lot of help from staffers and others on his second book. You can compare it to Sen. Jim Webb's recent book, A Time to Fight, which is much less polished than Obama's Audacity. Webb has a considerable track record as a novelist, but you get the sense that he felt the taxpayers were paying him to be a Senator, not a writer, so, in contrast to Obama, Webb didn't put his best efforts nor those of his staff into his book.
The funny thing, of course, is that for all of his acolytes' claims that Obama is bored because his mind is always on higher, intellectual things, he seems to spend a huge amount of time doing the same things George W. Bush did: watching ESPN SportsCenter, exercising, and playing golf.
There is very little evidence in his life of systematic grappling with ideas beyond developing the ability to restate each side's current position in an eloquent fashion so that people will shut up and not keep repeating themselves to him as if he doesn't get it or as if he'll change his mind.
Dreams is a literary work, with a sense of style but quite weak analytic content. Audacity is a polished but shallow positioning of himself for the 2008 election. He avoided debate with colleagues at the U. of Chicago. What else has he written? A few dozen op-ed columns for his local newspaper when he was a state senator.
The overall picture is of a facile, not particularly hard working egoist whose chief intellectual and aesthetic interest is himself.
Remnick quotes Obama's long-time Chicago political ally Valerie Jarrett recalling Obama's 1990s in Chicago (p. 274):
"... I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ... So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that they had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy." Jarrett was quite sure that one of the few things that truly engaged him fully before going to the White House was writing Dreams from My Father. "He's been bored to death his whole life," she said.
Later, after Obama got elected to the U.S. Senate [p. 444]:
The truth was, David Axelrod told me, "Barack hated being a senator." Washington was a grander stage than Springfield, but the frustrations of being a rookie in a minority party were familiar. Obama could barely conceal his frustration with the torpid pace of the Senate. His aides could sense his frustration and so could his colleagues. "He was so bored being a senator," one Senate aide said. ...His second book, a polemical memoir / campaign kickoff book, has nine chapters, an epilogue, and a prologue. So, apparently, Obama devoted about three months to writing the book while also serving as Senator. In comparison, his first book took several years, some of it full time.
His friend and law colleague Judd Miner said, "The reality was that during his first two years in the U.S. Senate, I think, he was struggling; it wasn't nearly as stimulating as he expected." ...
The one project that did engage Obama fully was work on The Audacity of Hope. He procrastinated for a long time and then, facing his deadline, wrote nearly a chapter a week.
In other words, it's safe to conclude that he had a lot of help from staffers and others on his second book. You can compare it to Sen. Jim Webb's recent book, A Time to Fight, which is much less polished than Obama's Audacity. Webb has a considerable track record as a novelist, but you get the sense that he felt the taxpayers were paying him to be a Senator, not a writer, so, in contrast to Obama, Webb didn't put his best efforts nor those of his staff into his book.
This was not your average senator writing a book," one aide said. "His whole soul went into it, so it meant that there was less of him to go around elsewhere. In the office, he was distracted. He wasn't thrilled to be living the life of a senator, even on the best of days. The job was too small for him -- because his mind was on systemic change, not on votes.
"So he was punching the clock during the day then coming alive at night to write the book," the aide went on. "The book was about a mortgage and cashing in on the success of the first book. And the book was a way to think through who he was what he stood for."
The funny thing, of course, is that for all of his acolytes' claims that Obama is bored because his mind is always on higher, intellectual things, he seems to spend a huge amount of time doing the same things George W. Bush did: watching ESPN SportsCenter, exercising, and playing golf.
There is very little evidence in his life of systematic grappling with ideas beyond developing the ability to restate each side's current position in an eloquent fashion so that people will shut up and not keep repeating themselves to him as if he doesn't get it or as if he'll change his mind.
Dreams is a literary work, with a sense of style but quite weak analytic content. Audacity is a polished but shallow positioning of himself for the 2008 election. He avoided debate with colleagues at the U. of Chicago. What else has he written? A few dozen op-ed columns for his local newspaper when he was a state senator.
The overall picture is of a facile, not particularly hard working egoist whose chief intellectual and aesthetic interest is himself.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
61 comments:
Your description of Mr O sounds like your recurring description of G. W. Bush and John McCain, as very bright, but intellectually lazy.
Steve,
It sounds like you are really jealous of Obama.
He probably gets that bored thing from his mother who was so bored with her middle-class American life ("they're not MY people") that she went traipsing all over the world looking for adventure. Like going to Indonesia in the 70s with a young kid in tow. Talk about being bored!
Actually, talk about being an "egoist whose chief intellectual and aesthetic interest is himself."
(Obama's father went from Kenya to the U.S. for an education, but at least THAT made sense!)
So, we're in safe hands then? he doesn't really care for anything that means no redistribution of wealth and no reparations by other means.
Good!!! we're happy.
If he's that bored, someone really should introduce him to sporcle.
If he's so brilliant and hungry for knowledge and challenge, why is he in the public sphere at all? What kind of dummy really thinks politics are the place for the type of person being projected onto Obama here?
He's so clueless he can't even act as steward for his own life?
You're in the right neighborhood, Steve. Brilliant, restless people find things to do.
Off topic, but Nate Silver (who helped get Obama elected), did analysis to determine the most livable neighborhood in New York.
http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65374/
He ranks safety slightly higher than diversity and schools, which you would disagree with, but he rates housing costs number 1 (another way to say schools) which I'm sure you'd agree with.
i think we should be insulted by pure bullshit like this:
"being a senator was too small for him" and "he was bored because he is so brilliant that these jobs were far beneath his abilities"
this is so much bullshit, it's hard to believe the guys who are spewing this stuff can even say it with a straight face.
this is part of the slavery tax. the ludicrous elevation of pedestrian african achievement to the level of gods. this is why the US probably cannot afford the slavery tax forever.
How can you say Obama's not hard working? You don't think running for president, campaigning, shaking thousands of hands every day, going to endless events is hard work? The idea that a lazy person can get elected president is absurd on its face.
I'm not surprised he's bored considering the adventures he had during the 80s at Columbia and in Afghanistan & Pakistan as a CIA agent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WedxY61d60
The overall picture is of a facile, not particularly hard working egoist whose chief intellectual and aesthetic interest is himself.
Could not put it better myself. It's disgusting that people like Jarett have the audacity to dish up this nonsense about how he was under-occupied. They must think that others are as intellectually challenged as they are.
O. obviously loses interest in things the moment he smells hard work. Like you said, he is intellectually lazy.
Ah, but he's got the sneer of cold command. Barackmandias! And everyone knows how that poem ends.
Aren't sociopaths said to suffer from constant boredom?
Well, the job of a US politician IS boring. None of them have much real power individually. Power is diffused among myriads of people, most of whom don't even work in government. They have to attend boring events and read boring speeches written by others. They have to congratulate Nordic Combined silver medalists and make toasts at state dinners. Saying or doing anything interesting gets them in trouble. I love politics, and yet I never watch C-SPAN's Senate or House coverage and I almost never watch the Sunday talk shows. Nothing interesting from the political point of view is ever said on them. I will never learn anything new about politics by watching them.
I'm sure that being a dictator is very, very interesting, and not just in a Caligula sort of way. A dictator can make a real difference with regard to policy.
Being a modern Western politician is different. I bet fighting for these jobs is far more exciting than doing them.
It's scary as hell to think that a US senator in his first term could possibly be bored. We have a huge country with unbounded potential and untold problems. A senator should be studying these and working toward solutions. But Obama's game plan was not to actually generate any new ideas or solutions, but to keep his nose out of controversy long enough to make a run for the big office. Even so, it's incredible that he was bored and that his supporters are willing to admit that.
Quick OT digression ... quick because so many readers want all Barack all the time, but this is an actual news story from today with its actual headline:
Individuals with Rare Disorder Have No Racial Biases
They're just not normal!
pointisthis - The idea that a lazy person can get elected president is absurd on its face.
And the the prosecution calls its first witness, GWB please take the stand.
Now that you mention it, I'm getting a little bored with Barack, too. I mean, at his core, he's really dull, n'est pas?
He is not bored because he is too smart and extraordinarily talented.
He is bored because he is boring himself and not very intelligent or interesting.
The only thing that interests Barack - is Barack!
"He" wrote nearly a chapter a week. Suuuuure he did!
headache said: "O. obviously loses interest in things the moment he smells hard work."
Or the minute he realizes that he is not the focus of whatever is at hand. I have no doubt he worked hard campaigning for the presidency. Of course, the pay-off to his huge ego was immediate and equally huge, thousands of adoring fans cheering his every word, gesture and expression at every campaign event. And he knew very well that because he was part black, he would not be subject to the kind of disparagement and embarrassment candidates routinely experience fronm hecklers, detractors and other candidates. Win, lose or draw, it was a low-risk, high-yield venture for him.
He campaigned hard for health-care because it was part of his plan for legislative redistribution to "his" people and because he knew it would be doubly historic, he the first "black" POTUS would effect a major transfer of wealth and succeed where his white predecessors had failed.
All this and much, much more is why I long ago dubbed him "Black Narcissus".
Well, if he gets too bored in the Oval Office, he might consider a fling with a White House intern.
--Anon in Arkansas
Wouldn't a brilliant type find Leftism - with its extreme reduction of our condition to a simple equation of who/whom - deathly boring? And yet Obama wages class warfare and nothing but class warfare: the mark of a true believer.
"It sounds like you are really jealous of Obama."
Superficially maybe. Many would love greatness thrust upon them however the price of having to live with Michelle is too high for even the most ambitious sorts.
Lazy and dumb- corporals.
Hard-working and dumb- 1st lieut.
Hard-working and smart- staff zero.
Lazy and smart- Commander.
I'd class Obama as a black Jimmy Carter, but noticing that work sucks- not proof of unwisdom.
I doubt if any sane person has ever thought John McCain was 'very bright'. Class rank 894 out of 899 - when his father was head of the Pacific Fleet, which just might make Annapolis give you the benefit of the doubt.
Bush is probably brighter, but nothing special. In practice, of course, he's a damned fool.
Maybe the US should switch to a parliamentary system with PR. It seems to work well for Germany-most of whose post-war Chancellors have been of high quality. Of course, the demographics are radically different, and the crippling leftist hegemony may be even worse. Maybe, but do they charge people with "hate crimes" for strewing cotton balls about or non-PC jokes spoken on WalMart PA systems? In the US, flag-burning is protected "symbolic speech", but throwing around cotton balls is not. I haven't followed the "reasoning" that "explains" why the First Amendment doesn't apply in the WalMart case.
The key advantage of PR is that allows for representation by "marginal" players-that's you and me- would have the special protections provided by the First Amendment and the FCC for political candidates and presumably would not be subjected for prosecution like Wilders, VB or the BNP.
Because of the presumably insuperable constitutional barriers it would difficult to accomplish on the Federal level. It makes more sense to start off at the state level. Especially states with initiative and referendum,which allow citizens a good chance of bypassing the entrenched duopoly which would be understandably hostile to these innovations.
In addition, local and state legislatures and school and other boards should be large-both to facilitate entry of the "marginals" and also to make it harder for a corrupt conspiracies against the public to develop-and receive little or no compensation to discourage freeloaders and career politicians.New Hampshire-admittedly a trivial state- has a large legislature made of unpaid volunteers.
One problem is that we have faux federalism and state and local government basically has the job of taking orders from their masters in DC. But a sizable anti-Regime presence on the state and local levels of government can be seen as a means of gathering the like-minded and organizing
anti-Regime opposition into something coherent.
See: Lynched :A Conservative's Life
on a New York City School Board
http://www.culturalstudiespress.com/lynched
The Manhattan machine told us a million times that Bill Clinton was a great genius also. Hell, they told us Al Gore was a genius.
Every puppet the globalists send up to the big POTUS election show is, without a doubt, a genius.
There is zero evidence of actual genius in Bill Clinton's entire career. But he was slippery and he knew how to manipulate people. Al Gore couldn't even do that right.
Same storyline applies all the way back to Adlai Effing Stevenson - maybe even back to Woodrow Wilson who was another one their golden boys.
Big surprise that it turns out that "there is no there" when it comes to Barry Soetoro. This guy is a very good actor who knows how to read his lines. After you strip away the Black Liberation Theology, a good actor is what he is.
As a brilliant, often bored, and lazy person, I can state that brilliant people are often bored by the mundane realities of most occupations.
"Obama could barely conceal his frustration with the torpid pace of the Senate. His aides could sense his frustration and so could his colleagues. "He was so bored being a senator," one Senate aide said. ..."
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great?
- Cassius, "Julius Caesar", W. Shakespeare
"Anonymous said...
""pointisthis - The idea that a lazy person can get elected president is absurd on its face."
And the the prosecution calls its first witness, GWB please take the stand."
Next witness for the prosecution? Warren G. Harding.
I'm not surprised he's bored considering the adventures he had during the 80s at Columbia and in Afghanistan & Pakistan as a CIA agent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WedxY61d60
That reminds me of Steve's post last summer about a possible Obama-CIA connection:
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-family-and-cia.html
I can actually sympathize with him a little. His entire life he's had somewhat of a birthright because he's probably the most intelligent "black" guy anyone has ever met.
The pandering he's been accustomed to his entire life has led to complacency on his part. Surely not a desirable trait for a President, but somewhat logical given his likely background.
I respectfully think Cordelia is on the right track in seeking to identify key traits ( all of which
would be highly influenced by genes ), but I believe a close scrutiny of
Ann Dunham's life suggests she was not especially bored--but alienated.
What can be gleaned about her suggests a schizoid temperment, not a highly venturesome one. She appears to have hovered within the margins of marginal groups, largely. She had the schizoid's fascination with odd and unusual things and the sort of intense subsconscious hostility toward the mainstream of her own society that such fascination often cloaks. The candidate for boredom and a need for excitement jags, would be Stan Dunham, the President maternal grandfather and also the President's biological father. They got along easily. It is not unlikely that Madeline Payne Dunham was the brightest of the whole lot--Barack Sr. not being excepted. Barack Sr. had a very "disconnected" personality, with breezy, self-centered indulgences central to it. A mechanisitic treatment of traits and inheritance cries out , of course, for a melding of genes and environment, etc., but it is a shocking revelation of the ingrained effects of Blank Slate Delusions that an accomplished trade school mechanic could draw up a trait chart--maybe doing some folklore about overt physical resemblances & end up ahead of most of the psychologists loosened upon the world. Ann Dunham's paternal grandfather was a bit of schizoid case, also, and appears to have just split the scene when Ruth Lucille Armour killed herself at age 26. No indication he had diddle to do with either of his sons after Ruth Lucille killed herself. He was about 21 when he married her, she being 15--15, folks--at the time. In fact, the President has the other brother--his paternal grandfather's brother--living somewhere on the Virginia shore there adjacent to the District of Corruption--in his 90's and not a peep from anyone about what he might have to say. Madeline Payne Dunham was kept incommunicado for the last few years of her life. Aside from Madeline Payne Dunham, I can't locate anyhone in this gene pool who seems to have had a conscience much larger than a BB and of much more substance that a ping pong ball.
Pseudo-intellectual types were bored in the 1960s and decided that the country needed a revolution to make things interesting for them.
When I look at what the Democrats are doing now, such as ramming through Obamacare by overriding normal procedures, and demonizing the dissent of the Tea Party, it seems to me they're creating revolutionary conditions in this country.
BTW, I'm amazed at the stubborn refusal of some people to grant that Obama is at least very bright, if not brilliant. They keep saying he has to read lines off the teleprompter, but when he was answering questions at the Republican conclave in Baltimore earlier this year, he was not reading from a teleprompter. It may feel good to dismiss the 0's intellect, but I think it's a mistake to underestimate your opponents.
what if obama "gets bored" of being president of the united states, because it's "not challenging enough"?
do you guys think he has what it takes to defeat tiger woods in an election for Future President of the World?
which part african man is the preferred overlord of sniveling white liberals and brainwashed white plebes? i would say right about now they are in a dead heat.
Obama's maternal grandmother
s family appears to have tended to be quiet, diligent, respectable, and academically inclined, with Madelyn being something of the black sheep for marrying Stanley in high school. I believe one of her surviving sisters was identified in Madelyn's obituaries as a retired statistics professor in North Carolina. Her brother went to the U. of Chicago after WWII to get an advanced degree in engineering, but wound up working for the rest of his life at the U. of Chicago library, which I presume is a big one. I believe he was the #2 person in the library hierarchy when he retired.
How about boredom with Barack? Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
And how about boredom with those thrilled with Barack? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Obama is bright, but I don't think quite bright on the scale his credentials suggest. For example, John Roberts and Obama were both editors of the Harvard Law Review while in law school, and both graduated Magna Cum Laude. Does anyone think Obama's intellect is anywhere near that of Roberts? A partial list of HLR editors is available at wikipedia. I don't think Obama is in the same area code as most of those listed.
I suspect that's why his grades and transcripts are kept under wraps. In the absence of evidence, people can project their wishes and hopes onto him, which is a persistent tactic of Obama's. Maybe the defining tactic.
Madeline's family did not boot her for "hooking up" with Stanley. Her father appears to have been a bookkeeper/accountant for the Standard Oil (?) refinery in Augusta, KS. Madeline lived with her parents along with her then infant daughter, Stanlee Ann (probably the BC spelling ), during WWII when Madeline rapidly advanced as a worker in the huge Boeing assembly plant adjacent to Wichita, becoming herself a time clock accountant. "Ann" (she was always in schizoid fashion "juggling" her name and having convoluted emotional ripples about contrived 'complaining'--attention getting-- over her name ) probably did not see her father until she was over three years old or certainly would not have bonded up with him until then (if at all ).
Stanley / Stanlee/ Ann Dunham appears to have few sustained direct human relationships, and her busy body but productive involvements in the rural villages of third world nations and her busy body leftist comminglings gave her mediated "relationships" via her pottery, weaving, etc etc.
The BHO story might well be in reality to a significant extent
"Nighmares of my Mother" The President appears light in his loafers and the indicators are that he had a remarkable poverty of heterosexual relationships until at about age 28 whem he married Michelle (Robinson, was it?) who used to cuddle in her father's lap when she was 18 years old. One could have ushered all these relatives before a competent psychiatrist/APA Board Certified clinical psychologist
a n d
the person they would have wished to have visited with at some length would have been
Ann Dunham, a genuine "nut" case.
I've seen exactly n o t h i n g
suggesting Barry Obama ever confronted his relationship with her (escaping to the Dunham's is not a confrontation ) and the endless "brainwashing" she inflicted as care and guidance. The White House is a sit com, folks.
Isn't chronic boredom a symptom of clinical depression?
Some chronically unhappy people are also very ambitious. They assume that the key to happiness is just one promotion away.
If you follow this line of reasoning about Obama, it gets scary kinda quickly. If you become LITERALLY the most powerful man on the planet and you're still not happy, then what?
Harry Baldwin said: "BTW, I'm amazed at the stubborn refusal of some people to grant that Obama is at least very bright, if not brilliant. They keep saying he has to read lines off the teleprompter, but when he was answering questions at the Republican conclave in Baltimore earlier this year, he was not reading from a teleprompter."
Agreed. The trouble is, he's nowhere near as bright as his fans claim so it's tempting to go the other route and underestimate him.
Also, lack of a teleprompter and the ability to engage in rapid repartee is no indication of high IQ (e.g., Muhammed Ali). One of the traits so often found in blacks, a certain verbal facility, is often hopefully cited by white liberals as proof of blacks' underestimated verbal intelligence. But I think it's more accurately acribed to high sociability and the ability to imitate rather than evidence of cognitive equality with whites.
No doubt about it, at times Obama can be quite eloquent (the "race speech"). But he pulls a trick I know well, having done it myself innumerable times in school--uses his verbal facility to obscure or distract from his lack of hard-core knowledge and/or understanding. (Come to think of it, he uses his "blackness" the same way.) One prof actually gave me an "A" on an essay test, writing "Good reply. But you didn't answer the question". The same could apply to much of what Obama says. And his "logic" is easy even for me to refute.
Harry Baldwin said: "It may feel good to dismiss the 0's intellect, but I think it's a mistake to underestimate your opponents."
Absolutely. In any case, I think you can dismiss Obama's intellect and still be on guard against underestimating him. He totally lacks, say, Clinton's personal charisma (I say this as one of the latter's biggest non-fans) and he does not know how to win over opponents but he does know how to seem "black enough" to those who value that sort of thing: non-threatening enough to nice clueless whites and authentic enough to hard-core lefties.
If nothing else, those tempted to underestimate him should remember that he is, above all, a narcissist. And narcissists will move heaven and earth and dispense with social and even moral niceties in order to preserve their unrealistic image of themselves and make sure they are getting what they think is their due.
gcochran
Hard to say what predictive or analytic value class rank at the military academies has. MacArthur was first in his class and Eisenhower was second. Custer was dead last and Patton was in the middle. Each of these men won fame in their careers, but it was a fame unique to each based on other criteria than grades. Custer had a legendary number of demerits that contributed to his ranking. Patton was a mediocre student. Both had magnificent courage, as did McCain. Adversity will test men and make the best use of their best talents; educational grades may or may not have any value in that process.
"Many would love greatness thrust upon them however the price of having to live with Michelle is too high for even the most ambitious sorts."
Most definitely.
Yep very funny stuff when its revealed that Barry is bored because he's TOO smart,not because he's NOT very smart. Lets hope he finds a subject that will actually require him to tax that magnificent machine in his fuzzy little old head!I mean,besides March Madness. I must,at this point, bring up a somewhat disquieting question. Barry is fairly young,and has been deemed healthy,and he IS black after all...(Look at Tiger Woods,if that staement offends you.) One way men traditionally relieve boredom is through sex,either alone or with a partner(s). So I wonder what Barry is doing on that score. He cant be going to Michelle. he seems very similar to Bill Clinton in these matters(matters of the uhm,heart). Certainly,like Bill,he cant be having loving relations with his wife,can he?? Can u see that?? I cant. Like Bill,I am sure he feels the need to validate himself sexually. He may be a dullard compared to Clinton,but evry bit as egotistic if not moreso. The recent dumping of Desiree Rogers,she taking the fall for the immense screwup in the gate crashing affair,Gategate,was said to reflect a high level of catfighting(Meeeeowwww) in the White House.Probably some funny stories there,as I cant see the bored but ultra ambitious Rogers(who btw was once the president--the president!!!-of Comm. Edison. WTF??)being too demur to turn down a chance at getting close to the Big Chief hisself. Would be interesting to see who Barry is banging.
"You're in the right neighborhood, Steve. Brilliant, restless people find things to do."
You don't consider administrating the free world "finding something to do?"
Dang, it's a rough crowd!
The presidency either bores or frustrates Mr. Obama. He's done almost nothing with it so far. At least nothing that he "should" want to do as a redistributionist, kumbaya lefty.
He's using the military to wage 2 wars. He gave what, half a trillion $ to Wall Street.
He's a pretty bright guy, maybe he's down and bored because he sees the writing on the wall. The baby boomers will start retiring pretty soon. The early 20's demographic is like 35-40% nonwhite. Jobs that require brains will pay more as the supply of brains decreases. Income inequality will rise at the same time total GDP stays roughly stagnant. The dumbs and their leaders will see that as rising exploitation and oppression. The Diversity Recession will turn into the diversity depression. Except it isn't a depression, because it'll never turn around.
If the Democrats keep just core of white 'progressives' (the pandagon set) who despise most other whites + (to a decent approximation) all the minorities, they will have a permanent hold on government. When they mistakes, there won't be enough of swing vote to change course.
I'd be bored and depressed too. The country's pretty tapped out, and there's not much he could do that would help, even if wanted to.
One way men traditionally relieve boredom is through sex,either alone or with a partner(s). So I wonder what Barry is doing on that score. He cant be going to Michelle. he seems very similar to Bill Clinton in these matters(matters of the uhm,heart).
Obama was raised by whites in Hawaii. How many black women was he around growing up? I find it hard to believe that he's all that into black women.
Unless variation in sexual taste in women has a significant genetic component, and even if it does, East African faces and bodies don't look much like West Africans. Really, white men raised by whites are not very into black women, and successful black men, well they usually aren't either.
My guesses: I'm wrong, he has a great sex life with Michelle. He has sooo many groupies, he gets lots of tail from women who keep it secret from the press. Michelle would almost have to know. Chances are Obama has much better taste in women than Clinton(who doesn't?) and his extracurricular partners have reputations and careers to lose.
Eisenhower actually graduated 61st out of 164 at West Point. He did graduate 1st in a class of 275 at Command and General Staff school in 1925, after he had significant experience.
At least two of his five brothers were highly distinguished in their own right, easily eclipsing Ike through the 1930's, when he was a little-known major. The rest had solidly upper middle class careers. It was quite an accomplishment for a poor, unconnected family.
Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law. That's top 10%. Grades are blinded. This is a feat that can be accomplished by nothing other that fierce, furious intellect and HARD WORK. There is NO affirmative action involved with that. Take it from someone who knows, not these poseurs who think they know anything about the man's intellect.
I have to think President BHO benefitted in his mixed-racedness from the fact that his father's skin was so dark that Barack Jr. came out looking not too much lighter than your average black American. Had he come out looking like Derek Jeter he might've been just as smart but in politics he wouldn't have been considered "black enough" and he'd still be a senator, at best.
There's something else about mixed race blacks that interests me. Blacks and whites have been mixing their genes, voluntarily and involuntarily, for several centuries now, and I find it interesting that even after all that, in fields where merit really matters - Nobel laureates, billionaires - there are still no black Nobel science laureates and only one black billionaire (Oprah), and her only by running her mouth.
What does this say? Well it says that with regards to genes affecting intelligence there must be not one or a handful but possibly dozens, if not even more - and in most cases Africans didn't get the better genes.
"I find it interesting that even after all that, in fields where merit really matters - Nobel laureates, billionaires"
Would one be fair to surmise from this that you've accomplished nothing of merit in your life Jack?
In any event, there have been six Black Billionairesin the past decade, and twelve
Black Nobel Laureates.
Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law?
Really?
Is this the Lake Wobegon Effect in action? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The_Lake_Wobegon_effect
So, he's just a lighter complected version of Thomas Sowell?
How did I miss this?
C'mon, this doesn't pass the Smell Test.
President Obama's Harvard Law School successes should not be
"explained away" certainly, but he could reveal his grades, his LSAT scores, etc. And just what HLR
contributions did he author? Where are the transcripts/recordings of his debates, if any? These questions are not rhetorical assertions that publications by him do not exist in HLR or that records of informed and reasoned disputation between him and bright persons do not exist....but , then, where? The Birth Certificate matter is fed not so much on some doubt about his being smuggled in swaddling clothes from Kenya into the US---but just why will BHO not reveal fully the original document and the known details--who delivered him, exactly where, etc. Madeline Payne Dunham certainly would have known, but she was defintely kept
incommunicado for the last years of her life. Questions and doubts certaining "the real Obama" just crawl out of the woodwork like cockroaches in a darkened flop house. They are fed by the circumstances,I submit, not by the questioners.
What really is needed is a careful
discovery/ stipulation/of biographical facts relevant to the President's life and that surely includes facts about his ancestors to at least three generations. There isn't that much, actually, that's been truly tied down. I have deliberately evaded his own books as being basically manipulative exercises--a gerrymandering of facts and experiences. It is utterly gratuituous to assume that race was ever of much significance in his upbringing or to him personally-- apart from its political utility that apparently had been discovered when he returned from extensive travels after high school and announced,
"No more Barry" His mother could arise from the grave to remark in full sincerety, "That's my boy!"
Neither grandfather, similarly brought forth, could remark truthfully, "He's his own man".
In any event, there have been six Black Billionairesin the past decade, and twelve Black Nobel Laureates.
My black billionaires comment referred to current black American billionaires, because it is the most easily measurable, and I should have have spelled that out. There is currently only one, so far as I know - Oprah. Feel free to list the other five. I used current billionaires in order to allow some way to measure them relative to non-black billionaires.
In one case of a partially black foreign billionaire - Michael Lee-Chin - an interesting aspect is that he is not half black by virtue of having one black parent and one non-black parent, but by having two parents who were each half black and half Chinese. This means that genetically he could've inherited a disproportionate number of genes affecting intelligence could be from his Chinese ancestors. If a man has one completely African parent and one completely Chinese parent his genes must be 50/50 (actually 51/49, favoring his mother). Past the first generation, however, that doesn't hold true.
In regards to Nobel laureates I did say that I was referring specifically to science laureates. Too often the non-science prizes are handed out as political door prizes. Eight of the 12 black laureates you mentioned are in Peace, while three are in literature. I did miss one economics laureate however.
Besides, both of your links are broken.
"Truth said...
Would one be fair to surmise from this that you've accomplished nothing of merit in your life Jack?
In any event, there have been six Black Billionairesin the past decade, and twelve
Black Nobel Laureates."
Do you believe that accomplishment is binary? You are either a billionaire or a bum, a nobel laureate or a retard? The fact that there is some measure of very high accomplishment, does not mean that there is no level of lesser accomplishment. Even a child knows that. Evidently, "Truth", you are not as smart as a child.
By the way, the man wrote "science laureates", as they are the only ones that count (who wants to be in the same club as Al Gore and Yassir Arafat?). So where are the black nobel laureates in science?
Kylie's comment re BHO's "brightness" and self absorption are on target. By every indication by the time he arrived at Harvard and on HLR,
there was huge desire to accommodate a Black who could talk the talk whether he could walk the intellectual walk or not. That he is bright is indisputable. That he is bright concomitant with his credentials and verbal skills is quite questionable.
> Barack Sr. had a very "disconnected" personality, with breezy, self-centered indulgences central to it. <
Sounds stereotypical.
"Do you believe that accomplishment is binary? You are either a billionaire or a bum, a nobel laureate or a retard?
Again Grasshopper, you are having trouble with reading comprehension. I did not imply the above, Mr. Aubrey did. His exact quote:
"I find it interesting that even after all that, in fields where merit really matters - Nobel laureates, billionaires - there are still no black Nobel science laureates and only one black billionaire (Oprah)"
The obvious meaning is that the only fields in which merit is present are Nobel (science) laureates and billionaires. Therefore, you feel that Captain Jack Aubrey is "not as smart as a child", not me.
You white nationalists are really hard on each other.
"He has sooo many groupies, he gets lots of tail from women who keep it secret from the press."
oh come on. Groupies? Female ones? He's accompanied at all times by a his aid, Reggie Love. I don't think they would get past him.
. No groupies of the female gender have come forward from the past. No breathy Happy Birthday Mr. President has been sung.
Even Soros and the other media owners couldn't invent any girls for him. But I guess you want to help his image, so keep tryin with those odd, and unbelievable assertions. A leading man has got to be butch.
but what were we talking about? Oh yeah. How "bright" Obama is. Good God some of you people don't give up. Tell me how bright he is when you dig up the brilliant writings produced during his years as president of the Harvard Law Review; writings from cases he argued or classes he taught as a adjunct professor at Chicago U. Let's have comments from his colleagues. Let's have speeches he writes on his own, or just a speech without TOTUS.
Otherwise get out of here with that "he's obviously bright." No. It's not "obvious" at all. If you didn't tell me, I'd never know he was at all.
"Bored because he has never been challenged..."
What a load of rubbish! He has an average to slightly above average IQ. He won't release his college records. He got into college and graduate school because of affirmative action and sponsors, but because of academic rigor. Listen to the man talk without the teleprompter! He is not that bright! That's why he is bored, because he is clueless about what is going on around him!!!!
>Bored because he has never been challenged [etc.]<
HOW old is he?
This stuff sounds like a high school counselor's discussing a 17-year-old (or younger) boy!
WTF?
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