Personally, I think he should put on fins, a diving mask, and a snorkel and swim out and see if he can fix it.
I mean, that sounds about as likely to work as anything else Obama is qualified to do. It's not just that he doesn't know anything about the subject, but he doesn't know anybody who knows anything either. Who's he going to call up whom he knows is likely to give him good advice on deep sea oil drilling? Martha Minow? Elena Kagan? Jeremiah Wright? Laurence Tribe? Bill Ayers? Cass Sunstein? David Axelrod? Emil Jones?
If we are going to expect Presidents to know things, or at least know people who know things, we should probably worry about that before the election.
Posts
120 comments:
I think the important thing is to make sure that no homophobes are among the experts summoned to deal with it, they have insufficient empathy to relate to the plight of gay fish who've been effected by the oil spill.
Hey what about Stephen Chu? He won a Nobel! And he knew enough to fire Katz.
Maybe if we wait it out it'll stop on its own.
Obama took responsibility for the oil spill, so it's only a matter of days before the oil, realizing someone is now responsible for it, flows back where it came from.
In all honesty, I don't see why presidents think they have to be superheroes every time a bad disaster occurs. All I want from Obama is to stay calm and pragmatic and talk to his people who know people who know people who know things.
Well, then I guess it's a good thing that the federal government consists of more than the President, even if the best uses of its resources are in cleaning up from the effects of the spill and in careful consideration over whether to allow off-shore drilling.
The point of this post is completely right. The President as chief executive, should have practical life-experience and should understand his limitations as leader of the federal government. Wido Incognitus' first comment in this thread was just unnecessary hostility.
It is not reasonable to expect the President to have expertise in every area. So, the fact that he is powerless to stop the leak is a given and no mark against him. However, he could expedite permits for mitigating activities etc. to allow it to be handled like an emergency rather than the usual bureaucratic morass. He could also implore people to work together and bring people together in spirit, by doing things like characterizing it as a very rare accident (which it is) and talking more about the victims of the accident and their families and reminding folks of the families' loss. He could talk up the very good track record of safety of companies working in America and remind folks to be grateful that such bad accidents don't happen more often.
What he can do is set the proper tenor for the situation. Of course, he finds a way to be divisive and take the harshest and most punitive tone with those involved because that plays to the petty adolescent nature of the left and the stupidity of the rest of his base.
To me he comes off like a whiney teen that just dreams up nearly impossible utopian dreams for others to work their butts off to create. Gets on my last nerve. If you have spent any time around that personality that is always saying, "Why can't we just (insert labor intensive project for someone else here) ?" because they want things to be easier for themselves.
He could also refrain from punishing the whole class.
The companies who have not had major accidents are being punished by having their projects delayed and cancelled because Obama doesn't understand that risks are based on conditions and those in different circumstances have different risk factors.
Could we please elect a real man next time? Someone who has actually had some dirt under his fingernails at some point in his life? This over educated pussy is such a humiliating experience.
I suppose if Obama was really smart he would have realized that deep water oil wells need another layer of safeguards.
Modern politicians sell themselves as capable of solving modern problems. The evidence is to the contrary, but there are few consequences for this failure.
If we are going to expect Presidents to know things, or at least know people who know things, we should probably worry about that before the election.
The possibility of an oil spill wasn't very high on voters concerns in 08. Also, I don't see what McCain could have done that isn't already being tried. We're in uncharted waters, so to speak.
Maybe Obama could turn this into our first post-racial oil spill. I'm sure that would be a big help.
I'd have thought business-insider Valerie Jarret would have been all over it - she must have had to fill in a rotten oil tank in one of her slum properties.
This is the wittiest thing I've read to date about the President and the oil spill. Now let's see who's first on Fox News to parrot Steve's point.
OT.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/23686050/detail.html
"Women Between Ages 14-30 Involved In Massive North Side Fight"
Guess what kind of women.
http://www.thegrio.com/money/new-study-blames-black-wealth-gap-on-institutional-racism.php
"New study finds racism behind black-white wealth gap"
Oh those poor black victims. It's NEVER their own fault.
David Axelrod, yeah. He's the shaker behind the scenes, making sure his puppet does not get any oil on his nose.
All the blabber coming from OB's mouth has to do with damage control, avoiding a Katrina-like comparison. OB bans drilling for 6 months to please the SWPL's going into apoplexy, coz by then the sheeple have forgotten, and oil can flow again, so big oil will not hurt him.
In fact based on the facts on the ground the press should have been hounding him by now, as they did Bush during Katrina. But the liberal blabber-mouth idiot-speak MSM will do anything to avoid tarnishing their sunny boy. What a dismal circus the West has become. On this one I agree with Whiskey, that women played a large role in this demise. It has a lot to do with the general female dislike for intellectual rigour, and their tendency to decide everything on a gut level.
On top of Obama's intellectual mediocrity is his laziness: an unbeatable combination for community organizer
One of Obama's election mandates was to reverse the Reagan/Clinton/Cheney policy of appointing industry shills to key regulatory positions. In other words, let's not have the fox guarding the henhouse. Obama ignored that mandate (example).
What the president can do is bureaucratic impediments. For example, Jindal has been begging the Corps of Engineers to approve dredging to install sand erosion barriers for weeks. The barriers will help halt LA's notorious shoreline erosion (due to other COE projects up the Mississippi River), and it would provide a sand barrier to any oil inflow. It won't even cost the government money, because BP can be stuck with the tab. This is a project that's been on the books for years. But still, the whole project hasn't been approved. The President only now approved a small, small section.
Also, the President could spend a weekend in the area. The place is empty of tourists. Stay in an area hotel, eat a local seafood dinner, have his family spend a couple of hours on the beach, and spend more time making snap visits at the clean up. It would re-inspire confidence in the beaches and provide some short term revenue for caterers in the area. But I guess visiting his corrupt cronies in Chicago is more important.
More info on the spill is available at www.thehayride.com. It's a great LA blog.
If we are going to expect Presidents to know things, or at least know people who know things, we should probably worry about that before the election.
The iSteve-osphere might have to eat a little humble pie on this one.
The folks who really knew oil were the Bushes - 41 Père et 43 Fils.
And, of course, Darth Cheney himself.
PS: Rumor has it that Georgie Porgie Puddin' -n- Pie spent some time at Bechtel...
I think Obama should have his teleprompter set up along the shoreline, and then look peevishly at the Gulf while wagging his finger and declaring, "The time for leaking is over!" Then turn on his heel and purposefully stride away.
It didn't work at the Global Climate Change summit, but it worked eventually for healthcare. Anyway, it's worth a try.
The other thing the oil spill points out is how desperately we need Iron Man technology. This whole oil leak fiasco would be resolved in 5 minutes if it were a sequence in the movie. Why not put our resources there, instead of tilting at windmills and democratizing Afghanistan?
Personally, I think he should put on fins, a diving mask, and a snorkel and swim out and see if he can fix it.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the hardcore Obamabots think he should do this.
If he can send a tingle up Chris Matthews leg, then he can do anything.
Do you think Obama has ever changed the oil on any automobile he has owned? How about any of the hot shot lawyers he has appointed to rule over us? That's my litmus test.
My point being these people live up in their heads. They never get their hands dirty in the real work-a-day world that workers for BP, Halliburton, TransOcean do. They are as useful to real work as "sidewalk superintendents" are on a construction project.
It's quite simple really. The public doesn't really expect leaders to be able to do anything personally. Its been a long time since any warrior could contest for primacy in the tribe by combat with the chief. The public does prefer a leader who is lucky but will accept and even embrace a leader who who suffers heroic misfortunes.
The one thing the public will not accept from a leader is inaction and indifference.
Obama is an inept politician. Part of this is lack of experience. Had he been Governor of California he would have lived through fires, floods, mud slides, and earthquakes. He would have developed a repertoire of appropriate behaviors for a leader in the face of disaster.
Let's say for the sake of argument that Ronald Reagan was the consummate master of disaster. Still nobody would expect that his fancy political footwork had actually decreased the earthquake rate.
A political leader needs to take action or rather to be seen to have taken action. Considering what they can actually do, most of that action will be purely symbolic. Hence all the "flying over" of floods or tornado paths.
What Obama should have done is first of all to "fly over" the leak. They he should have visited the sites where the oil will come ashore. He should have summoned the Army, the Navy and the Coast Guard. He should have convened a panel of international experts. He should have moved resources from the Pacific and Indian oceans to the Gulf. Finally he should have stayed awake for a day or two and be photographed looking tired and worn out.
None of this would have made much difference to the physical leak or its effects, but if he had done so, he would be a hero today. Rudy Giuliani behaved in just this way after 9/11. His behavior resurrected his failing political prospects and assured him a spot on TV as an "expert" in crisis management. Some people now act as if Giuliani personally rebuilt the Twin Towers. He did very little substantive except to show the public that he was concerned. And that - of course - was all that most of the public expected.
When we go to a funeral we are expected to act a certain way. Why? No amount of weeping or praising will bring the star of the show back to life. But showing indifference to the passing will infuriate the family. My uncle never forgave me for skipping his mother's funeral.
A funeral is a ceremony. A public disaster also requires ceremony.
Obama is deaf to a lot of the public's feelings. He hears the lamentations but dismisses them. Reacting to such occurrences is just not part of his job - as he sees it.
He really doesn't give a tinker's dam about the problems of ordinary people especially ordinary white people. That's been true I suspect of a lot of previous Presidents, but Obama hasn't learned how to conceal his reluctance to pretend to be concerned. No sensible politician plays golf at such a time.
Albertosaurus
It's all about the crease in his pants. That's all the qualifications he needs.
Fair point SteveO but would Bush have done any better? Really, Cheney was the former head of Halliburton and I suppose he would want to plug the leak with environmentalists. The lawyers are in charge and sure enough regulations will be changed possibly before the leak is even plugged. I think its more of a comment on deindustrialized America then Obama.
Doesn't THE ONE have magical powers? I thought he did.
He hasn't figured out a way to stop the money spilling out of the Fed, so how is he gonna stop this?
no other president, except maybe the bushes, would know much about it either, so that's not really the problem here. the problem here is that obama is not a leader and doesn't know the appropriate things to do in a situation like this. you don't have to know much about the specific engineering situation in the gulf, only what to do, as president of the united states, in response to what is happening. but obama does not know what to do. he's easily the exact wrong person to be president of the united states. he wanted to be president for one single reason. to fundamentally change the ideological nature of the US. and for no other reason. he has no experience and no plan for anything else.
the personal problem for obama here is that he doesn't know anything about anything except for his small little world of communist identity politics. he's never given 5 minutes of thought to any of the dozen other issues which a US president will have to be somewhat conversant on. like i posted before, obama can't wave his little affirmative action lawyer wand and make the laws of physics obey his will. he's been isolated from the real world for 30 years, in the fake world of the US law system. he's frustrated beyond frustration that he can't snap his fingers and have engineers instantly do his bidding and change the world to his liking.
listening to the media tell us about obama's "policy" on, well, any issue except for identity politics, is insulting to our intelligence. oh, barack obama has an energy policy? a space exploration policy? he has ideas for how the defense department should be run, for how to handle foreign policy? give us a break. the guy knows nothing about any of that. he's better suited to eating hot dogs at white sox and bulls games.
Let's set off a big nuke to close off the oil well! That'll work!
Plus it gives our friends the Cubans and Mexicans something else to express themselves about.
"It's not just that he doesn't know anything about the subject, but he doesn't know anybody who knows anything either."
He's the president of the United States, not of the Rotary Club. He can avail himself of the knowledge, interpersonal relationships and expertise of an entire gigantic bureaucracy as well as a substantial corporate and political establishment. His success or failure in this crisis is a commentary on his managerial skill, not on whether we should have elected a president with a lot of friends who specialize in undersea oil leak management.
Presumably if the president were an oilman like George H.W. Bush he'd have had a lot of friends in the industry he could have turned to for advice. But considering that BP is already flailing around trying to get the situation under control I'm not sure that would have been much help in this particular situation.
It's too bad that Obama doesn't have experience that is immediately relevant to this issue, but hopefully he had the ability to learn who knows (1) which safety standards are most effective and enforceable while also considering IMPACT ON BUSINESS [including the possibility of whether or not to drill in the first place], (2) how the federal government can participate in clean-up efforts, (3) and how to take care of the influence of the BUsh administration that remains in the federal government.
It is unconvincing to try to use this inability of the private sector in preventing pollution (and to keep hold of its own oil) as an argument for the inability of government in general.
Yes. I for one am rather disappointed he has not seen fit to part the waters of the Gulf to allow direct access for fixing the leak. Clearly our country has repented from offshore oil drilling, so just what is he waiting for?
Hey Steve,
Human hair (and animal fur) is great at soaking up oil. At least one nonprofit in San Francisco is making hair mats (from hair donated by salons, individuals, etc.) and sending them to the gulf. It may not solve the oil spill crisis, but it does ameliorate it.
Links:
http://matteroftrust.org/programs/hairmatsinfo.html
videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr4u2aT1BWU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj_mna5lckg
Just one simple idea, that's already being used in docks, harbors, storm drains et cetera.
I think we're so used to having American Presidents being very caring about the fate of Africa that we sort of expected that an African President would care about the fate of America. As in most things, there's no symmetry there.
Of the Presidential candidates of the 2 parties in 2008, I think we could have expected Hillary Clinton and particularly Mitt Romney to respond to this crisis far better than Obama.
McCain I don't know. But could he have done less?
"It is not reasonable to expect the President to have expertise in every area."
OK, but except community organizing, speeches and campaigning, what does Obama have experience in? He is not even impressive on constitutional law.
I just filed for a patent on a boat engine that runs on oil contaminated sea water. I'm going to get rich, rich, rich I tell you!
Albertosaurus may have given an accurate description of how US Presidents pretend to be leaders, but he (or she) is 100% wrong about how REAL leaders act.
A real leader would know enough never to take personal responsibility for the oil leak.
A real leader would, like Hitler, have simply made it known that he envisions a Gulf without oil leaks. Then, it would be up to his staff to "work towards the Fuhrer" and solve the problem as best they can. If they succeed, it was due to the leader's vision. If they fail, well it was not the leader's fault.
A real leader would also, like Stalin, have summoned BP executives to his dacha and explained, off-the-record, that if the leak didn't stop at once, they and their extended families (OK, stockholders) would wish they had never been born. If BP failed, at least it would serve as a warning to other oil executives not to make the same mistake.
It's his, ahem, tar baby now.
Reminds me of King Canute, but Obama apparently intends no irony.
Quoting Mark Steyn quoting Charles Krauthammer:
"Two years ago this week, then-Senator Obama declared that his very nomination as Democratic-party presidential candidate (never mind his election, or inauguration) marked the moment when 'our planet began to heal' and 'the rise of the oceans began to slow.' 'Well, when you anoint yourself King Canute,' remarked Charles Krauthammer the other day, 'you mustn’t be surprised when your subjects expect you to command the tides.' "
I caught Krauthammer's comments the other day. His cutting delivery was every bit as good as his cutting words.
Good essay here from Steyn:
http://article.nationalreview.com/435157/king-barack-the-verbose/mark-steyn
Just one more reason Mike Rowe should be president.
The one thing a LEADER does NOT DO during the crisis stage of a catastrophe is start pointing fingers all over the place.
There's a time and a place for investigation about the how and why something happened. Guiliani wasn't distancing himself from the ashes, nor was he trying to micromanage things, but he was a visible presence and a direct communicator offering information as it became available, and in so doing, his presence was calming and comforting even when the news he delivered was not.
All this guy has tried to do is distance himself from this thing, even going so far as to croon, "That's why you didn't hear me sayin' 'Drill, baby, drill.'"
Uh, Mr. President, (and supporters), has it never occurred to you that drilling miles deep in the ocean is significantly riskier than drilling in shallower waters and on land (as in Anwar)?
I think the one thing Americans are likely to have learned about this guy from this incident is that, unlike Reagan and Clinton, he hasn't the capacity to convey sympathy/empathy.
Reagan and Clinton and both Bushes, I'd argue, had that ability to allow emotion to come to the surface (hard for me to trust whether Clinton's feelings were real, but perception is important and the nation felt he was for real in that regard), but I don't think Obama conveys anything much other than prickliness.
There's probably fewer degrees of separation between Steve Sailer and King Canute than there is between Obama and a qualified petroleum engineer.
Cool thread! I think Albertasourus wins and Paul places.
As for Steve, his post is of practical importance while A and P change the subject to social science, but Steve chose to score partisan points on the subject when most of us are old enough to remember Dubya and don't think that he was a very effective guy (though considering his cononections he may have been able to actually get BP to fix the damn thing - the fact that you can still buy BP stock, and for more than pennies, is a travesty).
Maybe the American taxpayers should help bail out BP because of all the expenses they have incurred as a result of this little accident? I mean what’s going to happen if BP goes under? Surely that’s going to have unimaginable consequences for all Americans, right?
Better bail them out if you ask me. A couple of billion dollars would probably do.
Oh, and the whiny anonymous who thinks that what the pres ought to be doing right now is leading the american people in a national chorus of thanks to the oil companies for not destroying the ocean more often, well, he loses.
"Maybe the American taxpayers should help bail out BP because of all the expenses they have incurred as a result of this little accident? "
Let Britain bail them out.
"If BP failed, at least it would serve as a warning to other oil executives not to make the same mistake."
It wasn't a mistake by some executive. It was an accident. There exists no possibility of eliminating all accidents. There is risk in virtually any endeavor. It is easy to sit back and complain. Fixing stuff and bringing products to market takes risk. All you little girls out there who want a safer world need to realize that the world is much safer because so many men have figured out how to do stuff and make stuff. But hey, it ain't perfect, so you just keep whining.
Obama could have, and should have done was recognize BP was not going to get it done, based on their past track record.
Call up the heads of Shell, ARCO, and the other big international oil companies, plus the Norwegian national company, and ask for the best company to handle this. When they come to consensus, call the company and tell them that they will now be the ones to fix it, cost no issue. Tell them they have the entire resources of Coast Guard and Navy and Corps of Engineers on hand. That they are to call the President personally if there is a bureaucratic snafu.
Americans don't expect their leaders to be specialists. They do expect them to cut through red tape in an emergency.
Obama should then have scheduled a conference call every evening with the head of whatever company he chose, the US Navy Admiral in charge, the Commander of the Coast Guard, for a nightly status report. Which makes folks accountable.
He also should have called, personally, the Governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida and asked what they needed, had them call him personally, if they needed a short-cut through bureaucracy and regs.
No one expected Bush to go out and rescue people in New Orleans personally. They did expect him to cut through the bureaucratic BS, red tape, and get things done in an emergency which Katrina was. Bush failed.
Obama has failed. He did not need to know anything. He just needed determination to fix things, first the leak by putting the best resources (not BP) on it, worry about paying for it and charging BP later, or blame, and getting the leak fixed ASAP. With the US Navy, Coast Guard, and whoever has the most expertise being thrown at the problem.
He then needed to cut through all the EPA bs and other bureaucracies bs, and make things happen. Fire a few people. He did not need to dive down, he just needed to care. Provide a sense that the guy at top cared enough to knock heads, make folks cut through process as usual stuff, and get things done.
Let me add that any executive who has been around knows this. There's a crisis. It comes out that there is a guy who takes charge because he's the one willing to knock heads and stop doing things the usual, pre-crisis way. That success or failure revolves around fixing the crisis immediately, not posturing, posing, or worrying about long-term stuff when your feet are on fire.
"the problem here is that obama is not a leader and doesn't know the appropriate things to do in a situation like this."
What are the appropriate things?
"The folks who really knew oil were the Bushes - 41 Père et 43 Fils.
And, of course, Darth Cheney himself."
Yeah, there are a whole other group of "folks" who know a little something about oil; they're called British petroleum...emphasis on PETROLEUM, and they seem to be more stumped than the "community organizer."
How long will it be before some idiot congressman or administration official calls for some new law or regulation so that "This never happens again". Just like women whose kids are shot, argue for gun control so that no child is ever killed again.
And no volcano should ever erupt again. And no ship should ever sink again. Etc.
where are the Thunderbirds when you need them?
I've read recently that the Brits want to start drilling off of the coast of Argentina (Falkland Islands). I'm assuming BP would be the driller.
Will this heat up the already tense subject of the ownership of the Falklands?
Jody is right.
Ladies & Gentlemen:
Let’s not overthink this one. Barry Soetoro is our first affirmative action president (and let’s hope the last) and provides us with our first “alien occpation government”. He clearly has little or none of the following:
1) Actual experience (i.e., outside of being a political hack), either academic or practical.
2) Intelligence (remember, we don’t know his grades; but we do know he has been an affirmative action case from private school through law school). In short, would anyone be surprised, for example, to find out that Bush or Kerry would make him look stupid (i.e., relatively speaking, at least with respect to grades).
3) No real ability to speak without, at a minimum, two aides: (A) a teleprompter, and (2) someone else writing the words.
4) Academic credentials (e.g., he doesn’t have a Ph.D., and hasn’t authored any academic articles, which is a really a requirement in order to be considered ‘academic’).
5) A name (i.e., Is it Barry Soetoro, Barack Obama, Barrack Hussein, etc.?).
6) A past (e.g., Did he: actually attend and study at Columbia, study in the U.S. as a foreign student, use multiple social security numbers, etc.?).
We do know he:
1) Is a socialist/cultural Marxist.
2) Lacks basic empathy, especially for founding stock Americans.
3) Cannot complete a thought without a teleprompter with words that are not his own (see #3 above).
4) Hates America and any American that stands in his way.
5) Has used and abused drugs (and still relies on nicotine to keep his girlish figure).
6) Etc., etc. ...
Really folks this isn’t so tough. He is a both incompetent and an idiot who hates and acts on his hatreds. It isn’t just a matter of ‘academic’, as he hardly fits the term, vs. practical (i.e., as pointed out he lacks really any practical knowledge or skills). All his “academic” experience is just more of the same affrimative action/multicultural nonsense he has relied on most of his whole life (especially since high school). He wasn’t qualified to teach even at a lower level college, let alone the University of Chicago. The only reason he would be expected to get any problem (practical or academic) correct is purely by chance, and almost every bone in his America hating body tells him to do the exact opposite of what you or I would do; including, but not limited to, an oil spill, at least in part, caused by his own policies. In short, he is the most incompetent president we have had (see lists above) and expecting that lazy SOB to solve any practical problem (i.e., except by accident) is about as smart as pissing into the wind and expecting your pants to be dry.
Oil is lighter than water, right? It rises to the top, right? Why not bring in a tanker and vacuum it up?
"What are the appropriate things?"
already answered multiple times in this thread.
his genuine disinterest in the situation would be positively devastating politically if he were not half african. as usual, black skin deflects almost all criticism.
he'd rather talk to ESPN about how lebron james should sign with the bulls. he'd rather go back to playing golf so badly it's pathetic. he'd rather go back to sucking at basketball.
he'd rather do anything but make a serious attempt at being a leader. he's just not in politics for that kind of thing, and he doesn't know how anyway.
i appreciate his honesty at not showing up for any memorial day activities. he greatly despises the US military and we should all thank him for his candor in the matter. his role as commander in chief is, possibly, the most insulting thing about him being president.
"Oil is lighter than water, right? It rises to the top, right? Why not bring in a tanker and vacuum it up?"
i believe this was actually done by saudi arabia in reaction to an oil spill. not sure if it would work in the gulf of mexico now though, after so many chemicals have been poured into the water to bond with the oil.
It's so simple. Obama should walk on water to the site of the well, part the waters by waving his hands, and then close the well head. What could be simpler?
"I've read recently that the Brits want to start drilling off of the coast of Argentina (Falkland Islands). I'm assuming BP would be the driller.
Will this heat up the already tense subject of the ownership of the Falklands?"
The exploration drilling started in February and BP is not involved.
The Dems' defense: "Do you think McCain (or Palin, or Romney) would be doing a better job?" Well, a hypothetical Republican president could not possibly do a worse job than what Obama's (not) doing.
I'm inclined to 'the less, the better'. Hundred's of bright, experienced people have been contemplating the problem as data about it's static and dynamic aspects have been requested, sought, acquired, verified, organized and released. Extremely complex system with a set of acceptable states defined by a frustratingly simple predicate - sealed/contained. Insight to the technicalities at, e.g., theoildrum.
In response to Bonus --
You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law. Its a name blinded grading system. That is far better than you have surely done in your life.
"It turns out by the way that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced." -- Pres. Barack Obama, Apr. 2, 2010, in Charlotte, NC. The oil well blowout in the Gulf occurred on Apr 20.
"You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law. Its a name blinded grading system."
Obama was the little pet of the faculty, and I'm sure his handwriting and writing style were clearly identifiable. Probably Obama succeeded in turning every law school exam he ever took into a dialectic on racism in the American judicial system.
I wouldn't be surprised if the name blinding grading system had been compromised.
Besides, we all know what counts for in those talky subjects is agreeing with the teacher.
This is the wittiest thing I've read to date about the President and the oil spill. Now let's see who's first on Fox News to parrot Steve's point.
speaking of which. In the German news mag, Focus, which is on par with Der Spiegel i.t.o. readership, there is a huge article about how Carter and Clinton set the stage for the housing bubble by forcing lending to minorities, and how Reagen and Clinton worsened things by lowering standards for financial institutions. 101 iSteve reading. You'd think these people took 1 year to find Steve's site on the internet. Steve is like the canary in the coalmine. He should take out a patent on his writings.
It wasn't a mistake by some executive. It was an accident.
You're right on both counts. This was an accident and it was not caused by a BP mistake. It was an intentional BP decision to save money by omitting a safety valve from this well.
This disaster has its roots in the conservative Republican philosophy of low government regulation. It's time for the right wing to take some personal responsibility.
Obama should order Corps of Engineers to completely close the Gulf and pump out remaining sea water. Next step: camel racing.
"already answered multiple times in this thread."
That's funny, I re-read your original post, and what I saw was Obama's not a leader, bla...blah...blah; This is not what a president should to, blah...blah blah; strong leadership, stay the course, blah...blah...blah. I did not see one solution for stopping tens of thousands of gallons of oil daily from coming up from a hole in the ground.
"That is far better than you have surely done in your life."
I get the feeling the same could be said about a high school diploma.
He seems to be doing everything he can to block Jindal from having success.
"You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law. Its a name blinded grading system. That is far better than you have surely done in your life."
I thought his records had not been released. Where did you see this?
"Anonymous said...
In response to Bonus --
You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law. Its a name blinded grading system."
Yes, I'm sure it's impossible - impossible! - for a professor who has interacted with a student for an entire quarter to figure out which student wrote which answer to an essay question on an exam.
"That is far better than you have surely done in your life."
You have no idea what Bonus has accomplished. And anyway, your snotty dismissal assumes that it is some great accomplishment to graduate from Harvard Law. I do not. Harvard lawyers are still just lawyers, and they are a dime-a-dozen.
If he can send a tingle up Chris Matthews leg, then he can do anything.
The Tingler is a very confused man. Nowadays he's saying that “... this idiotic cerebral meritocracy has got to step aside and let the people who do things take over…”.
Too bad he didn't figure that out thirty years ago.
anon:
what you say is true. Also both his parents were very smart.
But that is 2 data point, 1 in a environment where verbal skill (and hard work) rather than raw technical ability was being judged, and 1 that is only imperfectly correlated with child ability.
We don't get the best picture by looking at 1-2 data point.
What about the rest of Obama's intellectual life?
Why did he, as a African American with a amazing life story, going to the best prep-school in Hawaii, not get into a better college than Occidental if he had good test scores?
Where are his grades from Occidental and Columbia?
Where are his SAT and LSAT scores? If they were great, why not release them to feed the Obama-genious idea (which clearly helps him, post-Bush/Palin)
Nor have I never seen a satisfying answer to this:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/09/barack-obamas-iq-is-116_18.html
“Obama graduated from my mother's alma mater, where everyone takes the various college prep tests. He was not a National Merit Scholar, a National Merit Semifinalist or an Outstanding Participant. This indicates a ceiling on his SAT percentile at 96.9, which indicates a maximum possible SAT score of 1230 and maximum IQ of 129.”
Obama has been thinking about politics his whole life. Can you name 1 original, important idea he has come up with?
Compare to Steve, who has original ideas weekly.
"There is risk in virtually any endeavor. It is easy to sit back and complain. Fixing stuff and bringing products to market takes risk."
Sure. And oil companies are compensated for that risk very generously. Is it too much to ask that they take responsibility and pay up when things go wrong? This is what really grates about modern conservatives - they are essentially socialists when it comes to losses. Keep the profits private, sure, but as soon as things go wrong then apparently we are all supposed to share in the pain because no one could have prevented this. You suck.
>It wasn't a mistake by some executive. It was an accident. There exists no possibility of eliminating all accidents.<
The correct post. The only failure is the oil company's for failing to foresee how to fix this kind of accident when it happens. Period.
Shit happens. The question is: can you clean it up afterward? So far, BP can't.
Shit happens. The question is: can you clean it up afterward? So far, BP can't.
------
Wrong, there was complete management incompetence on the part of BP that led to the accident. Lots of warnings and concerns by lower-level personell went unheeded. It reflects the typical vacuity and short-termism that has overtaken society and business in this country and beyond. Managers are promoted from one position to the next based on their political acumen rather than ever successfully managing anything - how could they have time? They rotate to the next management position every 2 years when projects take 10 years to implement.
British Petroleum is squandering our oil supply by letting this leak go on and on.
British Petroleum's snafu, by lesseing our own oil supply, will assuredly keep prices at the pump higher than they had to be for the near future.
All that oil leaking into our gulf not only represents an ecological problem, but a huge waste our our national resources.
BP shouldn't, in my opinion, as a foreign oil company, be allowed to drill on our soil or off our shores ever again. We have domestic oil companies whose executives care about the ecology of the country they happen to be citizens of, and want their children to grow up in.
Obama could only order BP out, and another outfit in to cap the leak, or to somehow harvest the oil by seperating it from the water (a la Kevin Costner's invention writ large if it actually works). Thats about all Obama could concievably do from his position at this point other than some off-the-wall option like bombing the hole in the ocean's floor as some have suggested.
Make no mistake folks, this really is a huge disaster, and BP execs (English) will never see the inside of a jail cell for it. I hope we all make them pay at the pump by going to Amoco, Exxon, Shell, Kangaroo, Marathon, Mapco, etc.
Nor have I never seen a satisfying answer to this:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/09/barack-obamas-iq-is-116_18.html
“Obama graduated from my mother's alma mater, where everyone takes the various college prep tests. He was not a National Merit Scholar, a National Merit Semifinalist or an Outstanding Participant. This indicates a ceiling on his SAT percentile at 96.9, which indicates a maximum possible SAT score of 1230 and maximum IQ of 129.”
------
Here's an answer (though maybe not satisfying to you): There is a huge amount of noise in all these tests. I review applications to graduate school, and it is not uncommon that people score hundreds of points better or worse when they take the GRE more than once.
Obama should bottle it and sell it as snake oil. Hey, it worked in 2008.
Well you give as well as you get. In books like Game Change Obama decided he's running for office at the moment Bush mishandled Katrina and left New Orleans to die.
Well that sort of presumes Obama would have done a better job managing Katrina than Bush.
If Katrina convinced Obama he wanted this job, this oil spill makes him wish he didn't have this job. At least this is happening after the health care vote.
This is the outfit drilling in the Flaklands. Rockhopper.
I can't find any connection to BP, though there may be one or BP may become involved in the future.
You may be assuming that BP is a state controlled entity which is why it might be involved in the Falklands. While BP was once much closer to the state, the British govt sold what shares it held in the 80s.
"That's funny, I re-read your original post"
that's because you are a moron. what i said was, the course of action which barack obama should be taking, has been covered by other posters in this thread. indeed, by now it has been covered by many political analysts, for instance:
"He was supposed to be competent"
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
anybody who studied this guy once he got the democratic nomination in 08 would have discovered that he was one of the least competent people in the US senate. he's an affirmative action darling, nothing more.
he is not a leader, but this makes sense, because barack obama did not want to be president so he could be a leader. he did not sign up for any of the contingency or crisis situation management that a president is required to handle. he's already in far over his head "running" two military conflicts. in fact, simply having generals report war information to him is silly, since he cannot even really comprehend what they are telling him, let alone act sensibly on the intel.
expecting barack obama to run two military conflicts is like expecting barack obama to supervise oil engineers. he has no ability to do either thing.
you are a moron, so you don't understand what is extremely clear to everybody else: nobody expects barack obama personally to do anything to stop the flow of oil 5000 feet below the surface of the water. what people expect is for him to act like the president of the united states in response to a crisis situation on a national scale. we do not expect him to act like an identity politics lawyer from chicago anymore. that was his old job. president of the united states is his new job. of course, he positively sucked at his old job, and could not even "organize" chicago. so why would anybody other than liberals expect him to be any good at his new job?
make no mistake: right now, at this very moment, barack obama is more interested in how to get eric holder to stop the state government in arizona from doing anything to prevent themselves from being overrun by border jumpers. he's more interested in making sure homosexuals can openly serve in the US military. he is more interested in anything, ANYTHING other than the oil spill in the gulf of mexico. from his perspective, the oil spill is not an opportunity to be a leader or to help americans. it is an obstacle, a barrier, to implementing his vision of the "communist states of south africa." it slows him down, occupies a bit of his time, requires him to make token media speeches on the issue, and prevents him from moving full speed ahead at transforming america.
Regarding blind grading at Harvard, as I explained in greater detail at Half Sigma's site, name-blind grading still involves a "bump" by the professor. Assuming that the exams are truly graded name-blind (perhaps a leap of faith for many of us), the professor is still expected to "bump" the grade a little bit higher or lower based upon class participation and such before the grade hits the transcript. If a grade were bumped down two or three letter grades, a blind-graded student could protest. If a grade were bumped up that far, a student still could protest...but what would be the point?
Oddly, Half Sigma's response to me was "Obama is still smarter than you are," an odd assertion and an odd leap of faith given that Half Sigma doesn't know me. Even more oddly, Anonymous wrote in the thread from this very same post,
"You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law. Its a name blinded grading system. That is far better than you have surely done in your life."
Is this Half Sigma again, or did I miss a talking points email?
"Here's an answer (though maybe not satisfying to you): There is a huge amount of noise in all these tests. I review applications to graduate school, and it is not uncommon that people score hundreds of points better or worse when they take the GRE more than once."
Uh huh.
I got 120 points higher the second time I took the SAT, all of it on the Reading section.
I bet folks don't improve/change much on their math.
as for the actual engineering situation itself, here is the deal: BP was already at the limits of existing technology simply to drill the well in the first place. so what happens if something goes wrong? if it takes everything you've got just to get where you are, how effective will you be when something blows up in your face? you won't be fixing the problem right away.
that well is so far under water, it's almost like NASA astronauts being stuck in a moon base, with a hole in the base leaking oxygen, but without the tools or equipment they need to repair it. it won't be fixed fast, and a repair mission from earth will take a while.
relief wells will shut down the leaking well, but they have to drill through thousands of feet of rock. they were started 3 weeks ago, but it will take another 3 weeks for them to be drilled. in between now and then, BP will try a couple educated guesses, procedures which sometimes work on wells in much shallower water.
do not make the mistake of thinking BP has no idea at all what they are doing. certainly their company leaders could be guilty sloppy business practices and of cutting corners for profit, and so forth, which could have led to this situation in the gulf. but nobody in the world wants this well shut down more than BP. they're aren't screwing around, goofing off, or deliberately not doing the right things to stop the oil. they are losing billions of dollars because of this leak and BP is not in business to lose billions of dollars. they want the leak stopped, period.
also, nobody has significantly better ideas about how to stop the leak than people already in this field. thinking otherwise is just retarded. this is not a science fiction movie. stephen chu is about as useful in this situation as a NASCAR redneck trying to tell the pit crew how to repair his favorite driver's car.
none of us have better ideas about what to do than the experts. the US navy, for instance, cannot operate in 5000 feet of water, and those guys live in the ocean. a seawolf submarine would be crushed by the time it got HALF of the way down to the where this leaking well is. this well is WAY down there.
if the US navy is completely clueless about what to do here - and they are - it's time to understand that the rest of us are completely clueless as well. we don't have a better idea about how to stop the flow of oil. cleaning up the oil is something for us to consider, but when it comes to the specific matter of shutting down the well, no, you don't have a better idea than BP. do you have a better idea than NASA for how to repair the james webb space telescope if something goes wrong? no, you don't.
"You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law. Its a name blinded grading system."
At Boalt, first year classes are graded by exam number, for the next two years in many classes your name is on your work.
Anyone who has actually taken the time to read the known non-Ayers, non-Favreau pieces in the ostensible Obama corpus would laugh at this assertion of his genius.
Absolutely no higher than IQ-115, and possibly lower than that.
“Obama graduated from my mother's alma mater, where everyone takes the various college prep tests. He was not a National Merit Scholar, a National Merit Semifinalist or an Outstanding Participant. This indicates a ceiling on his SAT percentile at 96.9, which indicates a maximum possible SAT score of 1230 and maximum IQ of 129.”
There are many incorrect assertions here.
I scored 59 (590) verbal & 76(760) on the PSAT/National Merit. The verbal scored counted twice then for the National Merit. I scored 660 verbal and 720 Math on the SAT (before recentering). I was not a NM semi-finalist or Scholar. All I got was a lousy National Merit Certificate of Achievement and a handshake from the Principal. Not being a NM Semi-finalist is not an indication of middling IQ.
"Here's an answer (though maybe not satisfying to you): There is a huge amount of noise in all these tests. I review applications to graduate school, and it is not uncommon that people score hundreds of points better or worse when they take the GRE more than once."
There is huge bias in your point of view. You only observe the people who got better the second time, and applied. The more common example of not changing much and still getting bad, would not be as likely to apply.
Correlation of IQ-tests for one individual is close to 0.9.
Obama's *depression* could be a reason. I certainly believe he is 130-135 in IQ (especially verbal). But 140? I know a lot of 3 s.d people. Obama is not as smart as those people.
Why did he, as a African American with a amazing life story, going to the best prep-school in Hawaii, not get into a better college than Occidental if he had good test scores?
I've wondered the same thing. Especially since he was willing to go out of state for college.
Where are his SAT and LSAT scores? If they were great, why not release them to feed the Obama-genious idea (which clearly helps him, post-Bush/Palin)
The media already treats him like a super genius, so anything less than perfect SAT scores would be a huge let down. Thus, the fact that he doesn't release them proves nothing either way. Most politicians don't release such scores & doing so may even look elitist. The media & public shows no interest in such scores. The Clintons never released their scores either. Non-issue.
Obama graduated from my mother's alma mater, where everyone takes the various college prep tests. He was not a National Merit Scholar, a National Merit Semifinalist or an Outstanding Participant. This indicates a ceiling on his SAT percentile at 96.9, which indicates a maximum possible SAT score of 1230 and maximum IQ of 129.
How does he know Obama was not an outstanding participant etc? If true, this combined with him only going to Occidental strongly suggests and IQ below 130; which would be consistent with his sometimes mediocre debate performance:
http://www.observer.com/2008/debate-obama-does-not-soar
As for his magna cum laude status at Harvard law, that probably only requires an IQ of 125. Remember the IQ (as measured by the LSAT) is only moderately correlated with law school grades & a lot of Harvard students slackoff. The average IQ (on a real IQ test) at Harvard is only about 130( http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.23/01-creativity.html ) so a moderately hardworking mature student with a 129 IQ could easily get grades in the top 10%, especially if they had some special verbal talents such as writing, and especially if they had professors willing to bumb them up.
On the other hand maybe Half Sigma is correct in asserting Obama's IQ to be 150 and the unimpressive performance prior to Harvard can be explained by drugs he admits to taking during that time.
"nobody expects barack obama personally to do anything to stop the flow of oil 5000 feet below the surface of the water. "
Then I guess the answer to Steve's question is "nothing", now isn't it?
"what people expect is for him to act like the president of the united states in response to a crisis situation on a national scale."
Which would be, for the fourth time, doing exactly what?
"we do not expect him to act like an identity politics lawyer from chicago anymore. that was his old job. president of the united states is his new job."
Good job there, Peter Jennings, I hadn't heard that yet.
"he is more interested in anything, ANYTHING other than the oil spill in the gulf of mexico."
Well you just said he can't do anything to stop the flow of oil, so maybe he should spend his time on things he can influence?
"also, nobody has significantly better ideas about how to stop the leak than people already in this field."
"also, nobody has significantly better ideas about how to stop the leak than people already in this field..."
But a lawyer from Chicago should?
"thinking otherwise is just retarded."
There we go, Jody, we agree on something!
"You have no idea what Bonus has accomplished."
Well, you're half right there grasshopper; I don't know EXACTLY what Bonus has accomplished, but I do have a fair idea. Having been on this planet for 43 years, I do know that if it was something rivaling POTUS he would not be shy in letting us know.
"And anyway, your snotty dismissal assumes that it is some great accomplishment to graduate from Harvard Law. I do not.Harvard lawyers are still just lawyers, and they are a dime-a-dozen."
So are hills, and Mt. Everest is just one of them!
Why do people get so worked up over guys climbing to the top of a hill, anyway?
I hope we all make them pay at the pump by going to Amoco, Exxon, Shell, Kangaroo, Marathon, Mapco, etc.
Trouble is these are true global multinationals, where they are 'from' is a bit tricky, almost a philosophical question.
Amoco is owned by BP.
Shell, technically its a Dutch operation but in reality is at least as British as Dutch, just look it up.
Kangaroo, never heard of that. Had to look it up. They arent an oil company, they just sell fuel, which could just as likely have come from BP.
Mapco, ditto.
I think you will have to base your hopes on Exxon and Marathon - and Chevron.
Make no mistake folks, this really is a huge disaster, and BP execs (English) will never see the inside of a jail cell for it. I hope we all make them pay at the pump by going to Amoco, Exxon, Shell, Kangaroo, Marathon, Mapco, etc.
BP bought Amoco 12 years ago.
"Oil is lighter than water, right? It rises to the top, right? Why not bring in a tanker and vacuum it up?"
I just heard the former President of Shell say that on Cspan today.Maybe they'll do it.
"I scored 59 (590) verbal & 76(760) on the PSAT/National Merit. The verbal scored counted twice then for the National Merit. I scored 660 verbal and 720 Math on the SAT (before recentering). I was not a NM semi-finalist or Scholar. All I got was a lousy National Merit Certificate of Achievement and a handshake from the Principal. Not being a NM Semi-finalist is not an indication of middling IQ."
I Can believe he got 1380 on the SATs, although the reverse of your math and verbal score.
But that would only make him 135-140.
You are wrong about Obama's intellect. He is a magna cum laude (top 10%) graduate of Harvard Law.
Magna cum laude is the next 10% after summa cum laude today. This was not the case when Obama graduated. Then a much larger proportion of students were awarded this honor. 30-50% of the class IIRC. That's in addition to the fact that as others have correctly stated we can't assume Obama's grades at HLS were a pure reflection of merit "blind" grading or not.
Absolutely no higher than IQ-115, and possibly lower than that.
...and what is your estimate of Sarah Palin's IQ?
I posted the following on Half Sigma's website a while ago in regards to arguments against Obama's intelligence.
Let me get this straight.
Obama's supposedly paltry record at Columbia University suggests that he was an unqualified minority who benefited from the largesse of ultra-liberal, Ivy League bleeding-heart policies. Conversely, Obama's supposedly remarkable record at Harvard Law School suggests that he was an unqualified minority who benefited from the largesse of ultra-liberal, Ivy League bleeding-heart policies.
In short, the same conclusion can be reached about Obama whether he performs Action A or Action Non-A.
Moreover, if Obama's high ranking and academic honors at ultra-liberal Harvard were the products of inflationary grading practices earmarked for minorities, how come the equally ultra-liberal Columbia did not grade him in the same manner?
What about the MSM? I don't watch TV news or read the mainstream papers at all, so are they covering Obama's ass as I expect?
Ah, the personal attack by the partisan hack. First off, yes I have done better than your silly unsubstantiated claim (i.e., that he was objectively in the top 10% of his law school cohort); but I am not the issue here. I know it's hard for you Barry believers, but belief generally is a poor sustitute for the truth. Try to keep focused, the issue is the competence or lack thereof of Barry Soetoro.
Again, he seems to be without any even mild degree of competence (again, and that includes academic). As a reminder, he clearly has little or none of the following:
1) Actual experience (i.e., outside of being a political hack), either academic or practical.
2) Intelligence (remember, we don’t know his grades; but we do know he has been an affirmative action case from private school through law school). In short, would anyone be surprised, for example, to find out that Bush or Kerry would make him look stupid (i.e., relatively speaking, at least with respect to grades).
3) No real ability to speak without, at a minimum, two aides: (A) a teleprompter, and (B) someone else writing the words.
4) Academic credentials (e.g., he doesn’t have a Ph.D., and hasn’t authored any academic articles, which is a really a requirement in order to be considered ‘academic’).
5) A name (i.e., Is it Barry Soetoro, Barack Obama, Barrack Hussein, etc.?).
6) A past (e.g., Did he: actually attend and study at Columbia, study in the U.S. as a foreign student, use multiple social security numbers, etc.?).
We do know he:
1) Is a socialist/cultural Marxist.
2) Lacks basic empathy, especially for founding stock Americans.
3) Cannot complete a thought without a teleprompter with words that are not his own (see #3 above).
4) Hates America and any American that stands in his way.
5) Has used and abused drugs (and still relies on nicotine to keep his girlish figure).
6) Etc., etc. ...
Finally, I will make this simple for the Barry Boosters out there, just kindly provide links with solid proof countering the points above or stop watsing our time. Hey, why not read Steve's book about America's Half-Blood Prince and tell us all where Steve finds that he displays his competence. Again, the current president has a sporting chance of going down as the most incompetent presidient in U.S. history; and,I would argue this is in no small measure due to his being our first affirmative action president where he has received an easy ride through each rung along the way (including law school).
Isnt there a bit of mystery over whether he was at Columbia, isnt that where no-one remembers him being there at all?
Is there anything about this person that suggests "responsibiity?" Concern for others? Love for America? And no, speeches written by young Favreau and recited from a teleprompter don't count.
I really can't believe there are still people on this blog who still think Obama is particuarly intelligent. He doesn't write his speeches, he cannot speak without a teleprompter. He thought there were 57 states in the country. Cum Laude at Harvard? Just don't believe it. He has no writings of any note to his name except a bloated autobiography ghostwritten by Ayres (pls don't tire yourselves with argument; it's been proven.)
On May 14 began a trial in New York City, uncovered of course by national press, which concluded that Obama never graduated from Columbia. This trial -- in a regular court with a legal judge and jury -- was the result of a private investigation hired by an Obama detractor (black man, btw, who the MSM never stops ridiculing in their predictable way.)
So please. Enough of this 140 IQ for Mr. BO. The cluelessness of his supporters and true-believers has been the equivalent of a life-long study in cluelessness and delusion.
and no, I'm not a McCain or Palin supporter either.
As a consistent hard worker, I don't get it intuitively, but easy empiricism reveals that history and the present is filled with very smart people who spent decades fucking around.
I think there's plenty of evidence that Obama is very smart, but I get why folks want to force-fit him into the narrative of blacks-are-less-intelligent-than-whites. That ain't good faith social epistemology.
It was more truthful to call Obama a wigger than to try to graft him into criticism 75% of the black kids in your law school class might more ripely deserve.
Hopefully Anonymous
http://www.hopeanon.typepad.com
For reasons that I don't pretend to understand, Komment Kontrol rejected my original attempt to post to this thread [pointing out that these nihilists in the Obama Administration WANT this catastrophe, and that there are deep ties between them and BP].
Well, it's now the Tuesday after Memorial Day, and in the opening segment of his return from the holiday, Rush Limbaugh is fronting a story about how Rahm Emanuel lived [rent-free] in the home of the man who crafted BP's ecopagan propaganda campaign.
PS: Obama's IQ is no higher than 115.
"I think there's plenty of evidence that Obama is very smart"
Did you take a look at the link one of our Anonymous commenters posted earlier?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2124993/posts
Absolutely horrible syntax. In Law School, he probably got away with it by taking soft, social-science oriented courses and post exam bump-ups due to "meaningful class participation". I suggest you look at The American Thinker's archives - plenty of good examples showing 0bama making an absolute hash of Con Law - on the campaign trail, no less. To this day he shows confusion about basic separation of powers, for one thing.
At the freep link, note the heavy reliance on recycled exams, which are riddled with errors despite his having MONTHS to prepare them. I took 4-5 law school exams a semester for three years; most exams were error-free, and I recall at most one or two minor clerical errors on the ones that weren't.
Also keep in mind that even the best legal minds like Katyal, Rosenkranz, etc will have their pick of 1L's to assist over the summer with research & drafting. Many of these 1L's go on to graduate cum laude or MCL. Shocking that with all these resources at his disposal and months of preparation, the Magic Negro couldn't seem to come up with anything better.
Finally, consider 0's failure to write anything of note while on the HLR. I was an unremarkable student, but I found that as long as you were interested in your topic a 25-40 page legal paper could be completed with about 2.5-4weeks of preparation. Making sure legal citations were done properly was probably the hardest thing for me. I wrote two such papers which were far from stellar but earned decent grades; 0bama apparently wrote nothing but "notes" - some of which were shorter than a typical Legal Research & Writing weekend homework assignment. Seriously - it actually takes EFFORT to be so shiftless that you leave a LS like Harvard with virtually no paper trail.
IMHO it's probably off base to debate 0's raw IQ - rather, the question should be whether or not his "academic career" enhanced or inhibited his ability to resolve crises (or, at least, instill public confidence if traditional presidential "skill sets" are not applicable.)
He thought there were 57 states in the country.
He also is on tape pronouncing "corps" as "corpse".
He thought there were 57 states in the country.
He is also on tape pronouncing "corpsman" as "corpse-man".
I guess even Axelrod didn't anticipate that Obama might prove to be quite that stupid - otherwise I suppose Axelrod would have fed pronunciation instructions into the teleprompter, or would have chosen a different word altogether.
He is also on tape pronouncing "corpsman" as "corpse-man".
I don't think the ability to pronounce words is a very g loaded trait. There's no reasoning or abstract thought involved. Defining words, yes; pronouncing them not so much.
Soros did not want Obama to have a paper trail.
"catperson said...
He is also on tape pronouncing "corpsman" as "corpse-man".
I don't think the ability to pronounce words is a very g loaded trait. There's no reasoning or abstract thought involved. Defining words, yes; pronouncing them not so much."
How about just knowing stuff? You know, a certain familiarity with the language of the (foreign) nation he presumes to rule. Is that too much to expect from our God-Kings?
...And what about general knowledge? Claiming that Americans liberated Auschwitz? I would expect the prez to be knowledgeable enough about WWII not to say something like that - it would have been virtually impossible for the Western Allies to penetrate that far East even by mid-1945.
Also claiming that "the bomb" was dropped on Pearl Harbor, as opposed to hundreds of projectiles from a fleet of bombers - he seems have confused Pearl with Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
And "profits to earnings" ratios, confusing the Emancipation Proclamation with the Gettysburg Address, etc etc.
He's probably capable of enough memorization not to make these gaffes - however, taken together they seem to be a clear sign of mental degradation. Possible causes: drug use, poor work ethic, narcissism, and a vague awareness that these things don't really matter anyway.
He is smart enough to do what he has to do - wealth transfer to lower & upper middle class NAM's. Obama deserves props for being more intelligent than Bush & Karl Rove, who convinced themselves home ownership would convert NAM's into docile Gee-oh-Pee-ers altruistic enough to vote against self interest. Like O!, these "Americans" are also disinterested in Dead White Men's History, particularly those who subsist on racial patronage thru government programs & private sector diversity sinecures -
$100K "human relations coordinators" and the like. They, too, know just enough about the US to dislike it & are barely able to function in professional settings b/c of low median intelligence, coupled with the usual overloading on quasi-Marxist college/post-graduate course offerings. Thanks to the diversity recession, they need a racial strongman to ensure that the fat is NOT trimmed and that patronage keeps coming for at least the next 4-8 yrs.
I don't think the ability to pronounce words is a very g loaded trait. There's no reasoning or abstract thought involved. Defining words, yes; pronouncing them not so much.
"G-loadedness" implies a desire to read and learn, which, in turn, implies a probability of previously having encountered a word like "corps" at some point in an [ostensibly] intellectual life spanning almost five full decades.
When it flashed across his teleprompter, Obama had never seen the word before, and he had to guess [on the fly] how the word was supposed to be pronounced. [And that's being generous - I doubt there was any guesswork involved at all - my guess would be that his reptilian brain stem just blurted out the pronunciation "corpse-man".]
Either that, or else he had already been mis-pronouncing it in the training sessions, but his staff was so anti-military, and so blissfully ignorant of any knowledge of military matters whatsoever, that none of them even realized that he was mis-pronouncing it.
Heck, maybe even Axelrod himself didn't know how to pronounce the word "corps".
PS: "57 states" was because it was late in the day, and he was exhausted, and his reptilian brain stem had to fall back on the embedded memories of his Muslim religious upbringing as a child in Indonesia.
Sigmund Freud would have a thing or two to say about that kind of error.
PPS: As regards "G" and "a desire to read and learn" - I have never seen even the slightest indication in anything I have read or heard or witnessed about Obama that he has any sense of curiosity about anything at all.
And I have been scrutinizing the guy for about two & a half years now.
Like the other team would have been doing anything differently. Sheesh.
What, exactly, should Obama be doing that he could do and isn't doing? That’s what the discussion should be about. Seriously, if you’ve got a better idea, say something.
Meanwhile, how's that "Drill baby drill!" thing workin' out for ya? ;)
"What, exactly, should Obama be doing that he could do and isn't doing?"
Did you bother to read any of the prior posts?
...So the satire in Steve's original post flew right over your head, AND you assume an obligation on our parts, as obscure political commenters, to provide a Hah-vahd man surrounded by other Hah-vahd men with advice on how to do his job.
I wonder if anyone's ever seen you and the Majick Negro in the same place at the same time.
"Make no mistake folks, this really is a huge disaster, and BP execs (English) will never see the inside of a jail cell for it. I hope we all make them pay at the pump by going to Amoco, Exxon, Shell, Kangaroo, Marathon, Mapco, etc."
Amoco? Mong.
"Shell, technically its a Dutch operation but in reality is at least as British as Dutch, just look it up."
Royal Dutch Shell created by a merger between a Dutch company and a British company (Shell oil) and is jointly listed on a Dutch stock exchange and the LSE. However RDS and BP are not the same company and buying from Shell instead of BP will not make BP happy.
You're a jackass. Go fuck yourself. You right wing, god fucking, jesus dick-sucking, private-faggot, asshole. The president should know someone to take care of the oil spill??? How fucking ignorant are you? Who does anyone else know that should be able to stop it? BP doesn't know. John McCain doesn't know. God help us your ignorant Alaskan slut doesn't know. You simply want to complain because you are an anti-American asshole that wants to blame someone because you are ignorant. Fuck you.
Sincerely,
Go fuck yourself you fucking faggot
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