Here's Chris Matthews blowing gaskets over his man Barack's low energy performance tonight.
Matthews shouldn't have been surprised. Obama's apathy has a long history that's detailed here and there in biographies by his partisans:
David 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 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.
One reason for Obama's perpetual boredom is that his skill set is basically that of a writer. He has everything that it takes to be a good writer except the ability to come up with interesting ideas.
I'm starting to think that you understand President Obama better than his supporters do.
ReplyDelete@ Geoff
ReplyDeleteDuh?
I'm Brazilian and I love Obama!
ReplyDeleteThis is Anderson Silva trick. Let the white boy throw some punches in the first round and then clobber him in later rounds. Joe Frazier let Jerry Quarry start out strong in the first round too. But Quarry got battered into putty in later rounds.
ReplyDeleteObama knows it's the later debates that counts. After all, he willfully lost the first debate with McCain at the Rick Warren church. If Obama is too aggressive in all the debates, whites will see him as 'angry black guy'. So, in the first debate, Obama wants to come across as nice and easy.
Romney the dummy will think he can come on strong in debate 2 and 3, but that's where Obama will spring into action and hit him hard.
Obama wants to make himself look not to aggressive in the first debate. He wants to look sort of gracious to make white folks rest easy about him.
The first debate don't matter much. Reagan lost the first one with Mondale. Bush II lost the first one to Kerry. And Obama went soft in debate one to make Romney overconfident in later ones. I know the jazzy Negro mind.
He's a writer without the ideas... Or the talent. Not that i believe that ayers ghost wrote his memoirs, but I do believe that' Obama had lots of help.
ReplyDelete"He has everything that it takes to be a good writer except the ability to come up with interesting ideas."
ReplyDeleteIf you're not donating to Steve then you're part of the problem.
50$ on my end.
Dan in DC
"... I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ...
ReplyDeleteHow can one take seriously something starts out with such a crock of crap? Obama is an indolent dilettante who has never sought real 'intellectual challenge'.
I'm Brazilian and I love Obama!
ReplyDeleteThat settles the matter, then. If a Brazilian, any Brazilian, loves Obama, then Obama is great. Thank you, anonymous Brazilian.
Note that the only thing that's apparently ever engaged him according to this narrative is writing about himself.
ReplyDeleteFrom the biography:"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...The one project that did engage Obama fully was work on The Audacity of Hope."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, Obama is bored unless he is thinking about himself.
"He has everything that it takes to be a good writer except the ability to come up with interesting ideas."
Well, that, and he's not funny like you are. But then again, who is?
Obama will come strong in the next debate. He is just a little rusty.
ReplyDeleteOnly saw about 10ish minutes total here and there, but Obama's posture and delivery were flat, he looked older and more tired than I have ever seen him. I was reminded of my mother's comment about Jimmy Carter in 1980, he looks like he has aged 10 years in 4. He wasn't expecting Romney to be focused and energetic, I think Romney is just better at debate, because he is more of an analytical bent. This bodes poorly for Obama, because loose cannon Biden is up next against policy wonk Ryan. This could be two drops in the polls before he gets his townhall format for debate 3. If Romney comes across as personable and chatty the best Obama can do is a draw. Then it is on to foreign policy where Obama is looking shaky over the Middle East riots. Note to the GOP: Notice what having competent people on the top of the ticket can do for you? There is no Palin, Bush II, Dole, or Quayle dragging your campaign down in the debates, imagine that!
ReplyDeleteYou're never going to believe this... Obama gets hammered by Univision at a townhall and a Fast and Furious special report and all of a sudden Haim Saban's wife is appointed U.S. representative to the United Nations.
ReplyDeleteRead more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/26/3022322/obama-appoints-wife-of-univision.html#storylink=cpy
Jarrett is herself third-rate, an embarassment of delusional self-regard, clearly unqualified to assess the abilities/debilities of the third-rate hucksters she so admires. Eating ones own vomit, & caring not a whit about the welfare of the profoundly diseased faux-republic known as the USA - yep, a perfect model of public service today.
ReplyDeletehttp://takimag.com/article/anniversary_of_a_defenestration_john_derbyshire/print#axzz28JEqKTSB
ReplyDeleteObama is using the rope-a-dope strategy against Romney.
ReplyDeleteHe will smash Romney in the next debates.
are obama faithfuls 'bore-agains'?
ReplyDeleteThe overly restrained persona has its roots in anger. This is a man who dare not bare his fangs... Lest his pacifier should violently discharge.
ReplyDeleteGilbert P.
Obama worshipers are so invested in the idea that he is some kind of genius that they need to grasp at straws to explain his weak debate performance. It couldn't possibly be that he lacks a genius IQ, so it must be a lack of energy, a lack of interest, or a secret strategy to give Romney a false sense of security.
ReplyDeleteBut the truth is, for all of Obama's talent for writing and delivering speeches, he's not that good at the more g loaded task of thinking on his feet (as was first noticed in the Democratic primary debates)
Obama is riding the 'Man with the Great Potential" surfboard in his mind on the waves of Hawaii. He is so lauded and fawned over as 'brilliant' and 'the smartest guy in the room' he must affect an air of lassitude to retain the 'great potential' claim. If he looks a little too engaged then what potential does he have left? He must act like a guy who has just had a toke(just one) of Maui Wowie in the Presidential motorcade on the way over.
ReplyDeleteDoes Obama suffer from depression?
ReplyDeleteJarrett is a Iranian spy... I just made that up.
ReplyDeleteObama was jonesing for a cigarette. Smokers concentrate better when they are smoking. I'm surprised he didn't yawn. Obama should come out as a Smoker's Rights advocate, then he could smoke in public, and, reduce taxes on the poor
ReplyDeletethe idea that nothing on earth has ever intellectually challenged this guy is the biggest load of shit i've ever heard. so the guy who hasn't published a single peer reviewed article in a science journal, let alone published a law article, is actually the greatest intellect of our time?
ReplyDeletehere's an actual idea: barack hussein obama cannot even do differential equations. the thing which thousands of undergrad science and engineering majors learn to do every year.
listening to people spew bullshit about how he's so bored with everything and the pace of it all bores him to death is like talking about the losers in the stands at NFL and MLB games and how frustrated they are when their team can't win. and then pretending that one of these non-athlete no talent scrawny dorks is actually better at the sport than EVERY player on the field, and, gosh, if the stupid managers and coaches would JUST let him onto the field, he'd clobber the other team easily. WTF? it makes no sense at all.
obama is absolutely, positively an intellectual lightweight. even describing him that way is an insult to all intellectual lightweights around the world.
i guess obama was so bored with basketball, after all his success mind you, that he didn't even want to bother becoming the best coach in the NBA and winning NBA championships and being paid millions of dollars a year. for obama, outcoaching every other coach in the NBA was SO trivial and SO boring a prospect, that instead of taking over the chicago bulls in 1989 from doug collins, obama let unproven rookie coach phil jackson take over the team with a young, prime michael jordan instead. obama skipped right past that dreadfully boring opportunity right in his lap in chicago, and instead went directly to sitting in reverend wright's church instead, in search of a true intellectual challenge i suppose.
Jarret is like the mother he never had... .I just made that up.
ReplyDelete"This is Anderson Silva trick. Let the white boy throw some punches in the first round and then clobber him in later rounds. Joe Frazier let Jerry Quarry start out strong in the first round too. But Quarry got battered into putty in later rounds.
ReplyDeleteObama knows it's the later debates that counts. After all, he willfully lost the first debate with McCain at the Rick Warren church. If Obama is too aggressive in all the debates, whites will see him as 'angry black guy'. So, in the first debate, Obama wants to come across as nice and easy.
Romney the dummy will think he can come on strong in debate 2 and 3, but that's where Obama will spring into action and hit him hard.
Obama wants to make himself look not to aggressive in the first debate. He wants to look sort of gracious to make white folks rest easy about him.
The first debate don't matter much. Reagan lost the first one with Mondale. Bush II lost the first one to Kerry. And Obama went soft in debate one to make Romney overconfident in later ones. I know the jazzy Negro mind. "
- Perhaps, but they'll need to get him a very good teleprompter and had better hope James Carville can type really fast so Obama can respond without time gaps...
Many recent writers did well in debate: Mailer, Vidal and Buckley as obvious examples.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Obama has been bored his whole life.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know who's always bored? Stupid people with zero ability.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteFumigate the trolls
"I know the jazzy Negro mind."
This guy made some other similar remark in a previous thread. This happens every election cycle and gets worse as we head toward election day.
Linda,
This reminds me of the complaint "He pulled his punches" which is often employed when the preferred candidate loses. What the "loser" has done, that the pundit has not, is gamed his hypothetical "punches" in seconds during the debate, and concluded the odds are against him.
Obama tried to land punches early on and it went horribly for him; it was wise of him to stop.
Speaking of intelligence, Camille Paglia is looking prescient. She followed Romney once after a radio interview, I think when he was governor, and walked up to him and told him he would be president some day. When she retold the story, she said his high intelligence and supple mind charmed her and drove her belief and prediction.
I couldn't find it, but I believe I heard this four years ago.
I'd say if Barry has been bored all his life its because he has had such an easy time getting into the high status positions he lusts for but does not have the aptitude for. If he had to work hard for his advancements rather than being massively rewarded for showing up he might realize along the way that he doesn't really have the personal skills to be a in politics in the positions he's been in. Its like a guy with decent high school baseball skills being made cleanup hitter for the Yankees for 'non-baseball' reasons except that in baseball one's aptitude can be measured, in politics much less so.
ReplyDeletePeople who have jobs that are way outside their skill sets are never going to be really happy with the work even if the jobs fill other aspects of their psychology (or wallet). Witness the barely-submerged anger and bitterness of much of the black professional class in the age of 'affirmative action' even though you'd assume that effortlessly rising to highly paid positions where you can't be fired and don't have much work to do would make you happy.
David Gergen on Obama's flustered debate performance:
ReplyDelete"I didn't think Obama was 'rusty', so much as I don't think anyone has spoken to him like that, over the last four years. And I think he found that not only surprising, but offensive in some ways. It looked like he was angry at times."
A major theme of Steve Sailer over the past five years: No one has much spoken "like that" to Obama his entire life. He has just coasted through life with people patting him on the back the whole time.
Someone could write a biography of Obama, and entitle it "An Affirmative Action Life".
"One reason for Obama's perpetual boredom is that his skill set is basically that of a writer. He has everything that it takes to be a good writer except the ability to come up with interesting ideas."
ReplyDeleteHe's perpetually bored because he's intellectually incurious. A couple more lame debate performances and The Atlantic Wire will begin writing pieces about how affirmative action set him up for failure by mismatching him to a job he wasn't prepared for.
Do you suppose Obama slept on the sofa, last night?
"for all of Obama's talent for writing and delivering speeches, he's not that good at the more g loaded task of thinking on his feet"
ReplyDeleteSince when is thinking on your feet more "g loaded"? It's usually the opposite - many highly intelligent people are excellent writers, analysts and poor off the cuff speakers. What's more, African Americans probably tend to be better extempore speakers than whites all else being equal. Obama doesn't really have a "black" skill set. Sailer is exactly right - down deep Obama is a typical intelligent white liberal arts grad who has used the accident of his pigmentation to achieve office well beyond his leadership limitations.
Mitt doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who will take the next two weeks off just because he won the debate. I think the chances that he will be blindsided by some super-secret clever Negro trickster Obama gambit in the next debate are zero. I'd also be amazed if Obama blew the debate on purpose just to show the white people what a mellow, nonthreatening black man he is. That being said, I predict that Obama will throw some below the belt punches next time around in an effort to catch up on points. I also predict that Romney is man enough to handle them.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who is as smart as Obama's supporters claim him to be doesn't stay bored for very long - he finds something that interests him. If keeping his job as the most powerful man in the world is just not that interesting to him, perhaps he ought not to have the job. Mind you, in principal, I am all for the idea that the only people truly qualified for that job are people who don't want it very much. Just not him.
ReplyDeletere: Jarrett on Obama: "He's been bored to death his whole life" ...."somebody with such extraordinary talents that they had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy."
ReplyDeleteI was in college with an individual with an IQ of over 160. He had a perfect score 116/116 on the Navy Pilot IQ Test, 800 & 800 on the GREs and other objective tests.
He was never bored. He was constantly reading novels, magazines, chasing girls, doing well in classes without effort and was the darling of his physics, chemistry and math professors. He was also a fun guy to be around. Bored he was not.
No way Obama is in that class.
Dan Kurt
You seem to be bending over backwards to say something nice about Obonzo a lot of the time. You said: "He has everything that it takes to be a good writer"
ReplyDeleteHe has NOTHING that it takes to be a good writer. He's as bad a writer as he is a speaker and that's really awful.
Only White cowards and fools are able to call Obama eloquent with a straight face when his delivery is such a weird combination of stuttering, smacking, condescension and a sort of stilted pseudo-intellectual ebonics. Obama sounds like a half-educated 12-year-old who has learned how to fake it in order to impress adults.
It couldn't possibly be that he lacks a genius IQ, so it must be a lack of energy, a lack of interest, or a secret strategy to give Romney a false sense of security.
ReplyDeleteAl Gore blamed Barry's lassitude on altitude sickness.
Seriously, I agree with all the posters who say Barry's playing rope-a-dope. His crafty plan is to lose all the debates and then lose the election in order to lull the GOP into a false sense of security. Then, he'll spend the next 30 years in Hawaii, choomin' on Maui
Wowie and stacking up the Benjamins like a mad Bill Clinton, waiting for just the right moment to ....
...POUNCE!!!
Maybe Obama just wants to enter the public sector to cash out and enjoy life.
ReplyDeleteSince FDR/Kennedy and probably well before, I've got to imagine serious POTUS candidates can easily control their attention and energy levels via pharmaceuticals. If Obama is not that says something.
It's gotta be a drag to be POTUS of a declining country saddled with a corrupt DEM party and set of personal beliefs at odds with any attempts at reform. Not that the neocons are better in any significant overall way (more war and less corruption due to an antagonistic MSM).
Obama is accustomed to skating through life with promotions, awards and accolades without having to produce anything other than speechifying: Editor Harvard Law journal and offered tenure at UChi Law School without publishing a single legal paper or book, Nobel Peace Prize before taking office and expanding and starting numerous destabilizing wars, etc.
Even with "Obamacare" he left it to Pelosi and Reed to do the political heavy lifting while he simply speechified to an adoring MSM. He is the clean cut well spoken one we have been waiting for to paraphrase Biden.
As POTUS Obama is criticized (censored as it may be in the MSM) for being even worse than Bush: failing wars, much higher casualty/death toll in Afgan, more parties & golfing, bigger Wall Street bailouts and giveaways QEinfinity, corruption (solyndra, gun running into Mexico), etc.
A rational man with Obama's predilections would simply cash out now with 100's millions while he is still young, play golf and hang with Jay-Z and NBA stars without having anyone complain that the Rome is burning. Hell, Obama will be celebrated in the MSM for simply hangin' loose and being cool choom style in his native Hawaiian style.
I do think Obama will bounce back. That's just the way these things usually go. Only, Romney is pretty damn diligent and will be ready.
ReplyDeleteBut the next debates will undoubtedly open the social-con can of worms, and the last thing people will hear is 47%, rich, mean, hatey hate hater etc.
He sure was blinking a lot last night. Notice?
ReplyDeleteI think he's a guy who really does prefer golf and shooting hoops--and that's okay, but I do believe he prefers those activities to being POTUS or to being a senator.
ReplyDeleteI can see him as an actor in those M-F soap operas. He'd love the red carpet, love being idolized, and as an actor, he'd have plenty of time for golf and shooting hoops.
Come on Folks, let us get to the heart of the issue as quickly as possible:What happens if Rommney wins the election in twenty days? I say that it is very obvious that there is a 70 percent chance that Blacks go apoplectic and go out on election violently assualting White Males. You don't think this will happen? Well, do you think it would be a good a idea for your teenage son or daughter to be wnadering around in the wrong places on election night?
ReplyDeleteSo,if you think what I have written is beyond obvious,here is the million dollar question:do White Americans become highly racialized over night..couple of weeks at most?If Whites do become highly racialized because of a violent black backlash in response to a Rommney victory,will there eventually be a complete shutdown of all nonwhite immgration? In other words, will White Americans eventually understand the very nasty consequences of the passage of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act?
"He has everything that it takes to be a good writer except the ability to come up with interesting ideas."
ReplyDeleteWow. Trying to win back the surly racist vote eh?
Can I expect that you'll be panhandling soon?
Romney the dummy will think he can come on strong in debate 2 and 3, but that's where Obama will spring into action and hit him hard.
ReplyDelete...Obama will spring into action..
Congratulations. You just made me laugh out loud.
"This bodes poorly for Obama, because loose cannon Biden is up next against policy wonk Ryan. This could be two drops in the polls before he gets his townhall format for debate."
ReplyDeleteBiden is a goofball true, but a likeable one (SNL take on him is pretty good). Paul Ryan, alas, is a tool and a boat anchor on the Romney ticket. T-Paw would have been a 200% better VP pick, I guess the vetters didn't know how to deal with the pimp's knife.
Paul Krugman (who surely wins the prize for "Most Hated Reagan White House staffer") is cruel to Ryan but fairly accurate, calling him a "flimflam man", his budget a "big fraud"... and just yesterday mocking his fanboy crush on Ayn Rand.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/paul-ryan-was-here/
Now that his men have cleansed Cerritos of the new-media provocateur Abdul Fubar bin-Youtube (succeeding among other dynamite operations the mission to stop the flow of contraband guitars out of Tennessee) he can pivot to lese-majeste offenses of rogue appliance makers
ReplyDeleteSomeone could write a biography of Obama, and entitle it "An Affirmative Action Life".
ReplyDeleteAnd the movie version could be a musical, with this rousing theme song!
It's the Aff Ac life for me!
It's the Aff Ac life for me!
Steada challenged,
Ass is kissed!
Steada trouble,
Always bliss!
It’s the Aff Ac life!
Got no brains to speak of, so
With my Aff Ac, standards low!
Lazy chooming… steada work!
Guilty whitey… what a jerk!
It’s the Aff Ac life!
Are these really debates? They should really be called interviews.
ReplyDeleteIn a real debate, it should just be a moderator and two guys in a room with no one else. The moderator will pose a question or problem, and the debators will go at it. That is debating.
American political debates are NOT debates.
@beowulf
ReplyDeletefairly accurate
Your data-filled comment has convinced me: Ryan really is a "big fraud". Thanks for that.
One thing though: unlike you, I sort of prefer not to have a "goofball" as VP, "likeable" or not; can't quite say why, just do, seems prudent.
Finally, here's my suggestion for you: go back to the 10th century, you juvenile cretin.
"He has everything that it takes to be a good writer except the ability to come up with interesting ideas."
ReplyDeleteAnd the curious inability to say or write anything memorable -- even a single phrase.
Who has ever repeated anything Obama has said as putting a point particularly well?
The poster who mentioned his buddy with a high IQ is right. Smart people are almost never bored because they find almost anything interesting on some level. They are always looking for connections between what might seem to be disparate fields that no one has noticed before. They go looking for problems to solve. Obama has never published anything even in law journals, much less something in a medical, scientific, or engineering journal. U of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein has said that Obama never choose to engage anyone on the faculty in intellectual debate, he acted like he already had the answers so why bother debating.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that Obama is a writer.
ReplyDeleteI watched Jack Cashill's video over at American Thinker yesterday. He makes a compelling case that both books are ghosted but by different ghosts. I don't know but I'm sure if I live long enough the truth will out. How long did we believe that Jack Kennedy wrote Profiles?
I doubt that Obama ever wrote a book by himself because he seems too undisciplined to sustain such an effort. He is not a hard worker who would deny himself every pleasure until he had the project at hand completed.
Albertosaurus
The whole world saw the difference between a Harvard law grad admitted on merit and a Harvard law grad admitted on affirmative action.
ReplyDelete"Biden is a goofball true, but a likeable one"
ReplyDeleteUh, no he's not. He's a nasty piece of work with a serious inferiority complex.
Obama has been bored his whole life, as was his mother and as was his grandfather. They all tried to chase away the blues (or the blahs): his grandfather by venturing to the exotic state of Hawaii, his mother by marrying exotic men and moving to exotic lands and Barry by moving to exotic places (for a man who deep down is a middle class white boy) like black Chicago and multicultural New York. There is some sort of gypsy wanderlust which the family uses to fight off, what seems to be, a mild depression. Maybe it is a pioneer gene that causes frustration when there is no where left to roam.
ReplyDeleteCamille Paglia is looking prescient.
ReplyDeleteBack in the early '90's, I thought she came up with the most insightful observation of anyone on the sex wars. She said that for orgasm to take place there has to be a surrender, and that the more power women acquire, the less likely they are to ever have satisfying sex lives. I think that was truly prescient. No one will admit, but my guess is that far fewer women experience orgasm now than in previous decades. Having been taught to see men as career competitors, they lack any capacity for emotional surrender.
Jarrett is herself too unsophisticated to understand how this attempt at hypberbole ("he's just too smart and special for the Senate!") makes Obama look less than mature. I mean, what professional politician is immediately bored with the US Senate? And this was a guy already enjoying a charmed career and heightened prominence. Maybe a guy in over his head because he's been magnified by all that projection.
ReplyDeleteOf course he may have viewed the Senate (in hindsight with good reason) as a staging ground for the White House, and decided to safely tread water there.
But I suspect he found the Senate to be real work--and much of it the interpersonal he's too good for--, you know, hard, so he went to his ace in the hole, posing as the tragically brilliant, wasted negro genius.
We were introduced to a character trope, the Wasted Negro Genius, in the confident, ascendant years of the civil rights movement. On TV and in film at least. We're still waiting to meet him in person.
So now TV just pretends the world is full of brilliant black doctors, lawyers and scientists--and congratulates itself for this "responsible" art (and then it's back into the breach, bravely assaulting the Great White Whom).
And that's what Barry has always represented to the now middle-aged secular liberals who dominate, the attempt to will this figure into reality with this collossal gesture ("act less black, more Barack", as Sailer puts it). They figured they found this exceptional talent and they would do the rest. And they have done wonders. But where do they founder? On the shallow rocks of Black inadequacy. He isn't exceptional; he's not even great.
They like to compare him to Jackie Robinson. I've always said that was bull because O isn't drawn from a class of superior, repressed professional talent but from a class demonstrating inferior professional accomplishment. Indeed, that deficit in accomplishment is itself the reason for Barack. It's tragically ironic.
But Barry and Jackie were both sent up for the same reasons--to show white America they could be let in and wouldn't trash the place. White liberals, apparently, still believe the Wasted Negro Genius is out there, limited only by white America's profound inability to trust him (cut to shot of our handsome black hero looking into the distance from a bridge, a tear rolling down his cheek). God bless their naive souls.
Black America insists it still hasn't been let in, but the rest of us think they are trashing the place. Barry can also be seen as an effort by the liberals, hobbled by their own dogma denying the existence of black moral agency, to convince stubborn black America that they have in fact been let in, and maybe it's time to stop trashing the place.
Of course, if Barry doesn't get reelected, they might trash the place for real. What a time to be a cynic! I count my lucky stars! All the varied manifestations of human stupidity and vanity. Can't wait to see how it ends.
Since when is thinking on your feet more "g loaded"? It's usually the opposite - many highly intelligent people are excellent writers, analysts and poor off the cuff speakers.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone writes something there's no way to know how much time, effort, and revisions were put into it, but when someone can react extemporaneously to a novel argument in real time, that seems like a much more conclusive display of real fluid g. There have been great writers with mediocre g (JD Salinger)but you NEVER see a great impromptu debater who isn't highly intelligent, though I agree that some extremely bright people are poor impromptu speakers (though that typically has more to do with poor body language, voice and confidence than lack of talent).
What's more, African Americans probably tend to be better extempore speakers than whites all else being equal.
Blacks are great at DELIVERING speeches (obama, martin luther king) but that's not the same as thinking on their feet. And the few blacks with high g tend to gravitate towards fields where they get to talk publicly because blacks are more sociable, extroverted and aggressive.
Moreover blacks have a rich literary tradition (nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, poet Maya Angelou etc) so if you're going to use black talent as proof that something isn't g loaded, that undermines your argument that writing is highly g loaded.
Obama doesn't really have a "black" skill set. Sailer is exactly right - down deep Obama is a typical intelligent white liberal arts grad who has used the accident of his pigmentation to achieve office well beyond his leadership limitations.
I agree that the secret to his success is he's the most SWPL black the world has ever seen, however he does have some black aptitudes.
@ Dennis Dale said--great comment.
ReplyDeleteJarrett is herself too unsophisticated to understand how this attempt at hypberbole ("he's just too smart and special for the Senate!") makes Obama look less than mature.
The president also doesn't hesitate to make himself look less than mature. His immaturity was on display today as he tried to spin his way past his inadequacy in last night's debate. On such occasions, he inevitably lapses into this cocky, mocking persona. Last night his confidence deserted him, but today, surrounded by adoring fans, he dared mock Romney. He's like the punk who gets an ass whupping, then, safely out of earshot of the one who delivered it, brags about how tough and cool he was and how the whupping ain't no big thing and just wait till next time. I find it embarrassing.
If you really want to be embarrassed for the kind of people who adore this man, check out the facebook page "I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is President!"
'If you really want to be embarrassed for the kind of people who adore this man, check out the facebook page 'I love it when I wake up in the morning and Barack Obama is President!'"
ReplyDeleteI recall how many middle aged women in my neighborhood behaved over JFK and Jackie. I was only a kid, maybe 12 or so but I remember two women who used to come to our house occasionally to have coffee with my mom. Both were Catholic women and one was also Irish, so I suppose that had something to do with their devotion, but even though I was young, I remember thinking they were treating JFK and his wife as if they were soap opera characters. (Yes, both women were very much into the soaps, something my mother, bless her, was not.)
"Jarrett is herself too unsophisticated to understand how this attempt at hypberbole..."
ReplyDeleteExactly, yet this is the person, we are told, closest to him in the WH.
No wonder things are a mess. I understand his wanting someone around he totally trusts, but it would appear her power outstrips her expertise.
"Obama knows it's the later debates that counts."
ReplyDeleteBullshit. Mitt Romney's donors were damn near ready to pull the plug on his campaign, then Mitt had a good week (actually Obama had a bad one), capped by a great debate, and now Mitt will have money for a few more weeks. Obama could've put the nails in Mitt's coffin last night, shut him down, sent his donors out to pasture. He just wasn't up to it.
BTW, there's plenty for a smart person to do in the Senate (or the House), if he looks around. Hell, they're responsible for spending $4 trillion a year and passing laws telling everyone what to do. Chuck Schumer may be an asshole, but he's a smart asshole - 1600 on his ACT, Harvard B.A. and J.D., etc. - and he's been in Congress almost 30 years.
If Obama was bored by it it may be because he really wasn't smart enough to find ways to make it interesting.
"here's an actual idea: barack hussein obama cannot even do differential equations."
A "friend" on whose Facebook posts I never anymore bother to comment called Mitt an idiot regarding his airplane windows comment, then general science knowledge came up and, of course, creationism. I wanted to ask him which candidate he thought was more likely to know calculus, or trig, or was more likely to have taken an elective science class in college, or was more likely in the last 20 years to have picked up a random popular science book.
"Moreover blacks have a rich literary tradition (nobel prize winner Toni Morrison, poet Maya Angelou etc) "
ReplyDeleteOh. My. God.
Could Obama's poor showing in the debate also be a symptom of a downward swing in his bipolar syndrome?
ReplyDeleteHarry Baldwin said, "@ Dennis Dale said--great comment.
ReplyDeleteJarrett is herself too unsophisticated to understand how this attempt at hypberbole ('he's just too smart and special for the Senate!') makes Obama look less than mature."
Yes.
"Last night his confidence deserted him, but today, surrounded by adoring fans, he dared mock Romney. He's like the punk who gets an ass whupping, then, safely out of earshot of the one who delivered it, brags about how tough and cool he was and how the whupping ain't no big thing and just wait till next time. I find it embarrassing."
Well said. I've seen comments from Americans mocking Putin for his staged he-man stunts but at least he's actually out in the wilds doing something. When Barry swaggers around, he's safely indoors, usual with his best bud, TOTUS, nearby for moral support. Sure you have to take Putin's photo ops as just more of the Soviet propaganda we grew up with. But even he is not quite the embarrassment Barry is.
Dahinda said, "Could Obama's poor showing in the debate also be a symptom of a downward swing in his bipolar syndrome?"
ReplyDeleteI was wondering the same thing. If so, that could be a good thing.
"Obama knows it's the later debates that counts. After all, he willfully lost the first debate with McCain at the Rick Warren church. If Obama is too aggressive in all the debates, whites will see him as 'angry black guy'. So, in the first debate, Obama wants to come across as nice and easy.
ReplyDeleteRomney the dummy will think he can come on strong in debate 2 and 3, but that's where Obama will spring into action and hit him hard.
Obama wants to make himself look not to aggressive in the first debate. He wants to look sort of gracious to make white folks rest easy about him."
I'm debating with myself whether the above comments are meant to be funny.
Debates are not only (or mostly) about being "agressive." Agressive is a style, not the essence of the event. Debates are about knowing your material, having quick enough brain synopses to connect facts and respond to questions/comments on the dime.
Debates are not a boxing match. They are a duel of brains. Obama has never given evidence of having much of one that I can see. Some people think he'd be a typical, intelligent, grad, prof type. I don't see it. He'd be, at best, a very mediocre one, and one that would bore his students as much as he himself is bored.
So if he "springs" into action he'll have to accumulate a megaton of facts he doesn't seem to have ever bothered to collect despite having a job where they really are essential; he'll have to be able to make connections, understand analogies and comparisons of situations and governments he's never understood. In short, he'll have to become, oh, about 1000% smarter, and 10,000 % better informed, than he has, so far, shown himself to be.
It doesn't look good for him.
There is a very stimulating article about boredom in Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteThe word has only existed in print since 1852. What struck me in the piece is that they call it a form of learned helplessness.
What is the relationship of boredom to the minor sin of acidia?
ReplyDeleteIs boredom non-theistic acidia?
Could Obama's poor showing in the debate also be a symptom of a downward swing in his bipolar syndrome?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking the same thing, but it will probably take one more bad debate performance to confirm.
"Is boredom non-theistic acidia?"
ReplyDelete"Acedia is essentially a flight from the world that leads to not caring even that one does not care." - Wikipedia
Ouch, that hits too close to home for me. But I'm a DINKWAD, I doubt that Barry, who has two kids, could be so detached.
the REAL reason Obama blew the debate...Stereotype Threat!!!!
ReplyDelete