The Intellectual Class: New Book Calls Obama a ‘Philosopher President’
Just when you think the American intellectual elite has hit rock bottom, you discover that the elevator is still headed downward. Indeed, it is hard to believe that much of what we are seeing isn’t satire.
On both points, consider if you will (as Rod Serling used to say introducing the Twilight Zone episodes) James T. Kloppenberg, a historian from Harvard University. A New York Times writer positively gushes at Kloppenberg’s great discovery: President Barack Obama is a centrist and “a true intellectual.”
Professor Kloppenberg, an intellectual doesn’t need to use a teleprompter.
Kidding aside, Obama isn’t a true intellectual, and the reason has nothing to do with his policies or politics. An intellectual draws on a serious body of study and research.
Where is the depth to Obama’s speeches and actions? Where is evidence that he really has absorbed history, philosophy, or law? Where are the specific references to thinkers and writers that aren’t canned for him by his staff? Obama has no serious publications, not even anything of note in the Harvard Law Review which he edited.
Writing a couple of autobiographies doesn’t count.
The evidence just isn’t there. Obama is not an intellectual. He is someone with the reputation of being an intellectual, whose policies are congenial to the current dominant ideas among Western intellectuals.
As for being a centrist/pragmatist, Obama is definitely not that either. A pragmatist looks for policies that work and is willing to change his views and actions sharply if he understands that something different is needed. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton were pragmatists. Obama is driven to a greater extent by ideology.
Consider the failure of his economic policies. When Roosevelt concluded that laissez-faire wouldn’t work, he initiated a series of other efforts, dropping each one if it didn’t measure up. Obama simply moves straight ahead on health care, Keynesian economics, and other policies without significant compromise or adjustment to conditions.
Kloppenberg, in proclaiming views that are objective nonsense, gave “a standing-room-only lecture to prolonged applause about his forthcoming intellectual biography” of Obama. He explained — I’m not kidding — that he sees Obama (quoting the Times reporter who was present) “as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.”
A fellow [regular] PJM poster by the name of David Thompson predicted that 0bama would have some kind of health crisis [i.e. nervous breakdown] that would cause him to relinquish his position as president.
The cracks are most certainly showing in this idiot who would rather be a talk-show guest than a leader of the free world.
And, what the hell is going to happen to our country when we finally [legally] show that the stanky B.O. was never ELIGIBLE to be our president in the first place?
Constitutional crisis?
Riots?
What?
It’s a scary world when 20% USA progressives can manage to EFF with the USA and ultimately…the world.
There will be doubling down.
Spooky dudes don’t care about our voices or our votes. They have enough power to do enough destruction without our “smiley” faces behind them.
Watch out. It’s going to get…
…interesting.
Barack Obama would have probably resigned his presidency if the Health Care bill failed to get through both houses of Congress. I will be very surprised if he is still in office by the middle of 2011. This is a narcissistic man who did not have to work long and hard to move into the White House. He is basically lazy and intellectually incurious. What can we do in the meantime? Obama is causing enormous damage to the economy. The initial reports from South Korea are very disturbing. He apparently totally screwed up a free trade agreement with the country—that was mostly a done deal! Obama’s incompetence and ideological blindness are mind-boggling. The man also has access to the red phone! What might happen if he becomes further embittered and enraged by the “betrayal” of the American people?
On the subject of Obama leaving office:
Let’s Make Obama Resign!
letsmakeobamaresign.blogspot.com
Not only he isn’t eligible, he isn’t capable of serving as a lower level staff member of a real President.
Now, let me recall his radiant “intellect” through a few of his golden nuggets:
“I have visited all 57 States;”
“Austrians speak Austrian;”
“Cinco de cuatro” (for cinco de mayo);
“Europe is a country;”
“Mexicans have been here, before America was even an idea.”
Truly, quotes of an “intellectual giant.”
I think you guys are getting a bit overheated. He won’t be stepping down. Have a lie-down and try to relax.
“I have visited all 57 States;”
Yep. Saw that one. Clearly he had a couple of things going on in his head when he said that. It’s a gaffe, fair and square.
“Austrians speak Austrian;”
See, here’s your problem. You’re accusing somebody else of being clueless, and you didn’t even get the quote right. You had plenty of time to find out what he actually said, and you couldn’t be bothered. What he actually said was:
I think he was just not over-thinking it. He was in austria, talking to austrians, why not just say “austrian”? And before YOU overthink it, I draw your attention to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_German
Yes, there really is a dialect called “austrian german”. I think obama was fine with what he said. He was being casual, he was being polite and – as it happens – he was also correct, although that probably wasn’t all that important in the situation.
“Cinco de cuatro” (for cinco de mayo);
Nyeah. Big deal. Spanish might not be his first language.
“Europe is a country;”
You’ve gone and done it again. That is not what he said, so don’t put quotes around it. Here’s what he actually said:
First up, I think what he said was wrong. Not the grammar or vocab, but the facts of what he’s saying. I think europe DOES “replenish itself”, just probably not enough. I think he’s probably speaking to an image that americans have of europe. As for the words … I think you’re being a bit silly. You can interpret that “like” in (at least) two ways:
(1) He’s citing europe as a country. Obviously not correct.
(2) He’s talking about countries that are like europe – that their (imagined) immigration policies is what he’s comparing is clear from the context. It’s a simile. Not only that, it’s OBVIOUSLY a simile.
I guess if you’re really keen to make out that you can’t see the second meaning then that’s fine … but it’s not obama who looks like a goose. Chalk it up to the vagaries of english.
“Mexicans have been here, before America was even an idea.”
I’m sorry. But … what’s wrong with that? He didn’t say MEXICO was there before america was an idea, he said MEXICANS. I guess he probably should have said “the united states of america”, but I think his meaning is clear enough. Even if you take the earliest map references to “america”, the indians were still there well before that, and so were a few spanish (and one notable italian … although italy didn’t really exist until the late 19th century).
This all reminds me a bit of the “ich bin ein berliner” fiasco. A couple of generations have thought that JFK flubbed it – that he called himself a jelly donut. But it’s an urban legend. Nobody in germany interpreted it that way – the use of the article was correct. The whole thing was an american editorial invention.
Try another one:
“Under the Health Care Bill, employers will see their premiums go down by 6,000%.”
I have read someplace, sometime ago (I don’t have the exact reference, since of course we have no access to the records of this “black Christian American from Hawaii”) that this moron (pardon me, I mean the “intellectual giant” and the “philosopher President”) has written (actually co-authored) a paper (I have no idea whether it was published or not) on “Quantum Mechanics and the Law” (or something to that effect). Clearly, the nitwit probably has no idea what the field of QM is, not to mention his limited understanding of the area of “Law.”
Matthew, no one make these quotes up even if one tries; your trying to rationalize them, makes me laugh!
“Matthew, no one make these quotes up even if one tries”
Somebody sure did. Or at least misquoted them enough to hide the context.
“Under the Health Care Bill, employers will see their premiums go down by 6,000%.”
Actually, he said 3000%, not 6000%. Here’s the quote:
Based on comments made elsewhere (in print and verbally), I think it’s likely that he was referring to a 3000 dollar premium saving for employers. So yes, that’s a gaffe.
“I have read someplace, sometime ago … has written (actually co-authored) a paper (I have no idea whether it was published or not) on “Quantum Mechanics and the Law” (or something to that effect).”
It took me 30 seconds to find it. It’s called “The Curvature of Constitutional Space”, and it WAS published in the Harvard Law Review. I haven’t read it, I’m not really interested. But it wasn’t written by Obama, or even co-authored. The author was Laurence H. Tribe, and he acknowledged obama (and others) as follows:
So, no, obama didn’t write it, or co-write it. If he did his name would be listed as an author.
“Clearly, the nitwit probably has no idea what the field of QM is, not to mention his limited understanding of the area of “Law.”
I bet he knows how to google, though.
@Anonymous (and Matthew):
You want to play “accurate facts” with me, then take this and read it really carefully:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/202681-Obama-vs-Einstein
Comment 1: That’s what I did read sometime ago and it was enough for me to see through the idiocy of the paper, the stupid idea behind it, and O’Butthead’s (that’s Obama for you) role – whatever that was; and we don’t really and exactly know what that role was, since we are not allowed access to his personal, professional and academic records, example: his long form BC. But his “contribution” must have been moronic, since the very idea of the whole paper is moronic. Actually, to anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of either QM or Relativity Theory the paper is a joke.
Comment 2: As to the “6,000%” quote, which was supposed to be “3.000%” (well, excuuuuuse me) or whatever the heck it was: he hasn’t proven to me that he knows the difference between percentages and dollar savings; in fact, I doubt if he knows what a “percentage” is, and what the notions of “savings” and “investment” really are.
Comment 3: The moron (and I’m willing to bet that his IQ isn’t greater than 100, 105 tops) isn’t worth googling or reading about, as the nonsense he throws out (when not reading from a teleprompter what his handlers want him to read) is enough to see through this affirmative action, narcissistic wannabe.
Comment 3: The duette of you and Matthew isn’t proving anything with your pathetic defense, except that other idiots are willing to go to any lengths trying to dispute any facts with ‘clintonian logic’ which show beyond reasonable doubt that Barry is a moron. In your desperate efforts you’re trying to show that he is committing “gaffes” (not stupidities) as one would “expect” of a President (!) Your arguement that what he was quoted as having said either (a) wasn’t exactly what he did say 100%, or (b) that he didn’t really mean to say what he said, but he said it although he really meant something else, which we – the rest of us (intellectually inferior to this “giant of an intellect”) should have known he meant, when he said whatever nonsense he said. Well, dimwits, he isn’t the “intellectual” he pretends to be, he’s just a phony; you better learn to live with it.
KTF
“You want to play “accurate facts” with me, then take this and read it really carefully:”
A whitehouse adviser says he “worked with [Harvard professor] Larry Tribe” on the paper. I already proved that by quoting the source. But he didn’t write it, and he wasn’t listed as a co-author. We have no idea what involvement he had, but if he’d contributed in any significant way he would (or at least should) have been listed as an author. So your case is that a harvard professor wrote a silly paper and probably discussed it with obama (and others). That’s a pretty long bow.
“As to the “6,000%” quote, which was supposed to be “3.000%” (well, excuuuuuse me) or whatever the heck it was”
If you guys are going to claim that somebody else can’t get his facts right, I think the least you can do is get YOUR facts right.
“I doubt if he knows what a “percentage” is, and what the notions of “savings” and “investment” really are”
I reckon he probably does. This was a subject discussed at some length, and I’m sure he got it right on other occasions. And before saying “oh yeah, prove it”, save us all the time and accept that I probably will.
“The moron (and I’m willing to bet that his IQ isn’t greater than 100, 105 tops)”
If that were true (and I have no idea), then that would hardly make him a moron. That would, by definition, make him about average, and that’s a fair bit smarter than a “moron”.
“isn’t worth googling or reading about, as the nonsense he throws out (when not reading from a teleprompter what his handlers want him to read) is enough to see through …”
And that’s your excuse for not bothering to check your claims. Pretty impressive. So … how do you KNOW what nonsense he throws out if you never read about it?
“Comment 3″
You did “Comment 3″ twice. Normally I’d let it slide, but you are devoting a lot of effort here to trying to claim the president is a “moron”, so … you know.
“The duette of you and Matthew isn’t proving anything with your pathetic defense”
Actually I think I’ve now proven you wrong about the facts in a few cases. I’ve acknowledged that obama has made a few gaffes, but your claim that saying “percent” instead of “dollars” on one occasion means that he’s an idiot is a bit desperate.
“except that other idiots are willing to go to any lengths trying to dispute any facts with â€clintonian logic’ which show beyond reasonable doubt that Barry is a moron”
What’s really worrying me is that you might actually believe what you’re posting. If so … wow. Get a grip, really. I don’t throw around accusations of insanity and idiocy the way you guys do. I’d feel embarrassed.
“Your arguement that what he was quoted as having said either (a) wasn’t exactly what he did say 100%”
You got it wrong. You claimed he said something he didn’t say. Deal with it.
“(b) that he didn’t really mean to say what he said, but he said it although he really meant something else”
In the case of the percent thing, absolutely. But the problem in other cases is that you’ve chosen to interpret a grammatically ambiguous sentence the (obviously) wrong way.
This all reminds me a bit of the “ich bin ein berliner” fiasco. A couple of generations have thought that JFK flubbed it – that he called himself a jelly donut. But it’s an urban legend. Nobody in germany interpreted it that way – the use of the article was correct. The whole thing was an american editorial invention.
I first had this grammatical error pointed out to me by a German professor teaching a German course here in Canada, not by an American journalist. Her grandparents were from Berlin, although I’m not sure if she herself was from Berlin. She insisted that Kennedy had indeed called himself a jelly doughnut and reminded us that proper German usage was to say “Ich bin Berliner”, not “Ich bin EIN Berliner”.
However, it IS possible that she was just propagating this grammatical point due to some anti-American bias. I can’t recall any other moments in that course where she said anything anti-American but we were not talking about political things much in any case. She is certainly right that the definite article is normally omitted in describing where a person is from.
However, I asked about this once on a German newsgroup and was told by someone who claimed to be present in the crowd when Kennedy gave this speech that the audience did indeed understand that Kennedy was identifying himself with the city and people of Berlin, not asserting that he was a jelly doughnut. In other words, the Germans were generous in spirit and forgave him his small error.
I should also point out that it wasn’t Kennedy who actually wrote the German phrase in his speech. I once read an interview with the guy who actually wrote that part of the speech for Kennedy. I don’t recall his name but he was an American, not a German, and he said that he was quite fluent in German and had lived there for many years. I seem to recall him claiming that the definite article “ein” COULD indeed be used in a phrase that identified a person’s origins, although it was apparently an obscure usage. I’ve never seen that independently confirmed though so I don’t know if he is right or if that is just his attempt to save face by making up an outright lie.
So I’m inclined to forgive Kennedy that mistake. Obama, on the other hand, was speaking in English, his first and best language, when he made the various errors ascribed to him. It’s a lot harder to cut him slack over these errors on the basis that he was working in a language that he didn’t speak….
You are pretty quick to brush off these flubs. Don’t sound like the kind of gaffs that come from “philosophers” or “intellectuals”. If Sarah Palin had made these comments, the press would never forgive her. Check out how philosophical this guy really is:
http://www.hootervillegazette.com/dumbdemocrats.html
“You are pretty quick to brush off these flubs”
But … most of those examples weren’t flubs at all. You guys just want them to be flubs so badly that you’re willing to misquote them.
“Don’t sound like the kind of gaffs that come from “philosophers” or “intellectuals”.
Maybe you just haven’t met any.
“If Sarah Palin had made these comments, the press would never forgive her.”
Sorry, but I’m really over this “the press was only mean to the conservative lady” claim. The press coverage of obama was extreme. Every screw-up was highlighted. The conservative media just made stuff up when they couldn’t find enough unhinged quotes to use.
“Check out how philosophical this guy really is:”
Yeah, yeah. That’s what happens when you’re giving speeches for 5 hours a day. Eventually somebody’s going to get something on you. Most of the really GOOD bozo-claims came from biden anyway. The auschwitz thing … sheesh, get a grip. His uncle didn’t help to liberate auschwitz, he helped liberate buchenwald. BIG blunder there. The conservative equivalent is reagan claiming to have been at the concentration camps filming the liberation … when he just wasn’t there at all. Now THAT’S a flub.
As for the cuba thing … that’s seriously stretching a point. They COULD have gone with the fact that the negotiations weren’t directly with kruschev.
Like I said – Obama Derangement Syndrome. Folks like to think Bush got it bad. Sheesh, his presidency was a cake-walk compared with the screetching about obama.
@ Matthew:
You said:
“If you guys are going to claim that somebody else can’t get his facts right, I think the least you can do is get YOUR facts right.”
Nitwits like nitpicking. BTW, I (at least) don’t claim that O’Bama “can’t get his facts right;” I claim he’s a moron.
You caught me (75-year old, writing at 11:30PM) not doing proper editing of my notes to you and the Anonymous nitwit; splendit, and with that you think that you proved that O’Bummer isn’t a moron ! Get real.
Nitwits like nitpicking. BTW, I (at least) don’t claim that O’Bama “can’t get his facts right;” I claim he’s a moron.
But … you’re NITPICKING in order to DO that. You claimed that somebody’s a moron because he say “percent” instead of “dollars” and then you got the quote wrong! Don’t you see ANY irony in calling me the nitwit?
“You caught me (75-year old, writing at 11:30PM)”
What a cop-out! Oh you poor thing. Are any other 75-year olds here cringing at that statement?
(I can hear it now – “shpeak for yourshelf, shonny!”, as they shake their walking-canes at the screen) 
“and with that you think that you proved that O’Bummer isn’t a moron ! Get real.
No, I’m pointing out that most of your arguments are bogus. The fact that the few times you might have actually caught out the prez in a gaffe you blunder the quote is just gravy, really.
When you actually have something that really does suggest that obama is an imbecile, by all means let’s hear it. But do take the trouble to make sure you get the information right first.
One of the things that I learned early on in life is that liberals think they won an argument if they have the last word. Well, that’s what I’m going to do: let you have the last word so you can get off my back. For you from down under, endless and pointless argueing seems to be a sport; not for us up here. We have to live with this moron as president for at least another two years, since the people we elect don’t seem to have the cojones to impeach this fraud. You go ahead and rest comfortably thinking you proved to yourself that I didn’t do the proper editing to my notes to you. I have on the other hand to absorbe the fact that this useful idiot is employed to undermine the US.
Matthew,
Call me; Media Matters is hiring now. Leave ACORN, we pay more per hour.
B.D.
KTF: (fingers in ears) “la la la la la I can’t hear you …”
What do you hope to accomplish with your inane blathering, Matthew?
I’ve read all posts of thread #1, and one must conclude that Matthew proved that all progressives are intellectual phonies trying to hide behind Alinsky-ite thuggishness.
Obama is not an intellectual at all, but he is a dabbler in other people’s ideas, and a pontificator, which is sort of close to a … pseudo-intellectual. But if Obama were an intellectual, no one better sums him up than the mostly repulsive intellectual Georges Sorel:
“The intellectuals are not, as is so often said, men who think: they are people who have adopted the profession of thinking, and who take an aristocratic salary on account of the nobility of this profession.”
Obama shows no evidence of even having adopted the profession of. He’s faking it.
See: http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2010/11/canned-thinking.html
A street hustler, decadent dilettante, blowhard and bullsh*t artist does not an intellectual or a philosopher make.
If that was the case, whoa just think, Al Sharpton will be ranked right up there with Socrates, Aristotle and Plato.
There are some very fine scholars associated with the “elite” softer academic disciplines. Unfortunately, the odds are high that the next Ivy League graduate you encounter is an idiot. The crazies dominate academia. They are obligated to prove to the world that they might have one or two functioning brain cells. It is illogical for outsiders to take this for granted. It was patently obvious to me from the very beginning that Barack Obama is a poorly read and intellectually shallow man. Needless to add, many people questioned my sanity and more than hinted that I also might be some sort of racist. These naïve individuals were convinced that a Harvard credential is intrinsically meaningful.
Barack Obama is the elected leader of this country only because of political correctness. His close associates sensed that the majority of Americans were anxious to prove they were not racists. Those daring to ask serious questions could be tarred and feathered as possible members of the KKK. This unqualified man is now president and causing enormous damage. We are confronted with a Constitutional crisis. How can he be removed in the near future? Any suggestions? They are desperately needed.
You have expressed my sentiments exactly. I wonder if there are any adults in the Democrat party who will go to Obama and convince him to resign. Surely there are rational Democrats who realize that Obama is causing serious damage to the nation and has the potential for causing yet more. Obama reminds me of a spoiled child who has never been told ‘no.’ Those children tend to throw huge temper tantrums when thwarted. I fear that Obama is on the verge of a very large tantrum. Impeachment for mental unfitness might be another option but I doubt Congress has the stomach for it.
The people with that type of Honor left the Democrats a long time ago.
Who said anything about honor? This is self-preservation we’re talking about. Nominate him to be Secretary General of the UN. He’ll consider it a step up, and it’ll get him into a job where he can’t do any more harm.
I think Obama has been legislatively neutered for the next two years,unfortunately we still have Ben Bernanke pushing us towards the brink.We are screwed.The end is nigh.
David:
you have been pushing this Obama will resign meme for two year. Presidents don’t just resign because they don’t like the job. If anything he will become inert and go through the motions until his term is up. Besides do you want Joe Biden in the White House
I and most of my circle of friends and family also realized Obama was intellectually challenged, poorly educated and and ideological nutcase far in advance of the ’08 elections. And I have the e-mails to prove it. Anyone who voted for this idiot should have their voter registration pulled….permanently!
David,
This is exactly correct. We have our first affirmative action president. He has been gratuitously privileged for his entire life including wealthy and powerful benefactors supplying the lubricant to enable his attendance and completion through “elite” institutions. Yet his actual record of accomplishment at these institutions remains under seal. What they might reveal I surmise would be both politically damaging (foreign student application) and personally embarrassing (poor grades? disciplinary action?).
He won the nomination for one reason and that is that the race card trumps the gender card. Further, he had the advantage of the “get-out-of-guilt-free card” with the so called elite opinion makers including such luminaries as David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, and others on the right. But this card is only good for one occasion and it has expired.
He is so infatuated with his own persona that he was convinced that if he just gave enough speeches, he could sell the country on his policies. He is so over-exposed that nobody will even listen to him anymore. Not only can he not sell ice to eskimos, he could now not give them space heaters for free.
He is the embodiment of the abject failure of liberal philosophy in a results oriented competitive real world in which your contribution to results is the only thing that matters. For the first time in his life he was judged in this past election and he was found wanting.
People who have entered the ‘rarefied’ halls of Harvard(and the other Ivies) know that a Harvard pedigree is not what it is cracked up to be.
The hyper/rampant grade inflation,(particularly for minorities) the pseudo intellectual rigor in most of their courses, is just one of their dirty secrets.
So much so, that the true powerhouse across the Charles-MIT-snickers at the Harvard halo.Yes, they do, I’ve seen it over and over again while on the campus.Harvard is the school where they cross register to take a nap, to rest from the unrelenting intellectual demands at ‘the other’ school in Cambridge.
Truth be told, Harvard’s self appointed elites wouldn’t last a semester at MIT, many would NEVER be admitted in the first place.Absolutely.
The Price of Admission, by Daniel Golden, is a tell all about the ‘buy in’ practices of many at Harvard. In fact, the ONLY top tier schools which could NOT be bribed for admission were Caltech(California Institute of Technology) and MIT.
Daddy’s big bucks don’t mean squat at the above intellectual powerhouses. It is well known that Obama had Saudi Arabian princely strings pulled to gain admission into Harvard. Don’t believe me, just listen to Harlem’s Percy Sutton (via youtube) reveal the truth as to his Harvard benefactors/handlers.
Intellectual President, in a pig’s eye!
Very true. MIT, Cal Tech, and the University of Chicago (although not quite what it once was) are the truly elite American universities. Army and Navy deserve mention as well, although they’re so institutionally different from other schools that they warrant their own separate category.
None of those schools light up the eyes of the status-obsessed as Harvard, Yale and Princeton do, but the curricula at each is generally superior to curricula at the Ivies, and their students are a cut above.
Absolutely.I paid upwards of $ 300,000 tuition for MIT & Caltech for my sons, and I don’t regret a single penny spent.
The schools are simply in another stratosphere of education.Pseudo elites would simply faint at the rigors of the classes.
They are the mental boot camps of the likes of West Point and the Air Force Academies.
MBA ’81 been there done that and couldn’t agree more. The Harvard pedigree is wildly overvalued and in many cases is purchased by affirmative action cred or daddies bucks. The undergrauate degree has some very bright scholarship students to keep the image up and a host of rich hanger ons from where ever big money comes from.
“His appeal is less loud, more profound, less distinct, more stirring—and sooner forgotten”
~Joseph Conrad~
“The Nigger of the Narcissus”
Have you noticed that liberal Democrats (now calling themselves progressives) keep getting the rest of us to lower the bar lower and lower just for themselves, so that they can climb over it and then claim to be equal and as good as the rest of us are?
While trying to take us backward, Progressives lie that they want to take us forward,
and instead of trying to elevate themselves, they try to bring us down to their level,
And you wondered where Lewis Carroll got his inspiration for Alice in Wonderland???
Rule of thumb; any book written less than two years after a president takes office is probably not worth reading. History
By the bye, the astro turf, unwashed masses who are continually ridiculed by the chattering classes, will be the ones to right(no pun intended) the teetering ship of state.
Irony of ironies, these ‘village idiots’ will turn out to be the nightmare of their deriders.
I predict they will be the catalyst to their ousting, as they get swept out of power in FULL in 2012.
A comeuppance like none other.A most deserving one too!
A truly great man can be recognized as such. He doesn’t need an army of heralding idiots telling everyone whose image he is supposed to invoke. It’s like when a movie’s commercial starts off with “If you liked X then you’ll love Y”. I’m immediately suspect of such comparisons. It’s even more heinous to understand that this ‘professor’ isn’t carefully crafting propaganda for mass consumption as a means of subterfuge. He actually believes it. Which is worse?
From all indications, The One has never read a book from one end to the other, except perhaps for his two autobiographies. What he apparently does is skim a few here and there, looking for out-of-context quotes which seem to support whatever his position is on any given issue. He then springs the quote on somebody who disagrees with him as “proof” the he’s right and they’re wrong. (And, ipso facto, stupid.)
This is actually an old technique in politics. Bill Clinton used it in the aftermath of Waco. (See “Unlimited Access” by Gary Aldrich.) And before him, it was the preferred debating tactic of Benito Mussolini.
What this tells me is that far from being an actual “thinker”, The One is a pseudo-intellectual; an ideologue who uses the forms of actual debate to justify his own beliefs, which for the most part cannot be defended on grounds of actual fact.
In Kloppenberg’s circles, this is probably considered the mark of a “true” intellectual. By his lights, a genuine “thinker” does not deign to listen to the opinions of the hoi polloi at all, because he is obviously much smarter than the lot of them put together. And smart people need not consider the opinions- or facts- of “stupid” people. (“Stupid” defined here as “anyone who disagrees with the ‘intellectuals’”.)
As for Kloppenberg hailing The One as a “philosopher president”, that is just one notch removed from a “philosopher king”. If the Founders had been comfortable with that sort of rulership, there would have been no need for either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States.
The real problem, of, course, is that The One also considers himself such a “philosopher ruler”. And cannot comprehend why the rest of us are not falling on our knees, worshiping his awesome awesomeness.
(Hint; compare and contrast; Plato’s “Republic” and “The Federalist Papers”.)
clear ether
eon
“You would think they would be saying thank you.”
Famous Obama quote in response to Tea Party protesters demonstrating against “The Won’s” destructive economic policies. I predict thirty years from now Obama will be another Jimmy Carter, still trying to defend his inane programs and actions. If yet alive, I will laugh at Obama then as I do now at the hopelessly senile Carter.
And intellectual, in my book is someone who can Make The Absurd Sound Quite Reasonable.
And by that measure, Obama is not an intellectual, because when he says the absurd, we…know….it’s….absurd.
“… Woodrow Wilson.”
Oh no, he’s quite different.
They never got the Nobel Peace Prize despite their great accomplishments.”
Wilson got the Nobel Peace Prize for 1919, awarded in 1920.
KF
“President Barack Obama is a centrist and “a true intellectual.”
Aside from the fact that this is total and utter nonsense, did you ever notice that presidents in the 20th century who were considered to be “intellectuals” were also rotten presidents? Woodrow Wilson was cosidered to be one of the “greatest” intellectuals around and he was a horrific president. Franklin D. Roosevelt was considered a big brain too, and he destroyed our economy and turned a depression into the Great Depression because of his economic policies. Bill Clinton was smart too. He absolutely LOVED economic policy. Yet for all his smarts, Clinton couldn’t see (or admit to) the growing threat of radical Islam and refused to believe that a guy named Osama bin Laden would cause us much trouble. And then there was the “brilliant” Jimmy Carter. The less said about him the better.
Obama seems to be headed down this same path. Is Obama smart? I guess. But he’s also a lousy president and a very poor leader. God save us from the intellectuals. I’d rather have a tough politician with an actual track record of accomplishments than “the best and the brightest” constantly being dragged out to either destroy our economy or bring us into another war they could not see coming.
Intellectual? Yeah, sure. So why won’t the One release his academic transcripts?
I’m much more interested in his applications than his academic transcripts, having a long suspicion that his entry to several elite universities was greased by his claim of being some kind of exotic foreign student (Indonesian, or…Kenyan?). Inquiring minds want to know.
Kloppenberg reminds me of the mother of serial killer, who sees her son as a sweet and innocent child, despite all his heinous deeds, which she chooses to ignore.
What heresy! Of course, Obama is an intellectual…providing we redefine the word like many others have been co-opted or diverted for their own use to hide a real agenda, in this case propping up a poster boy. In this case by conferring the definition of intellectual they allow him to skate through life with minimal actual ability or knowledge while congratulating themselves on their own racial enlightenment, assuaging their own guilt. Unless we have a Harvard equivalent to “Climategate” does anyone believe we will ever see his marks or record from that institution?
Southerners have the best definition of this guy: “Big hat, no cattle”.
There is also “Big on advertising but poor on delivery!“
I would like to point out that Barack Obama had ghost writers for both of his “autobiographies” (sic). So, no he can’t write either or he wouldn’t have had to hire Bill Ayers to write his first book. The ghost writer on the second “auotbiography” has not be disclosed, but it wasn’t Ayers and it most certainly wasn’t Barack Obama.
Jack Cashill and others have pretty clearly demonstrated that you are correct about the author of Obama’s books. It’s sad that so many among the American electorare were so ignorant as to vote for this average clown.
The true definition of a great intellectual is one whose understanding of how the world works is so profound that his ideas foster profound positive changes for humanity. I.e. the proof of great intellectuallism is not an Ivy League pedigree or parroting the fashionable progressive opinions or quoting lots of philosophers. The proof is whether your ideas work.
Ronald Reagan inherited an America of rising inflation and unemployment, whose spirit was collapsing in the face of the seemingly invincible march of international communism/socialism. But after years of self-directed study about the strength inherent in America’s limited government (and giving hundreds of short speeches he wrote himself) he was ready with a program to defeat socialist tyranny in the world and revive and restore America. All the great “intellectuals” ridiculed him as a dangerous dunce – right up until the economy rebounded, tax receipts exploded, and the Soviet Union collapsed.
His ideas worked, because he was a true intellectual. The fake intellectuals hated his guts and never forgave him for being right, because he showed them to be the worthless blood-sucking drones they are. We must, like Reagan, ignore their hysterical crybaby antics and not make them seem more important than they are, and keep our eyes on the road we’re trying to take.
“…as much out of touch with their own country and reality as the French aristocracy was at the time of the revolution there.”
True, that. Regrettably, the Cambridge police won’t allow a Guillotine to be emplaced in Harvard Square. Some sort of Town ordinance. Damnit.
Be sure to keep it a conservative revolution to restore our rights, not a liberal revolution to discover new rights for us. The American Revolution was a conservative one, and it worked. The French Revolution was a liberal one (as was the Russian Revolution) and ended in tyranny.
Oh certainly a Conservative revolution. However, the Guillotine in the square would be a useful reminder, would it not?
Obama: “…a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.”
We can only hope and pray.
He’s an intellectual all right, never had a real job, no practical experience in anything useful and reality eludes him. He is nothing but a street corner hustler with a tele-prompter and a huge ego. We had one of these same charismatic academics in Canada 20 years ago and we are still paying the price.
We had one of these same charismatic academics in Canada 20 years ago and we are still paying the price.
If you’re talking about Pierre Trudeau – and I can’t imagine who else you could mean – he was in power from 1968 (42 years ago) until 1984 (26 years ago) with one brief interruption of 9 months in 1979-1980.
But aside from that nit, you are absolutely right. Trudeau somehow brainwashed an entire generation into believing that every problem is best solved by a new, expensive government bureaucracy, which still seems to be the prevailing philosophy in Canada today.
Time flies, thanks, you’re right, hit the wrong key and pay we still do. Americans unfortunately will not discover the incestuous harm the Obama cancer has caused within the civil service until decades later.
Say it ain’t so ! In elementary school (in the US) we were always taught that Trudeau was a true statesman, an intellectual and a vanguard for the new Canada. His wife was really hot, too !
More lies from the supposed to be intellectual people teaching our children Marxist drivel. Why all of these Marxist ideological fools consider Obama to be so smart would be a mystery if they were not so intellectually bankrupt themselves. Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg thinks a person that can’t even put a coherent sentence together without his teleprompters is a great intellectual. This would be really funny if it weren’t destroying America’s society. God save the children…please!
A true intellectual – translation “a man who thinks he knows better than everybody else even when his grand theories fail to produce practical results of any kind.”
Sometimes they make it almost too easy…
AAAAHAAA!!! Barracky boy is like a blank paper shopping bag; You can put a logo of an expensive store on it to make people think you got some class!!!
“Liberal Arts’ can’t possibly get any more liberal, or surreal and out of touch with reality.
why do these “intellectuals” so eager to place Obama among the ranks of “intellectuals?” The man couldn’t even get coffee orders right for Emil Jones and the rest of the senior democrats in the Illinois legislature when he was state senator…now, all of a sudden, he’s an “intellectual!” LMAO!
Hasn’t anyone considered that Kloppenberg has written a parody of academic discourse? I think this is the most likely explanation. I’ve been saying for years that I’m working on a book tentatively titled: “Sparky Anderson and His Contributions to Western Philosophy.” My chapters will be organized around such philosophical musings as, “What was, was. What is, is. What will be, will be,” and “What was real didn’t happen.” But I was joking and I wonder if that explains Kloppenberg’s book.
His evidence, if he’s making serious contentions, is less than wispy. Obama says something that most of us would take to be rather empty political rhetoric, e.g. we need to learn from experience, and pumps this up to be a great organizing principle of his deep pragmatism. And so forth. If this is serious reflection then “Tuesdays With Morrie” is “the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.”
But academics, if Kloppenberg is indeed serious, are no less susceptible to what is perhaps Obama’s greatest talent, which is the ability to have others see in him what they want to see. I’m not downplaying such a tlanet; most successful politicians have it and Obama seems to be unusually good at it.
I skimmed the book at my local Border’s and have read excerpts and reviews on-line. One of Kloppenberg’s points is that Obama’s unique experience allows him to see various points of view. This could well be true; he can see the point of view of jihadist Muslims, perhaps, but seems notably less sympathetic to the point of view of, say, rural Americans.
Obama as intellectual is similar to Obama the great rhetorician. I’m not saying he isn’t; I’m saying that I haven’t seen any evidence for it. Or, again if Kloppenberg is serious, maybe the president hasn’t been able sufficiently to disguise his stellar intellect and the rest of us simply aren’t catching onto it.
By the way, I do understand the president’s reaction to the mid-term elections that he just hadn’t been able to communicate sufficiently with the American people because goodness knows after his inauguration you hardly saw him on tv, in newsmagazines, radio, and other media. You hardly knew he was there.
Well said, Mr. Rubin. I don’t agree with your views on pragmatism but I do agree that Obama is not an intellectual or a philosopher. And certainly, you are spot on regarding the current state of professors at Harvard. Worth repeating here: “The dominant forces in the intellectual scene have gone nuts. The professors in too many cases have become the village idiots of America, as much out of touch with their own country and reality as the French aristocracy was at the time of the revolution there.”
Adams and Jefferson were the only anti-colonialists whom Obama has been affected by.
I don’t know how any anyone can confidently purport to channel Obama like that & make such a subjective claim. As for the Peace Prize, this writer should be at least marginally aware of the rabid ideological bent of the Nobel committee over many years’ time.
Barack Obama scratched around the dirt of his father’s grave and adopted the “anti-colonialist” dream whole hog. (D’Souza) He got little or nothing from Dad in real time, so (pipe) dreams were about all that got passed along.
Obama embellished those dreams with a fair amount of contempt for the country he purports to lead.
Joe Scarborough’s observations more closely match my own, to wit…
Top Dems in Senate Have All Told Me That “Obama Has No Idea What He’s Doing”
Eco 101 teaches us that any rational thinking consumer is an economist.
I think. Therefore, I am, I think.
Please, someone tell Kloppenberg I’m in town.
I can only wonder what possible benefit will accrue to this wacky prof for this endorsement. I can’t believe he’s serious. Forgive me if i sound egotistical, but my education matches obozo’s and I will be willing to claim I’ve easily read much more. Okay, I haven’t come up with too much wisdom and insight, but at least I admit it.
And, a major point in my favor, I have not hopelessly screwed up any leading democracies.
I can only wonder what possible benefit will accrue to this wacky prof for this endorsement.
I’m guessing that he’s angling for a high government post, an ambassadorship, or maybe a top administration role within his university. Brown-nosing has been used by ambitious people for centuries to secure advancement.
I’m one of those academic types. Obama’s blather would earn an F in any of my classes. Even the remedial ones.
I have a co-worker who is a true intellectual and a decent human being to boot. He’s an expert in U.S. history and international relations, specifically U.S.-African. Because of his excellent work, his name has been mentioned for a possible diplomatic post. He could do much more for U.S.-African relations than the so-called “man of the world” in the White House. If Kloppenberg got a post for slobbering on Obama, and my colleague did not, that would be a huge waste.
I’ve got no problem with the practice of obtaining diplomats from academia, provided they are actually qualified, as your colleague would appear to be.
My problem is with people who aspire to important posts simply on the grounds that they’ve written something flattering about a national leader, as Kloppenberg seems to have done.
I thought that name looked familiar. I took a course with this guy as an undergrad. His historical factbase was quite strong, but I would not say he is a great synthesizer of ideas, nor original in his thinking. He was a mile wide and an inch deep, just like Obama (although smarter than Obama). I don’t think I’d rely on his judgment about who is and isn’t an intellectual now any more than I did when I was 20.
After years of listening to people call Obama an intellectual, I’ve concluded that what they mean is Obama has been exposed to more Marxist and postmodernist theory than any other President. If that’s the standard by which one becomes an intellectual amongst a certain crowd, then Obama’s an intellectual.
Agree with your point about “pragmatism”. My work forces me to be pragmatic in the extreme, so I know pragmatism when I see it. Interesting that as Leftism fails time after time, they’ve drifted from using the rhetoric of idealism toward using the rhetoric of pragmatism to justify their policies, since the true underpinning of their policies, “collectivism”, has proven itself anything but pragmatic, unless by pragmatic you mean “wealth- and life-destroying”. Which, some people do. Go back and read what the old Left said about pragmatism as a reactionary philosophy and you’ll see what I mean.
Ve ri tas my as.
Best response yet!! LMAO
LMAO. Brevity at its best.
This article is way too short to address the idiocy promoted by this particular instructor. The fact that he’s quoted as saying that Obama possesses “a profound love of America,” with no objection by Mr. Rubin shows this to be a first draft and not very comprehensive at that.
To be charitable this author may be the victim of the lag between a publisher’s acceptance of a manuscript and the distribution of the finished product.
The suggestion that ‘teleprompter boy’ might be an intellectual leader is now risible.
Barry Rubin, I take issue with your assertion, “Roosevelt concluded that laissez-faire wouldn’t work, he initiated a series of other efforts, dropping each one if it didn’t measure up.” At no time during FDR’s administration was, “laissez-faire,” in practice. In fact Hoover started messing with the economy, some policies FDR continued. FDR followed Keynesian economics from the very outset, which had no positive effects. A comparison of unemployment and New Deal spending, shows no significant effect from all that stimulus. FDR can be forgiven as he, unlike Obama, was in uncharted waters.
George Orwell: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
Ummm, teleprompters have two purposes: as a visual script for someone to read, like with giving an introduction at an awards show or such; or as visual notes for a speech, to both make sure the main points are covered within in the time allocated, and to keep down on rambling, not quite on point side tours. When really bright and well-informed people in general get on a topic they feel any passion about, discussions can run for hours. Obama has always been obviously a bright, intellectual guy, and I bet that if he wasn’t the President, but just some random dude sitting nearby in a pub who joined in on a bar discussion, you would probably think he was a really, really smart, well-informed guy — and that it’s just too bad guys like that never run for office these days because of all the ugly politics….
Ummmm…since Obama constantly orchestrates and adjusts his speaking for the individual audience, since he’s pretty much an empty suit saying what a particular audience wants to hear, he is reliant on the teleprompter in order to keep to a particular script.
When he falls away from a script, for example, slips up and tells Hispanics they’d better vote Democrat to combat their “enemy” or gets into arguments with hecklers, he looks and sounds like an angry dolt, which is, decidedly, what he’d like to avoid.
Ummmm…The Indians (the India Indians) pride themselves on extemporaneous speaking and noted their surprise that the American President was shipping a teleprompter to their country (on its own airplane, no less) for his public speaking there.
Correction: noted their surprise that the American President was shipping a teleprompter to their country (on its own airplane, no less) for his public
speakingreading there.“Ummm”, “… just some random dude…” tok tok.
“Ummm”, BitChie has “two purposes:”
… “as a” reminder “for someone to” know what it is “like with giving” all to a Mr. President who has rolled and rejected a BitChie “or such”, “or as visual notes for a “But Crack, “to both make sure the main” Crack is “down” with “rambling, not quite on point side tours.” Tok tok.
“Ummm”, “double-dawg” hotdawgs and mustard! Coming up!
BC
“I’m a pathetic case of a moron. Card-carrying communist.”
November 10, 2010 – 2:22 pm
BC
“I’m stupid and gullible.”
November 10, 2010 – 2:24 pm
“… the ugly politics…”
“…too bad guys like that never run for office these days because of all the ugly politics….”
BC
“Your turn. I double-dawg dare you. Surely over a 30 yr period, it should be easy find just 2 examples of Republicans saying or doing something honest and smart.”
October 29, 2010 – 4:08 pm
BC
“Also, if some malicious, idiotic and completely baseless rumor is rampaging through the Internet, I would prefer that someone says that it’s only a some malicious, idiotic and completely baseless rumor…”
October 30, 2010 – 5:58 pm
Your preference is a reality.
Goldstein is not inside your head. At the moment.
BC and Mr. Lucky have become soulmates. Donald Duck and Daffy Duck.
How nice of you to drop in Born sleazits as, Whomever. Are you dissing Brother But Crack? Where’s that old solidarity that Modern Liberal artifacts are so renown for? Well, much like Mr. President, dumping old used up But Cracks seems to be all the rage.
And how interesting, the once belligerent and naughty Persons Galore is reduced to pecking on the margins for “Hey lookies”, much like a NYT columnist without JournoList Love. Keep it short and sour Persons Galore, otherwise, well, you know all too well how you look.
Behavior modification in action. Modern Liberals seem to so susceptible; you know, the need be allegedly cute and intellectual around their Cesspool equals. Really, “think” about it. After all, it is Modern Liberal dogma (hi Kyber) that none shall rise above the other. Bark bark!
So cut BitChie some slack. It has only recently had to contend with looking at what it is. And unlike Persons Galore, it is not a Liar. No Kick Me sign nailed to its ass either.
Whatever.
Frustrating, isn’t it?
As if it isn’t frustrating enough that you’re being ridiculed and heckled by someone that you can’t see, hear or identify, all that you’ve got for ammunition to fight your mysterious heckler are blanks which are ineffective on your unknown, ghostly heckler.
Why don’t you try a crucifix and garlic? That might work. Better still, see a shrink.
Yeah, ghost, I know what you mean. He can’t get it up with me either.
Not that I would know if he could. He keeps buying more and more extensions for hiis Extendz, and he still can’t find it.
How nice of you to drop in Born sleazits as, Whomever. Are you dissing Brother But Crack? Where’s that old solidarity that Modern Liberal artifacts are so renown for? Well, much like Mr. President, dumping old used up But Cracks seems to be all the rage.
And how interesting, the once belligerent and naughty Persons Galore is reduced to pecking on the margins for “Hey lookies”, much like a NYT columnist without JournoList Love. Keep it short and sour Persons Galore, otherwise, well, you know all too well how you look.
Behavior modification in action. Modern Liberals seem to so susceptible; you know, the need be allegedly cute and intellectual around their Cesspool equals. Really, “think” about it. After all, it is Modern Liberal dogma (hi Kyber) that none shall rise above the other. Bark bark!
So cut BitChie some slack. It has only recently had to contend with looking at what it is. And unlike Persons Galore, it is not a Liar. No Kick Me sign nailed to its ass either.
Whatever.
Effective today, it is official: From now on, the loony comments of BC and Mr. Lucky will be required reading for all psychiatrists (and child psychologists) everywhere. Please initial their comments after you have read them. For obvious reasons, we want to monitor you closely, too.
Whoa, can’t argue with that logic. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It seems I have a bit of a fan club here. How nice. It’s a bit demented, but this is a right wing website so….
-The real BC
-The real BC????
Of course BitChie. Chuck Manson has a fan club too. Welcome to popularity!
But But Crack, there is a request that you submit a Crack Print, and be X-Rayed by Mr. President’s freedom loving Homeland Security Unit, Janet N. This will confirm the existence of Goldstein-in-head, Mr. President’s latest intellectual squeeze, thereby proving, something. However…
Mr. President would do it himself, but Mrs. President might get mad.
“Ummm”, But Crack,
Is sleazits inside your head?
Goldstein can be anything you desire.
To Mr. Lucky: Wow, you’re so brave to stand up to BC, who’s your superior in every way. Can we meet and in engage in improper behavior?
Plagiarized the “Hey lookie” phrase from someone else’s post at 8:57 a.m. because you’re too stupid to come up with your own clever material, eh dummy?
In addition to which you felt compelled to let us know that, besides being a retard, you’re a neurotic degenerate with an inferiority complex, also?
Must have touched a nerve here. The Vanity Nerve?
the ghost in your computer
“As if it isn’t frustrating enough that you’re being ridiculed and heckled by someone that you can’t see, hear or identify, all that you’ve got for ammunition to fight your mysterious heckler are blanks which are ineffective on your unknown, ghostly heckler.”
\November 13, 2010 – 8:24 pm
Oh you poor things, Born sleazits BitChie But Crack etc. Breaking out a six pack of Personalities in one go. Looks like a new Cesspool Record! Why, one might conclude that the Funhouse Mirror and the Twilight Zone Dummy are simply full of rage, and have no place else to go. Ok, flush! There’s no place like home.
You know, in times of trouble, you do need “friends”. Look at all of them Personalities rally around the Cesspool and toss in dead flowers and cheap dollar bills! Feel better?
Beware, some of the “friends” may be tilting away. Check for excessive tea usage and refusal to partake in communal sewage guzzling training. Modern Liberals can get very mad a just the drop of a non-dogma. Hi Kyber! The backstabbing is normal. Check out Mr. President’s staff.
And all the rarified tok tok about religion, mental states, physical attributes and that ever present Modern Liberal “Might Work” Solution to Everything. See a shrink with garlic crucifix, and get an erection. Girls too?
“Why don’t you try a crucifix and garlic? That might work. Better still, see a shrink”.
“He keeps buying more and more extensions for hiis Extendz…”
Don’t you think your collective time might be better spent trying to save Mr. President? It is understood, the hurt, and how The Persons Galore Unit got a little Stimulus Cut, polished up the Cesspool railing, and guess what? Mr. President didn’t show up. Did the Teleprompter come and flush once if yellow?
Now, Mr. President has dumped you all, and still keeps Guantanamo open. How come? No kidding, no trials yet, really. And those drones? No, not the ones fooled in ’08, the ones with bombs.
Mr. President is just trying to be famous. Ask the Asians. Persons Galore should understand that. Anything goes, except the truth. Those white on blue Rolled and Discarded buttons on the Che T-shirts look great too! Or is that brown on blue?
Goldstein is doing a damn good job. Multitasking no less!
In time, the hurt will go away. Greasy gin will help. Putting heads into a pre Mr. President T-shirt and crying is being done by Modern Liberals in groups.
Yeah, it does cause the T-shirt to fade…
There’s always the Kick Me sign riveted to your asses. No, it’s not appropriate to put Mr. president’s picture there.
Whatever.
To Hey lookie ….: Why certainly, sir. Let’s also invite the “Re: Post at 11:25 pm on 11/13/10″ dude as well — he also sounds like our kind of improper individual, and three’s a party.
“Dude”? “Dude”? “Dude”! Duuuuuudddud!!!!
As Mr. Tyler might say “Dude Looks Like a Liar”.
Sure, a party sounds fine. You bring Mr. President. And he’ll bring the gold plated Pin the Tail on the Donkey setup.
Don’t get too loaded, Mr. President has been known to look in the pockets of others for loose change.
Remember, don’t bring over $250K!
Where is Born Senseless? There?
Clang! The kick’s away!
Whatever.
To Mr. Lucky: Yo, don’t forget the KY or else you might not be Mr. Lucky.
Does anybody know what that fool is babbling about? What a psycho.
Several days ago on Charlie Rose’s show on PBS, Kloppenberg was asked who had the greatest influence on Obama’s thinking. He said that it was the Rev. Wright, Obama’s pastor, who brought to Obama’s attention the preachings of the Social Gospel,and I would add — though Kloppenberg didn’t — Black liberation theology. Rose unfortunately didn’t pursue this line of questioning. But the fact that Wright, according to Klopppenberg, had the greatest impact in shaping Obama’s mind and world view gives the lie, I believe, to Koppenberg’s argument.
From the New York Times link in the final paragraph, our knowledgeable professor explains to us:
“Adams and Jefferson were the only anti-colonialists whom Obama has been affected by,” he told the audience in New York. “He has a profound love of America.”
From Dreams From My Father, page 100:
So Franz Fanon, whom Obama discussed and probably read when he was a college student, was not an anti-colonialist who influenced Obama? Our oh-so-knowledgeable professor is either an blithering ignoramus or a deceitful liar.
There is a passage in Dreams From My Father, where Obama discusses the Kansas side of his family.
Yup, Obama has “a profound love of America,” according to the professor. According to Obama, Kansas -and by extension the US- is a place of “conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty.” At best this passage shows that Obama has rather ambivalent feelings about this country, to go along with the “profound love” that the professor claims. Our oh-so-knowledgeable professor is either an blithering ignoramus or a deceitful liar.
On top of it all… it’s drivel! And drivel probably written Bill Ayers.
You got a couple things wrong in this article…. Obama does quote from some very intelligent friends….. William Ayers,Bernadine Dhorn,Jeremiah Wright….do I need to continue?
Nothing new here. According to the academic left, among presidents I can remember, the meme has generally been: Democrats are smart; Republicans are stupid.
Ike was portrayed as a bumbling but affable fool. Kennedy was all about “Camelot”, his “charming” family, and what a “smart young fellow”. Nixon was an exception to the rule – they grudgingly respected his brains but he was “evil”. Ford was another affable fool. Carter was “brilliant” and a “true intellectual”. Reagan was “stupid” and “not a hands-on president”. GHWB was “stupid”. Clinton was “brilliant” and married to “the smartest woman in the world” – we got a twofer there. And, of course, we all know how they portrayed GWB.
The pattern speaks more to the lack of analytic depth and partisan stupidity of the academic left than than do the evaluations to those they evaluate.
Excellent analysis and comments.We need to have many of the posters face off against Kos’ Kids or the HuffPo crew.
I’ve engaged the morons on the Puffington Host and whenever the censors feel I’ve gotten their measure they simply fail to post my contribution. It is not a society enamored with the free expression of ideas. They prefer censorship to debate.
President Obama is so “intellectual” he cannot think on his feet & is dependent on several teleprompters to function; in other words, he’s not an intellectual at all, but a glorified newsreader.
What he is reading is not news it is propaganda and failed policies of old communists and dictators!
I get the feeling Obama made it through school on Cliff Notes. But I suppose he is an intellectual, if by intellectual you mean someone who thinks reality gets in the way of ideas.
So-called “progressives” portray themselves as the “intellectual” elite, although they appear to be bereft of any real knowledge or understanding of the great ideas which were the seedbed of Ameria’s successful 200-year experiment in liberty.
Today’s liberals, especially those who identify themselves as “progressives,” with all of their domination of academia and Far Left politics, seem to fit into a category described in an essay by T.S. Eliot on Virgil:
“In our time, when men seem more than ever to confuse wisdom with knowledge and knowledge with information and to try to solve the problems of life in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism which perhaps deserves a new name. It is a provincialism not of space but of time–one for which history is merely a chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and have been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no share.”
Without intellectual anchoring in the enduring ideas which provided the philosophical foundation of America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution, their vain imaginations of superiority only expose their limited world view.
Yet, the America which rose from obscurity to greatness, from crude hoes and axes to putting a man on the moon, and from oppression by King George to a symbol of liberty for millions all over the world–that America provides shelter for them, even as they attempt to “change” her into something unimagined by the Founders.
If they are allowed to succeed in their own little provincial experiment, their posterity never will know the “blessings of Liberty” proclaimed by the Preamble to America’s Constitution.
Now would be a good time for conservatives to read Dr. Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind, which can be read online, by the way.
In Kirk’s last chapter he reviews the works of poets and writers, quoting lines which now seem to bear a strikinig resemblance to the players on the stage in American politics today.
For instance, in Robert Frost’s “A Case for Jefferson,” Frost writes of the character Harrison:
“Harrison loves my country too
But wants it all made over new.
. . . .
He dotes on Saturday pork and beans.
But his mind is hardly out of his teens.
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it made over new.”
Yes, the pseudointellectuals who occupy the White House, the media, academia and much of Congress fancy themselves “intellectuals.”
By their words and actions, however, they display that provinciality Dr. Kirk recalled as having been described by Eliot (see above) as being one of time and place, having no intellectual grounding in ideas older than their own little experience in dabbling and discussing Mao, Marx, and other theoreticians. That may explain their eagerness to use Alinsky tactics in their attempts to “impose” their theories on fellow citizens.
America’s written Constitution deserves protectors whose minds are out of their “teens” in terms of their understanding of civilization’s long struggle for liberty.
It certainly deserves protectors who do not consider it a “flawed” document because that Constitution does not permit the government it structures to run rough shod over the rights of its “KEEPERS, the People” (Justice Story).
Blasting it “all to smithereens” seems to be the goal of the Far Left which currently has control of the Executive and Legislative branches of the government.
Professor Kloppenberg and all of his fellows rely on what they must believe to be the ignorance of the American people when they make such ridiculous claims. They have been outwitted, however, by an increasingly knowledgeable citizenry who are using the miracles of technology to study for themselves ancient and modern writings on the ideas of liberty versus those of tyranny. As Jefferson wisely observed:
“History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.”
Wow, loveliberty, what an impressive post. Thanks for the Eliot and Frost quotes and the reference to Kirk’s work.
What did you expect? They voted for this guy.
It would be very discomfiting to believe that one had voted for a glib lightweight. Therefore, Obama must be an intellectual, facts and job performance notwithstanding.
It’s channelling John Kerry. “I can’t believe I lost to this idiot.”
Obama did, after all, go to the right schools. That doesn’t apply to Bush, but consistency is not a strength of our self-anointed, self-appointed superiors.
These are the same people who gave Bernie Madoff their money. Not nearly as smart as they believe themselves to be.
Calling Obama an “Intellectual” and a “Philosopher” is like calling Kim Kardashian a great thespian. And this dummy from harvard *knows* it. There has been not a single shred of evidence of Obama having even an IQ approaching anything close to ‘average’ (although that might be the case).
His books were written by a criminal, his speeches are written by other bunch of criminals, and spoonfed to him by teleprompter. His academic records from KG onwards have been actively sealed at the expense of millions of dollars. His UChicago lectures, i have never seen in print or on the web. In short there is nothing out there from which to judge his “intellectual gifts” other than these sychophants in media and academia who keeps repeating that unverifiable nonsense. Furthermore, if you hear him talk *without* teleprompter and/or pre-arranged q/a format, he sounds so incoherent and helpless that one can draw a conclusion that he may be suffering from Down’s syndrome or he may even be retarded.
At any rate, a ‘philosopher president’ a la Plato, is the *last* thing this Republic needs. We need a John Wayne who can kick ass abroad and be nothing more than a clerk at home. (for those who didn’t know, it was Plato who started this whole business of Leftism and Statism in a civilized society – may he rot in hell.)
All these liberal elites who call themselves intellectuals would call big O a philosopher. It only gives philosophy and philosophers a very bad name!!! Of course Harvard is the castles of these pseudo-intellectuals. No wonder they praise and put O on a pedestal to worship. Before his term expires, he would be declared a prophet by these fools!!1
Well, Plato’s philosopher king seems to be the meme they, including Obama, are going with. The all knowing ruler whom the little people just don’t understand, whom they can’t fathom, who will force what if for “their best” upon the sailors of the ship of state. Guess it is logical given that Obama has been Plato’s golden child, lifted up from his non-ruling class beginnings to be raised among “guardians”.
So in a way, this is the perfect summation of Obama by the “philosopher” steeped in readings of ancient texts yet devoid of critical thinking that might disagree with what they are fed by their departments.
No wonder he’s complaining about being treated “like a dog”, he’s suddenly “a philosopher”! Although if he really was, he would be used to the dog treatment.
The standards are low, only believe in an unlimited central government and you are at least smart, or better, an intellectual. Agreement with this simplistic bar qualifies you for those categories. It’s a measure of how far we have slid in our culture. The fool Obama after the recent election was babbling about the need to communicate more, that is, campaign. It’s all the fool knows & the fact that he said it indicates stupidity and possible looming derangement.
How far have we come down that our only standard of intelligence and learning is an overreaching, bloated and inherently corrupt federal government.
Also, the left seems to have a need to be led by some form of de-facto royalty. They are natural serfs. It must be in their DNA. The so-called intellectuals like Kloppenburg aspire to the palace guard, and can’t abide being led by someone less brilliant than they see themselves to be. The commoners eat it up. So they manufacture this B.S. to reinforce their preconceived notions about what a leader they elect should be and what the opposition should be. And they do it without evidence. Where is Obama’s academic transcript? Where are his writings? What lofty academic position did he hold? (I took Con Law in law school and know the liberal trope these lecturers peddle; con law lecturer without more – and con it often is – even at University of Chicago Law, is weak support to any claim for intellectual heft, though there are some scholars on both the left and right.)
It doesn’t stop with presidents. Gore, a C student, was “smarter”, in 2000, than GWB; ditto Kerry in 2004.
Wow, a book about how brilliant Obama is! Anything new or different from the daily musings of the MSM? Perhaps Harvard is trying to repair its reputation, Obama has damaged the brand.
Keith Richards’ book is worth picking up as is anything by Eric Hoffer.
However, if the Harvard Book includes Obama’s transcripts and original written material, I’ll pick it up. He may yet be proven effing brilliant, I’m going to need more evidence to be persuaded.
Why would any parent want to pay for their child to attend a joke of a university like harvard? My how fast a once great institution can descend into the depths of uselessness. harvard’s ‘intellectuals’ are disgusting and have been for some time.
People from the U of Chicago Law School who took the measure of Obama say that he was able to feign intellectualism, but that he wasn’t an intellectual. I think D’Souza’s book gives him altogether too much credit for being an anti-colonialist. Those attitudes, extracted from their intellectual bases, are the stock in trade of any superficial liberal arts education.
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm– but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
— T. S. ELiot
Mr. E said it better than I ever could.
The Great Telepromptikator is the “Philosopher President?” Plato and Cicero are rolling in their graves.
So Obama is an intellectual?
We are well and fully screwed.
One of the first things that struck me about Obama during his campaign was his constant use of the straw man to make his case.
This practice has continued right on up until now.
Anybody who has taken a basic logic class should be able to see that Obama uses this technique in almost every major speech he has given.
‘True Intellectuals’ don’t need a false and non-existent opposing argument to prop up their ideas.
The David Hampton President.
Six Degrees of Separation–The plot of the play was inspired by the real-life story of David Hampton, a con man who managed to convince a number of people (NY intellectual elites) in the 1980s that he was the son of actor Sidney Poitier.
He’s a con. That’s all he is.
“There’s a mark born every minute, and one to trim ‘em and one to knock ‘em”.
Obama is no more an intellectual than the last Democrat “intellectual” the lefty intellectuals swooned over: Adlai Stevenson.
This is way too funny.
And at the same time it is tragically sad.
I didn’t realize that one must be a mental midget to become an intellectual!
Much of the US population repudiated this President’s policies on November 2.
Obama’s reaction ? He thinks we just don’t grasp the science, the reason, don’t grasp his own enormous wisdom in setting about reconfiguring this country. He argues that he and his administration were so busy doing stuff that there has been a failure to “communicate”, a failure to properly inform We The Dumb Peeps, maintaining that despite near constant tee vee exposure and his 10 million (slight exaggeration) speeches on “healthcare”.
Now, at the G-20 in Seoul, a hefty portion of the (so called) international community has repudiated Obama’s economic measures, his deficit spending/monetizing of debt & accompanying dollar devaluation.(George Soros is cool with dollar devaluation, by the way)
It would seem that Germany and all the other dissenting countries simply don’t get the science and the reason, either.
Tant pis, say the French.
Still waiting for the brilliance…
Sorry to disappoint you but it ain’t gonna happen! There is just no anything there. We have in office the definition of the Peter Principle.
Of course even with just scanning his accomplishments you should already know that, with no experience in anything worthwhile!
As for Obama – he might be or might not be – who knows? Who knows anything about the ‘great cypher’.
But how can one write an ‘intellectual biography’ on a man who has NO writings and NO published lectures?
By that standard, I propose to write the ‘intellectual biography’ of my dog.
The only thing the book accomplishes is to reveal exactly how foolish academia has become.
Mr. Kloppenberg has made himself into a laughingstock who will live in infamy. The poor man will be known for centuries as the epitome of Obamamania, the disease that nearly brought down the United States of America.
His name may even become a new word:
“to Kloppenberg” – to adulate a cult figure after the rest of the world has realized how dangerous and deluded the figure actually is.
proreason – absolutely perfect description: “to Kloppenberg” – to adulate a cult figure after the rest of the world has realized how dangerous and deluded the figure actually is.”
Many thanks. It must be used again as it defines the mindset of those who adulate Obama.
Even if President B-O is really an intellectual (which I doubt, but let’s assume it solely for the sake of the argument), I have a good answer for his qualifications to be President:
From, of course, the ever-quotable WFB.
Kloppenberg’s puff-piece has the stench of a closet communist supporting a fellow closet communist. Seriously, I bet a little detective work would reveal Kloppenberg’s political affiliation. It’s usually pretty obvious in how they write, who they associate with, and where they go to school — Harvard.
Maybe Kloppenberg was paid to write such a book, an attempt by those who groomed and financed Barry for the oval office to recapture the “magic.”
Sorry to be such a philistine, I never believed that millions and millions of readers purchased The Won’s autobiographies, either. How hard would it be for some big bucks backer to order Barry’s books by the boatload, and bung them into a warehouse or landfill?
Instant best seller!
Yeah, right. Somebody hand me a mirror…I wanna’ see if I really look that stupid…
I never believed that millions and millions of readers purchased The Won’s autobiographies, either. How hard would it be for some big bucks backer to order Barry’s books by the boatload, and bung them into a warehouse or landfill?
There are precedents for that. I remember hearing that Brian Epstein used that exact technique to help his most famous clients, the Beatles, very early in their career. He (or various friends) went to British record stores and bought up all available copies of their recordings to get them on the charts and build up a buzz about them.
Of course the stories aren’t precisely parallel: the Beatles were actually very good at what they did, unlike Obama.
In obama, we see the product of political correctness (mind control) and affirmative action (government sponsored discrimination). The results are not pretty. Considering the damage he has done, and likely will do, to our country, I hope we have learned a lesson which will prove to have been very expensive.
What liberals write and say about anything—particularly in regard to Obama—should always be used to create a teachable moment for the majority of young adults who are still inclined to take liberalism a bit too seriously. One would rather not see young people waste an obscenely large portion of their lives flirting with liberal ideas and causes before commonsense sets in. As for the people who never made the critical transition and have now grown too old to make it their investment in Obama is understandable. Their growing hysteria over what he is doing to, and likely to do to, the Democratic Party is almost pitiable, almost, that is. So, they write nonsense books extolling his almost invisible virtues. And, in a fit of extreme hyperbole, one lib writer even proclaims him to be a philosopher-king—such an insulting claim to make. And also a complete waste of time. The moment Obama was elected the Democratic Party’s fate was sealed.
This has to be the BEST and most classic example of the viral spread of “relativism” in our society in the modern age.
This exact same socially accepted intellectual relativism by self proclaimed intellectual elites preceded the ascension of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany prior to WWII as National Socialism (Nazis) took political power.
That denial of long established intellectual norms and acceptance of equally long established faults in critical thinking was a turning point for Germany and the world.
The Emperor has no clothes!
Wait… did I see some love for Bill Clinton in this post?
One additional note to my #45:
The creation of this “intellectual” image has been in the works for a time now, of course. Those who read Rubin’s piece about Kloppenberg’s intended book might want to visit the following site for a glimpse of the program and participants of an April 2002 Conference in Chicago.
http://www.uic.edu/classes/las/las400/conferencealt.htm
It is called, “Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?”
“A public gathering sponsored by The Center for Public Intellectuals &
the University of Illinois-Chicago”
A clue: three of the leaders in a session called “Intellectuals in Times of Crisis” are Bernadine Dohrn, William Ayers, and Barack Obama.
Good find. If those three are poster children for “intellectuals,” we are in a sorry state.
When Obama accepted his Nobel, the same junket he’d petitioned and failed to get the ’16 Olympic games to the U.S., he’d amde it known that he wrote part of his Nobel acceptance speech.
You’d think one as ‘intellectually gifted’ as Obama would write his own speech, as well as MANY other speeches.
Instead, Obama allows a then 27 year old Jon Favreau write a majority of his teleprompter, ‘groundbreaking’ speeches. Hmmm, I wonder why Obama’s speeches are so vague and historically inaccurate.. hahahaha
Not to mention then 23 year old Favreau CORRECTED Obama behind stage of the 2004 DNC when rehearsing his keynote address.
Again, I ‘assumed’ with this ‘brilliant orator’ then 43 year old man there’d be little assistance needed. Riiiight.
~ Stay asleep. Consume. Obey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA8drfZwnXQ&feature=related
So, President Obama is a philosopher, one of the intellectual elite! If so, he provides no evidence of it. He cannot speak intelligently without the teleprompter, looking first right, then left, never looking at his audience. When he speaks without the teleprompter, his words are halting, at times crude, and usually accompanied by lengthy pauses while he stumbles for the right word.
To paraphrase Hercule Poirot: “I do not approve of intellectuals.”
Authentic or fraud. Come to that, I am of the opinion that the line between the authentic and a sociopath is possibly imaginary.
Now, wise men (and, yes, women *sigh*) I can accept. Brilliant, genius, savant, thoughtful, 99th percentile on an IQ test – all that I can believe in. But the designation “intellectual” leaves little sooty footprints wherever it goes – and death follows after.
So, even though I am no fan of Obama, I would not insult him by calling him an intellectual. The danger would come in him accepting that badge as one of honor.
“But the designation “intellectual” leaves little sooty footprints wherever it goes – and death follows after.”
Wow ! That’s frickin’ brilliant. I’m serious. I’m stealing that line.
Well, Barry, I suppose the first order of business would be to define what an “intellectual” is.
If by “intellectual” we mean a beard stroking, member of the NYTimes socialist cheese nibbler cult, then…fine, let’s allow them the self-delusion of being in the “intellectual” club.
However, Joe Scarboroough says that 7 main power Democratic Senators say Obama is in over his head. Mark Halperin has intimated that the entire administration is out of its class, can’t handle the job.
There are zero honors stemming from any academic work in high school, at Occidental or at Columbia. So when, precisely, did Obama become and “intellectual”. When he was granted unearned entry into Harvard or the previous unearned entry in Columbia?
Look we elected a class president, not a US President. The media hid all his flaws and frailties, elevated him to Mount Olympus status and buried every relevant fact about his ties to far left wacko “tear down the system” lunacy.
This latest piece of craptastic fantasy is simply more of the same.
Not sure if Obama is a philosopher – but if he is, he’s got the wrong philosophy – like Karl Marx. But unfairly as it may seem Obama has the opportunity to become a great president – which is better than a philosopher – by heeding the advice of a piece called “The Nation Needs a Fairy Tale”.
They say “the president should bring his up till now extended campaign of 2008 to an end by the only way possible and credible – announcing that he would not run for president in 2012″ and by this way heal the nation and bring it back to growth and power. This would be the action of a great man not a philosopher. Read all at http://www.robbingaamerica.com
Not sure if Obama is a philosopher – but if he is, he’s got the wrong philosophy – like Karl Marx. But unfairly as it may seem Obama has the opportunity to become a great president – which is better than a philosopher – by heeding the advice of a piece called “The Nation Needs a Fairy Tale”.
They say “the president should bring his up till now extended campaign of 2008 to an end by the only way possible and credible – announcing that he would not run for president in 2012″ and by this way heal the nation and bring it back to growth and power. This would be the action of a great man not a philosopher. Read all at http://www.robbingamerica.com
To be fair he probably is an intellectual to the soft degree professors at Harvard. But then they set a low bar for everyone.
Pinning politician to the coattails of any of the founders is a disservice to the founders.
The founders never looked for reward, if they had they could have awarded themselves and many lost everything in the struggle for independence. Compare that to the me first politicians today.
I would call this the soft bigotry of overblown expectations.
One just wonders how much “stimulus” money did this guy get to write such nonsense.
A true BLT Marxist, and Global citizen.
Really what hope is there for America given that the next generation’s leadership will come from Harvard/Princeton/Yale where the bright boys and girls have learned well the lesson that the slightest deviation from orthodox marxism equals career death?
Here is a link to the excerpt published in Harvard Magazine:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/11/a-nation-arguing-with-its-conscience
I hoped, as did another writer here, that this was satire. Alas.
-PB
I am my college professor’s favorite pupil. He calls himself a “philosophical progressive” (whatever that means) and he tells wonderful stories about Mao Zedong and how deeply spirtual it is to become a Progressive. He told us not to pay any attention to those horrible rumors that the Conservatives preach to us about Brother Mao’s murder of 60 million. I know it’s a lie, that’s what a girl on Facebook said. After all, President Obama had a Mao ornamate hanging fron the White House Christmas tree, right on cool. After learning all of these new political ideas, I went out and got the latest Che Guevara t-shirt. It is so rad. My professor went to Harvard like Obama did so I know he loves Che too. My professor said Hollywood helped to revive another leftist martyr but my uncle (who was in the Army) said Hollywood has dutifully churned out yet another cinematic agitprop paean and that I should read to try to discern why many supposedly democratic, civil libertarian liberals still swoon over this Stalinist mass-murderer. What ever that means, later dude.
Look people, the “Anointed One” makes his chess move’s and us babbling humans need to realize that the unbelieving conspiracy “heathen” understate the issues when they say that Obama is a radical. Alas, they know not the secrets we are all going to witness. The “Anointed One” is amazing, he takes the people at the highly efficient Post Office and sends them right over to the Student Loan Program. The “Anointed One” knows all. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the Obama mega-money-raising engine whirred on at high speed, until the result became inevitable: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the “Anointed One.”
I am not surprised to hear these stinking lies about our “Anointed One,” it should be apparent to anyone that this was coming down the pike. I do have a couple questions about future process steps concerning these developments? When the “Annointed One” decides to start bar-coding everyone, will we get to decide if the mark is on our hand or forehead? Allot of people will prefer the hand, (especially women of course), unless your a porn actress or something along those lines. Also, my girlfriend was wondering if the Administration will be getting fashion advice from Hollyweird or the New York City crowd? We are both agree that the Administration “Maoies” as the “Anointed One ” so lovingly calls them,will be getting uniforms similar to the SS uniforms in Germany in WW2. With big letters abreviating “Barack’s Socialists.” So shall we start calling them the BS?
A “philosopher president”? Well, in this day and age, that would require the correct CREDENTIALS. And THAT would require a doctoral degree. Which Obama does not have. People often refer to him as “Professor” Obama, but in fact he has only “earned” the status of “Lecturer” in the realm of Academia — or “The Academy” as we are wont to term it — sniff! So, as “philosopher” presidents go, this one is rather under-qualified — Not that there’s anything wrong with that! — But, seriously, the man is not tenured, so really, I think that we all need to calm down and just look at this guy. Has he written a Master’s thesis? No. Has he penned a dissertation? Mmmm, negative. Has he ever published in a refereed academic journal? Nope. So what is the basis for referring to him as a “philosopher president”? I can’t imagine. But perhaps his teleprompter deserves the accolade.
Obama doesn’t need any stinking credentials. When he reads-uh-I mean speaks his usual condescending sophomoric drivel-uh-I mean wisdom, he truly believes he is dispensing revealed wisdom. Not wisdom that has been revealed to him, but what he believes is wisdom being revealed BY him to a bunch of inferior folks. Why would one with such innate superiority need credentials?
If Obama is an intellectual then I’m Albert freakin’ Einstein. He is nothing more than a man/child that was abandoned early by his father. Then after dragging him to a third-world country to hook up with another man, his mother gave him up to his grandparents to raise, who promptly allowed a Marxist pedophile to mentor him. He has been mentored, handled and groomed all his life to believe he was the brightest bulb in the drawer, without actually accomplishing anything of merit his whole, pathetic life. Limbaugh is correct when he says that when he enters a room Obama is the least experienced person there on any subject.
Perhaps this Harvard professor stumbled upon those mysterious Harvard Review articles rumored to have been penned by his tingle-inducing subject during one of the professor’s forrays into the bowels of some long-forgotten, dusty storeroom and thereby became privy to the brilliance of mind that remains elusive to the rest of us poor slobs who must merely painfully listen to its halting, “uhmmm”-filled teleprompter-less attempts at spoken communication.
Otherwise, to consider a so-called “Constitutional law professor” to be an intellectual when the man cannot (will not) even properly quote the most sacred words of the Declaration of Independence means the real purpose of this book will be found in using its pages to line the bird cage. Though I can personally find less expensive sources of paper for this.
Lost me at: “…. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton were pragmatists ….”
Frank Roosevelt, whose favorite “uncle,” (as is confirmed by both his words and his actions — and whose “administration” was more richly larded with Soviet agents than, to this day, is the State Department’s bastard offspring of Alger Hiss et al descended Socialist International-subordinate brahmanas) — was a Woodrow Wilson/Mussolini-modeled modified Marxist of the Buraq Hussayn bin Buraq Hussayn bin Hussayn Ubama gangster-government variety. Roosevelt, that is, was effectively a definitive fascist.
As – with the partial exception of the more fundamentally-Marxist Truman Gang – has been every subsequent “Democratic” National Socialist Workers’ potty “administration.”
And the recidivist, treasonous, perjurious, lying, looting, thieving, mass-murdering, co-serial-rapist, impeached and disbarred Billy-Bubbah Blythe (“Cli’ton”) was merely a luster after power and as such was and remains as amorally willing as is any other means-to-an-end modified Marxist to do whatever was necessary to achieve and/or to retain power. And/or – the power lust being a noxious weed that flourishes only in the vacant lots of as such empty minds as are Mister Blythe’s and his co-serial-rapist spouse’s – to hang onto the illusion of power.
That the means to those ends included that Mister Blythe signed the Gingrich Congress’s legislation into law — and/or that he continues to take unearned and undeserved credit for having done so — does not Mister Billy-Bubbah Blythe a pragmatist make!
…. whose favorite “uncle,” (as is confirmed by both his words and his actions) was Joe Stalin ….
If Obama is a philosopher king so is Donald Duck. So much for the deep insight of the so called intellectual elite in the US who think they know best. LOL
this is what happens when competition is stymied
the “intellectuals” are all tenured (no competition for job) and any skills that were developed begin to atrophy the second you stop honing them
this is why the libs are about to receive another roundhouse to their narcissistic noggins in the next couple of years
just look at these threads all over the internet— the libs cant argue, they can only name call and try to misdirect
while those of us on the other side have had to get down and dirty and really refine and clarify what we believe
the bottom line is a darwinian drubbing in the near future
Everyone has to read the review of this article by Professor John E. S. Lawrence (Columbia School of International and Public Affairs);
The angst that Kloppenberg’s interpretation arouses (as exhibited by many of these comments) is analagous to a teabag reflex evident throughout America. Obama comes from a different place than many Americans (I’ve visited his school in Jakarta and talked to his teachers) and is trying – not yet very successfully – to take us all to a different space in negotiative democracy, with a style more neo-African than typically western. I am often reminded of Mandela’s smile, or Graca Machel’s sharp intellectual calm, or Kofi Annan’s diminutive grace. This is for me an entirely new concept of male leadership which is extraordinary, and Kloppenberg is the only one I have seen trying to break this code…
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/11/a-nation-arguing-with-its-conscience?page=1#comments
I am often reminded of…Kofi Annan’s diminutive grace.
Is he reminded of Kofi Annan’s inept stewardship at “The UN” over 7 years’ time or intimations of Kofi and son Kojo’s corrupt dalliances in Oil For Fraud…aka Oil For Food ?
Sheesh. Obama is like a 20 year old without a fully developed frontal lobe.
What are the odds that every Democrat President for the last 100 years has been a brilliant philosopher king, ( Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Obama ) while every Republican President over the same period( Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Dubya. ) has been intellectually challenged at best? Anyone have a number for that?
George Orwell said once “that there are some things so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.” From that I think we can conclude that an “intellectual” is merely a subspecies of that which the common people refer to as an idiot.
And when it comes to Obama, it seems to fit very well. The man is indeed an idiot.
The basic difference between the common idiot and their subgroup of “intellectuals” is that the intellectuals have a diploma. And as we all know from watching the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, they can and are handed out to those who have nothing but straw between their ears.
the teabag reflex is a survival tactic designed over millions of years of evolution to protect ones self from the incoherent gobbledegook and sophmoric name dropping
“entirely new concept of male leadership…”???!!!wtf
are you naked and fondling yourself when you come up with this crap?
Hey, daxypoo.
What is in your genetic makeup that requires you to refer to people who don’t share your world view as “teabaggers”? It sounds to me like you have some kind of belief in your own intellectual superiority, but this kind of gratuitous condescension exposes you as being something lesser. You follow?
@ j baker
my comment was in response to the columbia school article in post #95
other than that, i dont know to what you are referencing
Yeah his intellectualism is right up there with Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie. Puh Leeze. Enough already of the “smartest man in the world” routine. He’s not intellectual, he’s shallow. He’s not very smart he’s the product of Affirmative Action. The sooner we rid the country of this pest the better off we will be.
I do know Mister Kloppenberg’s ilk; they are everywhere around here.
They are a pack off ill-informed, arrogant, drooling narcoleptics. Trust me, that’s fair. If they were your neighbors, and you had to listen to their drivel on a daily basis, you’d call them names too.
A philosopher? An intellectual? What intellectual doesn’t understand why Americans are not multi-lingual and Europeans are as Obama once criticized us for? What philosopher cannot see beyond his own skin color when coming down on Gates side in the police affair without knowing the facts. What intellectual with no history of Jim Crow or slavery in his ancestry, abandoned by blacks and raised by whites and given a clear path in his career, looks at America as a place where whites need fundamental change in their thinking? What philosopher identifies himself by his skin color as witness Obama’s Chicago life. What intellectual cannot think on his feet without a teleprompter? What philosopher would hire a racist like Holder for the DOJ? What philosopher rejects people by skin color as does Obama with whites, no matter how clumsily he tries to hide it. Enough of this guy. Even his fans at the Washington Post are saying the best President he can be involves not running for re-election.
Many people falsely believe that Socrates and Plato, among other Athenians, represent the finest thought in democracy. These people were anti-democratic, believing themselves to be Philosopher-kings who were the only ones qualified to rule.
!!!???
Are you off your meds today, oldguy?
Old guy may be somewhat correct with this. Read Karl Popper’s discussion of Platonic political philosophy and you may see a political totalitarian in Plato. I am not sure whether Socrates was in on this philosopher king dialog.
Oldguy makes the following ludicrous statement:
“These people were anti-democratic, believing themselves to be Philosopher-kings who were the only ones qualified to rule”
when there hasn’t been any evidence that “these people” (Plato, Socrates and their equivalent contemporaries) were anything of the sort.
As for Popper, the last person I would give any weight to in the field of “political philosophy” is a marxist.
Moreover, I wouldn’t buy the work by a Jew (a fake who pretended he was a Lutheran – Popper) and who used the work of another Jew (a fake who also pretended he was a Lutheran – Marx) on dissing Classical Greece.
It would be of some interest for one to examine at some depth the contribution that delusional, self/humanity-hating jews have made over the past 150 years or so in undermining the aesthetics and logic (and thus, foundations) of Western Civilization, as drawn from the teachings and experiences of Classical Greece.
Their efforts have been centered on how to destroy the edifice which 5th century BC Greece, blended with 6th century AD Byzantium and Christianity, bestowed upon humanity and replace it with a decadent, morally bankrupt self-defeating liberalism based on a perverted utopian potpurri of delusions: mordechaism (aka marxism).
This piece is so unfair. Obama is a great reader and thinker. I’ll bet he has read Ben Hogan’s classic book on the modern golf swing, or at least he’s seen the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_6M_xZvq0
Barak Obama strides like a titan over the formerly ambiguous subject of philosophy. Now we can abandon intellectual uncertainty and smile inwardly as we contemplate that ‘Comrade Obama is always right’. The midgets who have gone before (Plato, Descartes, Olbermann) were just stepping stones on the route to Obama and only people suffering from political schizophrenia continue to shout at the tops of their lungs trying to drown out the Truth Of Obama! Fortunately their disease is curable and will be treated free of charge at the new ObamaCare centers being built to minister to this epidemic of incorrect thinking. It sends a thrill up my leg to think of the reactionary commenters on this very thread, their minds washed clean of insincere thoughts, weeping with joy as they realize the sublime intellectual truth of Our Barak!
I think Kloppenberg’s book is just the latest stage in the development of a “cult of personality” for Obama.
Many world leaders, especially the Communist ones, had “cults of personality” which endlessly extolled their virtues, often to nauseating extremes. Solzhenitsyn described Stalin’s cult of personality in his books. Stalin was presented as having literally godlike gifts and knowledge in virtually every field of human endeavour. He was considered a genius in all fields and an inspiration to all of humanity. I could go on in considerable detail on this theme but suffice it to say that “cults of personality” are frequently found in Communist countries.
The claims made about the brilliance of these leaders are, of course, ridiculous in the vast majority of cases. To consider just one example, Elena Ceausescu, wife of the last Communist dictator of Romania and his last vice president, was widely described within Romania as a brilliant chemist and a world leader within her field. In fact, she had dropped out of school early on and received good marks in only one subject, sewing. However, as her husband rose in power within the regime, her star also rose and they sent her back to school where she was awarded a PhD in Chemistry, although she apparently did none of the classwork necessary to earn it. Real chemists realized she was a complete fake because she couldn’t even pronounce the names of routine compounds correctly but they didn’t dare speak out while she lived. Romanian science journals were full of adulation for her brilliant work in chemistry and claimed that chemists around the world looked to her for guidance. On their frequent trips to foreign lands, especially those in the West, the Romanians insisted on her being awarded honourary degrees in Chemistry from prestigious universities and Western diplomats complied, all to help increase her prestige.
Currying favour by raising the Supreme Leader to Olympian heights is surely calculated to help one’s career. It is also an important part of legitimizing dubious policies. After all, if the Supreme Leader is brilliant, maybe the policy is too and we are just a little too dim to understand the genius that drives it.
Currying favour by raising the Supreme Leader to Olympian heights is surely calculated to help one’s career.
It’s pretty hard to raise Der Leader beyond his own heights.
American Narcissus
It’s pretty hard to raise Der Leader beyond his own heights.
Stalin was already in charge of the Soviet Union but the sycophants just kept on praising him for their own advantage. Or perhaps just to survive: they might have thought that praising Stalin extravagantly would make him less suspicious and less inclined to purge them.
I know the phenomenon and, dare I say, see it in the excuses some Leftists make for radical Islam.
A very bad idea, this tendency of sycophants to flatter and curry favor with tyrants.
“An appeaser feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
~W. Churchill
“An appeaser feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
~W. Churchill
I would like, humbly, to slightly alter the quote: An appeaser feeds a crocodile his enemies, hoping it will eat him last.
First off, I am against Obama and his policies. I do agree, however, that he may indeed be an intellectual. An intellectual is a person who takes ideas seriously. Whether you like it or not, Obama has changed America for the worse, because he takes his ideas seriously. As long as Republicans cling to the idea that health care is the right of everyone in the world (which I hear from many RINO’s), they will never be effective in fighting against someone who takes that idea seriously. Victory always goes to the intellectual who is the most consistent in his beliefs, whether he be George Washington, or Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
Philosopher President? I think the author meant to say “Standup Philosopher”, an enterprise ably described by the late Bea Arthur thusly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl4VD8uvgec
Forgive me if someone else has already pointed this out (I’m not reading through 185 comments to find out), but wouldn’t he have to have an intellect to be considered an intellectual? Or was the term “devalued” at some point in the last few decades?
The best definition of “intellectual” I could find was this:
“A person who engages in academic study or critical evaluation of ideas and issues”.
Interesting, because Obama should really be called the first “academic” president. His solutions to problems like healthcare and government stimulus were academic. Unfortunately, there was no “critical evaluation of those ideas”. So he really isn’t an intellectual, but another acadamien whose ideas don’t work in the real world.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha….
Stop it! My sides hurt….ha ha ha ha ha
When the political-academic-media complex holds someone up as an “intellectual,” you can be sure that he or she is no such damn thing
You all have to be kidding. I don’t believe any President to be of high intellect because who with any smarts at all would sign up for the sanitation work, health toll, and media supported popularity contest that is the Presidency. On the other hand, I would like to sit in on a debate between President Obama and the authors of the above diarrhea, jokes, paraphrases, quotations, and other uncreative thought. He would bury you and all your finger-pointing friends combined, right, left, and indifferent. Please use your time and energy to develop some of your own thoughts and perhaps answers to the problems that we are all feeling, huh?
President Obama…would bury you and all your finger-pointing friends combined, right, left, and indifferent.
Sans teleprompter, in the face of all of the uhs, ahs, well, uhs and ahs (followed by more uhs and some “you knows”), arriving eventually at some vapid line of grandiose drivel, he’d bury me, all right.
In a sea of boredom.
Dear Mr. DaSaint1, at 57 and being a pragmatic rationalist, I feel I could debate President Obama under the table. First of all, it is always easy to turn out a racist, no matter how casual they are. Secondly, his remarks about wanting to appear not to be a sellout by hanging around certain groups in college show him to be a shallow opportunist with no interest in the content of a thing, but merely its appearance and relevancy to his own goals. His instantly siding with Gates by skin color was not a gaffe but illuminated his true feelings. His remarks wherein he thought Americans ignorant by not being multi-lingual compared to Europeans shows he cannot read a map. Most illuminating would be me tearing him a new one by explaining his 20 yrs. in a racist church led by a racist pastor and whose theology is based on the racist Jim Cone. He would be crying by this point. Obama’s remarks about Islam are generally ignorant and his Cairo speech the only sense he has shown in this regard. People here in Cairo, where I am now do not laugh too heartily however when I tell them that that balanced speech was written by a Jew. Christians consider themselves second class citizens here although a healthy 16% or so of the population yet Obama loves to promote Islam when it is arguably the most bigoted collective of people on the face of this earth. The truth of the matter is is that if there is not racial dimension to a subject that explicitly included whites and the imperialist and colonial “sins of the West”, the subject matter has little interest for Obama as witness his golfing away from the Gulf which disaster seems to have been considered a nuisance by Obama. Before Obama was elected I was willing to give him a chance, thinking, hey, he’s an outsider and maybe he will shake things up. I laughed at people I thought were stupid for saying he was the worst President ever. Now, I agree. His refusal to call out the Congressional Black Caucus as the racist group they are since it is not 1954 but 2010 is troubling to me. His appointment of that racist Holder who basically called white Americans cowards for not being as obsessed with race as are black folks was ridiculous. I know he meant whites because you cannot get black folks to shut up about race. Even mainstream ESPN has a black columnist who talk about nothing but sports through a lens of race. Acting Asst. Att. General Loretta King had the gaul to say in front of a group of people at the DOJ when introducing Eric Holder that it was good to have two black men running the country. She should be fired and so should Holder. Obama is perfectly willing to gerrymander 12 million illegal aliens and facilitate their continued entrance into the U.S. in a disgusting dismissal of American law by the belief they will vote Democrat. Obama is the opposite of an intellectual who dislikes the story of this country because he relates to people by skin color and not the content of their character. A more disgusting person could not sit in the office because this is America and not inner city Chicago and we need no such policies to re-write the wrongs of Jim Crow and white baseball leagues. If the Jews could come out of 1,000 years of on again off again murder and bigotry perpetrated against them to reach for the stars in only 3 years to create an enclave without ovens for Jews, then black Americans have surely had the time to step up to the plate. The utter bigotry and hostility and violence the Jews in Mandatory Palestine had to overcome was infinitely worse than anything black Americans have had to face in the last 40 years.
Philosophical [artificial] intelligence…that hardly applies to Obama!
Pseudointellectual…now that applies perfectly to Obama!
Even considering the eight types of intelligence (Dr. Howard Gardner), I’m not sure Obama is intelligent at all.
Obama is however, well versed in the philosophy of communism/socialism which is the very core of what he is, knows and speaks to and around. Once outside that perimeter he is a lost one and probably why he has to rely upon a telepromter so much.
So, I’m guessing, that would make him a socialist intellectual elite in the minds of some from his ilk.
Charles Krauthammer: Obama’s a leftist idealogue with an ideology of decline
Intellectual? Without his teleprompter he is lost, his teleprompters tell him what to say.
To his credit, he has an air of confidence, when he says he has been to 57 states, but my 13 year old daughter knows how many states there are. The majority of his voters are ignorant so his air of confidence bowls them over. That is his claim to fame.
His lack of understanding of history and his cowardness in defending this country’s actions is treasonous. To wit:
What is your understanding of the historical meaning of the A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do you think it was the right decision?
Obama took a deep breath, paused . . . and punted.
PBO gave a halting response that utterly failed to answer the question. The closest he came was to observe that Japan “has a unique perspective on the issue of nuclear weapons as a consequence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I’m sure it helps to motivate the Prime Minister’s deep interest in this issue.”
The reporter tried again: “do you believe the US dropping of nuclear weapons on –”
Obama cut him off, choosing to answer an unrelated question on the situation in North Korea
The correct answer was, America warned Japan to surrender or face destructive power. They did not surrender. Keep in mind that the Battle of Okinawa was the Last Battle of World War II and the bloodiest battle in the Pacific War. USA attempt to use Okinawa as a stepping stone for the Invasion of Japan. Japan lost 120,000 soldiers defending the Island and 100,000 Japanese civilians also die. USA had 58,000 Casualties. If we Invaded Japan possibly millions of innocent people would have died. While dropping the atom bomb on Japan was terrible, it ended the war and saved millions of lives.
Keep in mind that Japan SNEAK attacked Pearl Harbor at 7:48 AM on a Sunday with no warning killing 2,403 people. The Japanese military did not even care about their own lives with approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and wounded over 4,800.
OB does not know history, he knows what he learned from his communist roots and from Rev. Wright. He is NOT an intellectual, he has been told what to believe.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat
I relish, lead to I discovered just what I was looking for. You’ve ended my 4 day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye