These Are the Smart People? Oh, Please
Which brings us to the matter of foreign policy. A man who, apparently, confuses “smart diplomacy” with kicking all our friends in the shins and sucking up to our enemies, in the belief that this will make us new friends, is nothing short of mentally challenged — direly so. (Rahm would use the word “retarded,” but this is too kind, certainly.) In fact, knowing a number of folks affected by Down syndrome as I have, I am inclined to say that a committee of Special Olympians would have done far, far better in the realm of foreign policy than Obama & Company. At the very least, they would surely not have alienated our friends.
At every step, since taking office, Barack Obama has kicked our allies to the curb and emboldened our enemies, and he doesn’t even have a foreign chum to his name. Weren’t we supposed to be more popular with Obama as president? Well, yes, we were. Instead, Israeli-American relations are at their worst in 35 years, Iran is chomping at the A-bomb bit, China is sitting threateningly in the creditor’s driving seat, Russia is quickly becoming re-Sovietized, and Eric Holder unintelligibly prattles on about the civil rights of foreign terrorists to a shocked and confounded public. Anyone who can find this foreign policy “smart” has to be fit for the Tiger Woods’ mistress lineup.
Ask yourself this: What smart man goes on international TV backing his Attorney General’s half-witted plan to hold civilian trials for 9/11 foreign terrorists a few blocks from the WTC ruins, before getting everyone involved fully on board? Any man with an ounce of real sense knows he had better get the 100% backing of every New York politician and steadfast agreements from Congress check-writers before he makes such an announcement. Did anyone in this “smart” administration even bother looking at New York’s budget problems before stamping approval on this cockamamie scheme? Did anyone in this “smart” administration even bother to poll how the public would react? Honey, this is the kind of stuff pure idiots try to do.
Which brings us to the real cake-taker in Obama’s growing realm of stupid stuff. The crisis-that-isn’t-a-crisis governing plan.
Anyone — and I mean, anyone — with an ounce of real sense knows that if Obama had simply rolled up his sleeves and put everyone in his administration to work on the economy, ignoring all other domestic agenda items until we were humming back to prosperity, then this man would be on his way to becoming the hero of American hearts. Instead, due only to stupid lunges aimed at pushing through the long-stalled leftist agenda of bringing back the era of big government, this president is becoming an embarrassing laughingstock. It is painful to watch, even for those of us who hate big government. Seeing a grown man make this big a fool of himself — especially the one who carries the banner for the entire American citizenry — is no pleasure. It is pure pain.
The health care reforms, if they had been put on the back burner, patiently awaiting a strongly recovering economy, would have been far more guaranteed to see fruition. Of course, the bill is so horrible that we must now be happy for this administration’s lack of smarts. Even though the bill narrowly passed — via the Chicago way of bribing, threatening and cheating — it has served to rally opposition to big government in a way that nothing else could have. Tea, anyone?
Yes, we have a highly educated, Ivy League president. Yes, we have a whole flock of back-patting, self-congratulating, fully credentialed staff.
But smart?
Oh, please.
So what will the campaign slogan of the other party be for 2012?
I’ll have a whack at it:
Obama lied; hope died.
The Iranians got the A-bomb, the Russians got their jive back, and the Chinese own everything.
Vote for the un-cool, work-experienced, good-without-a-teleprompter guy or gal who knows a friend from a foe and can add 2 + 2 and get 4 every single time.
New hole, nicely ripped. Well done, Ms. Shiver.
Why does this writer think that all the destruction he describes is
unintentional? Why does he assume its a result of mere blundering?
Oh sure, Obama is naive and shallow, but the people who put him there
are not. No this isnt some sort of super secret conspiracy. It was all
done out in the open for all to see..in University classrooms. That is
where these people got there core values. Sitting at the feet of fundamentally
Marxist professors, taught by an earlier generation of Marxists, taught by
well, Marxists..the real kind. European Marxists who way back in 1920s devised a way to overturn liberal democracies by using those societies core values. Values like “tolerance”…which are now driven to an insane extreme..an extreme where the zombified victim literally will commit suicide. Cultural suicide via mass immigration, drugs, homosexuality, multiculturalism.
The writer is a she..
This is a good little article, but you are right, ehunter. Maybe Ms Shriver is hesitant, as many pundits are, to articulate the reality of Obama and his minions (though recently I note that several have begun to call it what it is).
More likely, she does not realize fully the nature of this regime, as few in the US understand hard core Marxists/Communists and how they operate. The latter term describes the Obama team. Everything they are doing is right out of the playbook, and it is nearly all intentional. For example, among all the initiatives that are being undertaken, it is not an accident that Obama has done nothing to improve the economy. That is not stupidity, that is intention. A weak economy and dependent population is considered a requirement by the left to reach their objective. It still shocks me how many people don’t understand this, even though we struggled against this same enemy for many decades in the 20th century.
I find that many acquaintences, even though relatively knowledgable of politics and history, lack the familiarity with the far left that I gained through extensive travel in the former Eastern Bloc and USSR, friendships with ardent communists that began during that travel, as well as years of formal academic study. In addition, during the 60′s in my youth, I was part of the left… VERY involved…. I will leave it there. Fortunately as my life experience widened I realized that the perspective of the left has no connection with reality in any significant sense, and that it is actually a cult that subscribes to a vision of temporal utopia that exhibits the typical attributes of religion.
Very well said Mr. Parker, very well said. People had better start understanding.
While I cannot argue with your depiction of the Lefist divorce from reality, I still must argue with you (and ehunter) that Ms. Shiver is correct about Obama and his lack of brain power. If one presumes that he and his crew share the Frankfurt School goal of destroying American society by eroding the institutions then they have gone about it in an extremely stupid way.
We all know perfectly well that the reason the economy is in the tank is a lack of confidence. People and corporations are afraid to hire, because they can’t calculate what it will cost. Everyone is afraid to spend, because what if there’s massive inflation or deflation? What if taxes go through the roof to pay for all this spending? ETC.
Obama came in with a bad economy and a massive deficit. He could’ve fixed the economy in record time by doing the only thing a president can do–restoring confidence. He could’ve made the Bush tax cuts permanent. He could’ve promised new tax cuts. He could’ve put in a moratorium on new regulations for 2 years. Stuff like that–make businesses hope for the future instead of fearing what might come.
Right now we’d be way ahead of where we are now economically. The libs would be furious, and the cons would be complacent and thinking that Obama really is a centrist, a smart guy we can work with.
Then he could’ve started the health care takeover–piece by piece.
Start with the things conservatives want–gin up good will and political capital, get lots of conservative co-sponsors on tort reform and interstate insurance etc. Anger his base, and co-opt the right.
And then next year, go a little further, but not too far. Enough to make conservatives nervous, but not get them out in the streets. Add a few health care regulations to cover preexisting conditions, set the groundwork to replace the income tax with a VAT while pretending to go along with the Fair Tax crowd.
Then get reelected by a massive majority as the savior of America.
And then, in the second term, take the gloves off and go for wholesale wreckage. He’d have a massive majority in Congress. The Republicans would be in disarray–half of them would be co-sponsors of many bills he signed. Nobody would trust them, but folks would trust Obama over anything critics could say because he would’ve delivered America from a terrible recession. He would make more distance in bringing down the economic system to a socialist system than anyone ever has, and he’d have four lame-duck years to do it in.
No, Obama and his crew ain’t quite bright. And THANK HEAVEN for it!
I agree that the approach you suggest may/would have been more effective in the long run, and have reflected often that they may drive this bus into a wall before accomplishing their objectives (we hope). In that case history may confirm your points. However, I would comment that one aspect of the ‘divorce from reality’ is the conviction on the part of the left of the ‘rightness’ and popularity of their agenda (regardless of objective feedback). It’s part of the cult thing.
The nature of their belief system and collective ‘personality’ makes it very hard for them to follow the strategy you outlined when they control two branches of government and the goal seems so close.
I guess you can call their strategy unwise, and I would not disagree, but that does not take away from the fact that the conditions we find ourselves in are, to the degree they can influence them, intentional. Maybe not smart from the perspective you describe, but intentional.
Sorry, one more comment. I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense and I didn’t previously disagree with Ms Shiver’s points regarding the evidence that Obama’s intellectual prowess has been wildly exxagerated. I have believed that for a long time.
My point though was that while that may be true, to ascribe what would normally be seen as failures (economy, foreign policy, etc) to that lack of intellectual competence is largely not valid in the case of this regime, because the results we are witnessing are largely the desired and intended results.
And ultimately, your point is a good one only if our hope/belief turns out to be true in that the nation will repudiate the regime’s agenda. They obviouly believed the population would go along with it, or could be forced to. We don’t yet know with certainty the outcome. That should make all of us redouble our efforts to make sure it they are stopped in their tracks. If we don’t , then it will turn out that their approach was perfectly fine, and they are well willing to pay the price of some turmoil and discontent to reach their goals.
I Totally Agree, the agenda was written down decades ago and they are following it to a T, they are NOT dumb, just on a trajectory:
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:
[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
If anyone gets the chance.. watch the YouTube videos of Yuri Bezmenov formerly of the KGB describing
how the KGB really spends its time. 90% of KGB budget goes into “peace conferences”, “Anti Racism” rallies, or cultivating journalists and academics and celebrities, …etc etc. These are the activities that really pay off.
Iam a hardened fan of Kyle-Anne Shiver and have been since her first blogposts. I like that she writes as she finds and does not pull her punches. On this assessment however I disagree. We know that Obama’s credentials are suspect because of his refusal to air them, bizarre behaviour in a public figure. And he gets away with it because none of the other agencies assigned in the Separation of Powers do their jobs of requiring him to publicise them. One cavil however, would they now be credible? Another Feint to distract Americans from his agenda so quickly and aggressively now being institutionalised? He’s been Chief Executive for less than 2 years. And look at the damage he’s already done.
NO NOT DUMB, but very canny. He came into politics at first as local politician and then as US Senator for Illinois / Chicago.FROM WHERE? Provenance? Via this cess-pool of American politics known , even by the DNC, for at least the past half century as absolutely corrupt. NO NOT DUMB. Let’s not forget that he “won” the candidacy for the “Democratic” Party in rivalry with one of the most experienced, most ruthless, most power-hungry and corrupt
(anyone remember White-Water and Vincent Foster) politicians in the country.The woman who “cried for the camera” at her loss. The woman who, for the eight years she “suffered” one public humiliation after another because of her husband’s droit de seigneur actions was never seen to cry in public. No NOT DUMB. As the puppet of the DNC controlled by the Kennedys and the Clintons et al, AND having done all possible damage to the American Polity, he And his wife,he is a fairly young man, are to be cared for like royalty for the rest of their lives. By the American taxpayers he set out to bankrupt and imprison in debt “unto the fourth generation”: AGAINST THEIR EXPRESS WISHES. AND these Americans did this to themselves from the election of 1960. The first election after the appeararance of the “New Star in the East” Sputnik, heralded the beginning of the New Age. The marshalling of the “revolutionaries of the 1960s” in Media, politics, “elite” universities. The Kennedys at the outset. At the final stage, the ADVENT to the NEW AGE at the MIllenium, the Kennedy clone WJ Clinton with his Hillary. because the surviving Kennedy was unelectable. It IS all show-biz. The questions remain: to what ends and in the service of what principles did the “elite” in America lie and lie and lie again to the American population ? And WHAT can/ what must those Americans who cherish their country and do NOT WANT this “new age” do to stop this blitzkrieg. To return the country to the one they want, NOT RULED by any “elite”/ royalty. BUT AS FOUNDED, ruled by WE, THE PEOPLE,the common men and women.
Ms Shiver, you have very nicely articulated what most of us have known or suspected all along. Chicago thug-o-crats do not belong in Washington DC. I can’t wait for the November mid-terms so that we can start to take our country back and begin to undo the damage this monster has done.
This is how my father would have talked to me about this administration. Well done!
Excellent work!! I have seen many of the “highly educated and brilliant” who were lucky to be able to tie their shoes, or pump gas into their car. . . .
Ms. Shiver thanks for calling it like it is.
There is one part of your article that cannot be stressed enough which is, “there would be no expensive, vulgar partying in the people’s house.”
Vulgar. No other word in the English language better describes what Obama has turned the Whitehouse into.
From the day one – night one, all black, bone jarring, jungle pounding of the drums music to the fact that there were no white school kids invited to participate in the Easter egg festivities, the Obamas are as vulgar as vulgar gets.
I used to think that Bill Clinton would forever own that distinction. Now all I can do is wonder what kind of detestable garbage the Democrats will come up with next.
6. Vulgar in, vulgar it is: “…From the day one – night one, all black, bone jarring, jungle pounding of the drums music to the fact that….”
Nuts like you are either Democratic plants designed to discredit conservatives or ridiculous bigots who are the worst enemy the conservative movement has. Either way, please get lost.
Here are a few additions to the list of slogans for 2012:
- American needs a leader, not a reader.
- Reunite Obama with the city he loves-Chicago.
- Cool is out, patriotism is in.
- Just say no to socialism.
- Barry and MO gotta go.
Ms. Shiver, you go on the IMHO mistakenssumption that Obama wants to improve/”do good for” this country.
I believe he wants to destroy or, at a minimum, seriously damage, our country.
Add this together:
Pushing unsustainable debts
Reducing military strength
Alienating allies
Warming to terrorist nations and enemies of America
In a word: chaos. This is Obama’s intended goal.
So, “intelligent or smart” is missing the mark.
Thank you, Kyle-Anne. I am so tired of even so called conservative pundits who,for some reason, feel they must state how intelligent Obama is. The puppet in chief demonstrates his lack of intelligence on a daily basis. Imagine how he would appear if we had a truly unbiased news media. Show me the records.
He was the editor of the school paper for christ sakes. That puts him way up there as far as smarts go. Atleast if you’re in high school.
In every school that I’m familiar with, it means you are the teachers pet. Nothing more.
So why hasn’t anyone been able to read anything he’s published if he’s so darned smart? Eh?
He didn’t edit squat. He hasn’t published a single legal article. People who wrote for the law review say he showed up once in a while to say hello.
The position was honorary. They even changed the title from “Editor” to a lesser name.
Also, there was a genuine editor who was black several decades before obamy held his honorary position.
Like everything in the charlatan’s life, him being “editor” is a myth.
What I can’t figure out (I guess I’m not as “smart” as Obama) is why it took so long for Americans to see through his lies and hypocrisy, and that he is nothing more than a Chicago street hustler.
Not only is Dear Leader not very bright, the MSM media sheep who worship him are positively deranged.
Check out the latest from Robert Shrum, I swear this guy must’ve dropped more than one tab of purple sunshine before he wrote this wet dream:
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/201718/Ronald_Wilson_Obama
Not that I know from personal experience, but shouldn’t that be “Purple Haze” or “Orange Sunshine”???
Purple Haze might have been popular when Jimi Hendrix was alive but then came Orange Sunshine! LSD quite a strange experience indeed, never to be repeated!
If spending a lot of time in school means they are highly educated, then they are highly educated.
On the other hand, I always thought that highly educated meant that you had actually learned something.
Holy smokes! This is about the best take down of that nitwit inhabiting the White House that I’ve ever read. Very nicely done.
“Yes, we have a highly educated, Ivy League president.”
We do not have a highly educated Ivy League president. He simply has some phony credentials in can cite on his resume. This is not unusual in the last some 40 years after the affirmative action policies were instituted. I seriously doubt whether Obama could have gotten into Harvard in 1960. Furthermore, I am convinced that the president is unable to read a serious piece of writing—or hold his own during vigorous give and take discussions. Obama is a poorly read and intellectually shallow man. He is the least educated president we have had since 1900. Harry Truman who only completed high school was far more knowledgeable.
I didn’t vote for him, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, for the first few months. Now, I long for the Jimmy Carter years. At least Carter was a sincere fool.
So you soon realized what many of us knew long before he even got the nomination! Hope it has sunk in and you can now see that he and his policies must be defeated starting in November by voting out all communist party members (democrats) that you can and replace them with conservatives!
Shiver my timbers! That was a broadside. Absolutely on target!
Forget about all those Ivy League credentials. First of all affirmative action students are never evaluated but given social service passes. I could go into the history of why this is so but it would be too tedious. Second none of these soi disant geniuses have real degrees in real academic subjects but po-mo cutesy non-stuff instead. Meanwhile to the detriment of the nation students of Asian and Indian origin who gravitate to the pure and applied sciences are on quota systems – the rationale is – well if we let all those applicants in they would overwhelm the universities! So the Baracks and Micheles get a pass and the real scholars are kept out – a recipe for disaster if ever there was one.
Barack Obama is the typical academic, spoiled, full of himself and his ideas that never required testing in the real world. These people would not be able to survive in the real world. They don’t know history or literature or philosophy–only each other’s theories. I’m surrounded by them in the academy.
Great round-up, Kyle-Anne. Will the Republicans be smart enough to use all these points in their campaigns?
ditto …this guy is not some one that you would want to be relying on if stranded on a deserted island. so why would you want to rely on him any where.
time to vote him off ..
I’m in the academy myself. I run up against so many people who spout the latest theory like they’ve been programmed. Then they drop it in favor of a newer latest theory.
Ah, yes. Being very familiar with the type, it’s been my longstanding policy to examine carefully, before voting for, any candidate for public office whose principal life experience is the academy.
Sure he’s done a lot of stupid things but it’s because he knows he can get away with it. They don’t care about the economy because they don’t have a problem with poverty, just other peoples wealth. They don’t care about alienating allies and embracing tyrants because that’s who they identify with. They don’t care about stupid ideas like closing Gitmo and the KSM trial because they know the media will provide cover as they let it die in the background.
Doing stupid things and getting away with it vs. being held accountable are two very different things.
I think the accountability is going to be tested in November this year and I can not wait for the results!
One should never conflate three different qualities: education, intelligence, and wisdom. I have met people who are well-educated but of average intelligence and those who are very intelligent but not well-educated. But wisdom/moral character has nothing to do with these other qualities. Machiavelli warned in his most important work the Discorses of individuals who are highly intelligent yet of low moral character as they pose the greatest threat to society. Indeed, one can look over the horrors of the 20th century and find that almost all were committed by those of exceptional intelligence. Personally, I prefer a leader, or fellow citizen, who is of average intelligence but of sound character than one who is very intelligent but without a drop of wisdom.
Excellent point. Mussolini and Trotsky were among the most brilliant political minds of the Twentieth Century yet one was a sociopathic thug and the other a would-be mass murderer who got out-smarted by a Georgian rube.
In comparison Lenin was Obama-like in his educational credentials but was more of an idiot savant then a brilliant thinker. Hitler was just an idiot savant with charisma.
I don’t think you can compare Obama and Lenin. After all, Lenin faced real hurdles to get admitted to a university (his brother was executed for trying to assasinate the tsar). Later, Lenin was expelled from a university for revolutionary activity – and he studied everything and passed final exams on his own. Later, Lenin built his own party from scratch, led it to victory and won a bloody civil war. And when finally peasants revolted – Lenin dismissed War Communism and went back to Chinese-style capitalism. All the while, Lenin wrote dozens of political books, which founded a new communist theory.
One can surely say that Lenin was a madman (which he undoubtefully was), but he became the dictator when he was in his 50ies, and he was a highly educated man, who achieved everything on his own.
If anything – Obama’s intelligence or education cannot be even compared to Lenin’s.
And lastly – do you think Lenin was reading his speeches from the teleprompter?
Spot on.
I would agree that comparing Obama to Lenin or Mussolini is inappriopriate. Both fellows were far and way more original than Obama ever could be but you have fallen for the redacted Soviet history on Lenin. He was nothing without Trotsky. Trotsky saw the revolutionary moment in November 1917 when Lenin thought it was premature. Trotsky saved the Soviet Revolution with war communism. Without Trotsky Lenin is a footnote in history. Lenin was educated in exactly the same way that Obama is educated. Werner Heisenberg made fun of Lenin’s pretense of understanding the new physics (see Philosophy and Physics).
Two things I’ve always said;
“Never confuse Ignorance with Stupidity. As ignorance can be overcome.”
and
“Never confuse Education with Intelligence. As education only only imparts knowledge to the individual, but sheds no light upon how to use it.”
jd
I Hope Doofus reads this!
What these “imtellectuals” always fail to realize, at least until it’s too late, is that while it’s conceivable that they may be individually smarter than 300 million individuals, they can never even approach the wisdom of the 300 million combined. Hopefully, Mr. Obama is about to find that out. Great takedown, Ms. Shiver.
I guess you meant to type “intellectuals” but way to prove your point.
So right on the money!
AMEN
Dito #21. In a few words: Obama is educated way beyond his intelligence. This ,of course, will qualify him as top democrat until those americans who are intelligent beyond their education throw him out on his tin Marxist ear. Lets hope the republicans can do better. For a start vote out any and all incumbents. Please
Totally agree with KA! But she assumes that BO is doing the things he’s doing in an effort to GOVERN, rather than RULE.
The entirety of his history shows that BO believes in the value of a small cadre of elites, steeped in the theoretical mind-set of the academy, to rule over the unwashed and ill-educated masses. Hence his desire to see all young people go to college and become well educated robots… like him and his pals.
As others above have said: there is a huge difference between those that are: smart, educated, and wise.
Well done.
Mom just left for work so I’m sure the trolls will be along soon to call you a racist.
In the words of software engineering and marketing,
“It’s not a flaw, it’s a feature.”
Unfortunately, the analysis starts with the proposition that the things Obama and his administration are doing are so awful for the good of the country they must be unintentional. Wrong. Do not take Obama at his word, look at what he does, and then contemplate that the actions are taken to acheive those results. They are not undesirable consequences of poorly conceived and executed plans, they were in fact the goals.
What is assumed here is that the objectives of this presidentand his closest advisors is a stronger more prosperous America. The perspective of this elitest and his inner core is that America has been too powerful in the world, using this power for evil purposes. Furthermore, our high standard of living is at the expense of the rest of the world.
With that perspective, this administration is very effective. Rapidly our strength is being sapped and our standard of living prospects lowered.
The values that once made us great are being warped and distorted to weaken us. Read V D Hanson’s article regarding trust and the new definition of debt for a very clear explanation of this in practice.
Being a stranger to the truth will make him a one-term president and place him in the company of “forgotten men”. Obamanation is presently a noun, used as a verb and very soon will stand as an adjective. Very few of the folk who voted for him and elected this hollow man president, are even willing to watch him prance and prattle or even say they voted for him. Once and for all he is a media created incident, that those chaps will have to answer for.
#13MarkTheGreat and #22jd: Spot on, both.
There are many people educated way beyond their intelligence, Obama and most university professors, to name a few.
Excellent piece, Ms. Shiver.
“Clinton retreads, tax cheats, polarizing ideologues, and unfit-for-the-real-world academics.” Outstanding.
I would add crooked Chicago cronies, fraudulent community organizers, and strong-armed knee-breakers.
One Thomas Sowell observation: “What has his administration done — as distinguished from what the president has said — since taking office?
It has dropped the prosecution of black thugs caught on camera stationed outside a polling place intimidating voters.”
Politically expedient, perhaps, but not exactly smart, either.
Very well-stated insofar as to the degree to which Obama is utterly devoid of intellectual acumen (as David Thomson continually states, the man is poorly educated); however, there is little doubt in my mind that everything he has done is part and parcel of his resolve to undermine this country in every way. IOW, all these things have been deliberate acts, no matter how dumb they may appear to the rest of us.
One more point. I’ve known a number of certifiable geniuses. Most were odd, some were lacking common sense or social capabilities, but none of them would have been so easily caught in lies as Obama. None of them surrounded themselves with cheap thugs and stupid crooks – too boring. Verdict – the man is mediocre at best.
Oh my! This was lovely and a wonderful read to start to the weekend
President Duncecap shredded in 1,000 words or less and “3,000%” efficient.
What did you expect of a person who did the very minimum to get by in college? The Harvard staff was reputed to have called him LAZY and the only reason he got the teaching job for the Constitutional class was someone higher up on the Board pulled strings. He didn’t get the job even on his own merit! He may be smart as in getting by doing the minimum but he sure isn’t smart as in high caliber of achievement. It just goes to show, that no matter how crappy you do in college and pass with a C-, your sheepskin is the same as the one who gets a 4.0 every year. The ultimate in Equality of Outcome.
While I won’t dispute any of the negative remarks made against Obama on this page, I can’t resist making the observation that George W. Bush was not exactly the brightest of bulbs himself. While I agree with much of what G. W. Bush did as President, I was never remotely inclined to believe that he was personally smart, aside from having the acumen to get himself elected.
Henry,
Don’t forget that George H. W. Bush wasn’t surrounded by a chorus of media acclamation of how much smarter he was than us rubes, nor did he or any of his supporters try to claim that he was. Rather, President Bush was who and what you saw, complete with a past that was reasonably open (I seem to recall quite a lot of discussion about his grades – where President Obama’s grades are locked away forever).
When everyone is chorusing about how wonderful/smart/much better than us someone is, it’s time to check that your watch is still there and get away from the person, because anyone who falls for it is going to get fleeced.
Yet, when did Bush, his colleagues, the media or any of his supporters make any claims of his genius or his being the change we were awaiting? In the future, resist.
Define what you mean by smart. From all the indicators like his SAT score and his tests for the ANG his IQ is about 130. That isn’t mensa territory but it’s well about average. I think what you mean is that W wasn’t an “intelliectual” or a verbally articulate person in public. It doesn’t mean that he is not unintelligent. He is apparently a voracious reader of history.
Well, we know what Bush’s grades were, don’t we ? Obama’s have never been released. Why ?
A very well written article with several good points. (It mistakenly equates intelligence with wisdom, but never mind.) That said, it is the third or fourth article in as many days that focuses on Obama’s egregious personal flaws.
Can we now get back to exposing his significantly more horrendous ideas?
It’s certainly emotionally satisfying to call Obama all sorts of ugly – and entirely accurate – names. But I’m more concerned with his actions – and the ideas that drive them. I suspect a lot of PJM readers are too.
It ain’t because of his preening that he’s governing as a Progressive. It’s because he is committed to that philosophy. Expose why that philosophy is impractical and immoral and you will be contributing to overthrowing it.
The readers of PJM are already sufficiently fired up, and there’s a limit to how much cathartic venting is worthwhile. Do readers really need another emotionally charged, but idea deficient, cheerleading session about how evil Obama is? We know he is. Now what to do about it? How to get others to see why Progressivism is harmful?
An article like that would be of some value.
You misunderestimate our current President.
Nah,
They’ve got him pegged. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/08/fox-news-poll-health-care-midterm-elections/
Our paper here in Huntsville, Al ran an article yesterday which states that Obama was NOT a professor, was NOT editor of Harvard Law Review, and was never anything more than a part time adjunct instructor.
When you add these things to his otherwise cloaked past, what do you get?
I’m thinking maybe I would like to see his birth certificate.
“Yes, we have a highly educated, Ivy League president.”–Kyle Anne Shiver
Kyle Anne, we don’t have a highly educated, Ivy League president: what we have is a mediocrity who was admitted to both Columbia and Harvard because of his race. The euphemism is affirmative action. Barry took gut courses at both Columbia and Harvard, and if you take the time to read Barry’s scribbling at Harvard you’ll think to yourself: Did this guy get a 1000 on the recentered SAT?
Well, the answer to your question is yes, giving Barry a whopping 106 IQ.
I’m a lawyer who most emphatically did not graduate from Harvard or any other Ivy League law school. (You are now free to hiss at my parochialism and small-bore legal skills.) I was an editor on our college law review and nearly (sigh!)got my senior article published. One thing I did learn from this experience was that it was generally accepted that every law review editor at one of the “elite” law schools was almost guaranteed publication of his/her articles. The unchallenged assumption was that those who attended Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, U. of Chicago etc. were the “best of the best” and deserved publication simply on spec. This has made it passing strange that Mr. Obama [who has been marketed as "the best of the best of the best of the best"] could not get published at Harvard even with his political/cultural advantages. So the question coems up – Is he really all that smart or simply a vessel in which his political confreres see what they want to see?
Just out of curiosity, if Obama is not eligible for the Presidency due to birth does that mean that anything he signed is null and void?
Also, ‘smart’ is a relative term. A good example is Michelle’s Princeton thesis which could have been better written by a normal high school student.
Paul, Michelle is probably just a bit stupider than Barry.
Touche! Kyle-Anne, Touche! Obama is an idiot, and more people realize it every day.
Education does not equal wisdom or common sense, and Obama has no trace of either quality.
Since all his records are under lock and key, closely guarded by his platoons of lawyers, we
really don’t even know how well educated he is anyway. For leftists like Obama and his ilk
the more left one is the smarter one is. By that standard alone, Obama is a first rate genius.
By any other standard, he is a blithering, narcissistic, idiot. Our country will not be able to breathe
a collective sigh of relief, until this pompous nitwit is drummed out of public office.
couldn’t agree with you more Chris
I still maintain that anyone with common sense and a high school education could do better than the intellectual elites at running the government. I’m an old fart and I’ve seen a whole lot of educated idiots and a fair amount of self made/self taught smart men who know how to run their businesses and personal finances better than most ‘professional students’ with multiple degrees.
The two things they have in common are that they can smell BS a long way off and they’re particualr about whose advice they seek out.
Honestly, watching more than 4 minutes of our elected representatives at work is enough to make me feel embarrassed for them.
I saw a particularly apt disction the other day.
Obama and his supporters are not stupid, they are “weapons grade stupid.”
When you get a little pespective on this Whitehouse staff first you are struck by what completely ordinary thinkers they are, then by how they have clearly been aimed. Like a V-2 rocket they can not track a moving target but relentlessly attack a fixed point. You have to wonder if George Soros has a basement somewhere full of psyconogists and statigic game players who planned this attack on
America. With the computers of the last twenty years it is certainly possible that somebody could have built not a political machine but a political weapon.
FWIW:
Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review, not the editor. Now, I don’t know what that information is worth, as I don’t know why that distinction might “defend” the fact he wasn’t published.
As to his supposed intellectual acumen: it is not outstanding as far as I can tell. He’s not stupid, but he’s not brilliant, either. More to the point is that his world view is ridiculous, his notions of governance are dangerous, and both are very destructive for America.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for posting this article.
I’ve been railing about this ignorant, incompetent juvenile for years.
And his sycophants ARE as dumb as he is.
Man, oh man, are we in trouble for years to come.
I just hope those nitwits who voted for this fraud have wised up.
There needs to be a brutal take down of the D party in November and any R’s who go along with the treacherous D’s.
Same thing in 2012.
All good stuff, fun to read and accurate Ms Shiver. If Obama were really smart he wouldn’t go around telling everyone how smart he is. So his staff are intellectuals? Well intellectuals are like dogs – there are smart ones and dumb ones.
Even if Obama is a genius it’s his emotions that are the real problem. I am sure that legally he is a US citizen, but emotionally he is not with America. If his emotions are not American how can he lead America? The answer is he can’t.
So you are SURE he is legally a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN are you “WesternCanadian” perhaps you would care to share your PROOF of this with the rest of us.
WAITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh whats that its just an EMOTIONAL thing with no PROOF whatsoever. Now there’s a surprise………………..NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good article. Here’s my view. If you’re smart, prove it. Show me what you can do. There are lots and lots of people that think they are absolute geniuses even though they’ve never had any real responsibility or really accomplished much of anything and don’t have the skills to run a paper route. And I’ve worked in quite a few industries and environments and have noticed that an awful lot of those people seem to prefer to work in academia, finance, and government. When team Obama sidelined Paul Volcker and ignored Warren Buffet and put Timmy and Benji in charge of the financial crisis, I think that’s really all you needed to know.
My measure of a person is how trustworthy, not how smart one is.
You’ve had Barry, Honey pegged from the start. He is NOT wise. Oh, please.
But, you, dear Kyle~Anne are SOOO wise. Great article. Personally I’m with the doctor whose sign said if you voted for Obama you can get treated elsewhere….except in my case I’m the nurse;~) Lord have mercy…I can’t take much more of this. Sunday can’t get here soon enough. Godspeed!
I get around to reading the PJM articles long after their posting. Obam-man’s academic credentials, his acumen and intelligence is always a curiosity for me. This article was insightful and accurate. I do not see him as intelligent but street sense savvy that is based more on a survival instinct then brains. His narcissism convinces him of his “genius”. I was of the impression that we do not know his grades, SAT or LSAT scores, or seen true examples of his writings (his purported publications is pure nonsense). Am I incorrect about his grades? etc?
In any event, he is not making mistakes. His acts are intentional. However, I have come to appreciate his stupidity in enacting his agenda: if he were smarter, the health care bill would have been enacted a while ago and he would still have the great mass of independent voters asleep at the switch. Can’t wait for November.
Regarding the assertion, “Yes, we have a highly educated, Ivy League president”, can anyone provide proof that Obama actually attended any classes at Columbia or Harvard?
Right again, Mrs. Shiver. BTW, I’ve missed you on American Thinker.
I don’t care how smart these jerks are but if I were the next President, I would require that the White House be fumigated after this crew leaves. Like your slogan; maybe the Republicans will have enough guts to use it.
Dead on, Ms. Shiver! One thing I might say to those who think if The One were smart he would have done all that he has through time honoured incrementalism. The problem is that leftist ideology has become ensnared in good old American consumerism. “I want it and I want it NOW!”. This simple edict has screwed up The One’s and the progessive’s plans for quite a while if the groundswell of conservatism is any indication.
Just had to FIFY!
Obama is ‘smart,’ but only in a narrow, academic sense. A truly intelligent person is in possession of commonsense that is used to fashion, from a store of general knowledge, realistic inferences that are then fashioned into logical conclusions. If Obama had more of this he would never allow his personal ideology, a thoroughly discredited system of thought, to override his better judgment—presuming he has some, and everyone has some—to produce judgments based almost solely on ideology. Obama is a creature of his early indoctrination and later by others of the same ideological persuasion. A truly intelligent person will eventually see through this kind of brainwashing and rise above it. So far, Obama has shown no capacity to do this and the public has by now realized that he never will because he does not have the requisite intellectual strengths.
There are a number of postings on the web diagnosing Obama as having a serious narcissistic personailty disorder. It does seem a useful means of understanding him. Such a person thinks themselves a genius, an expert in all fields, and resents advise. He tolerates none but worshipful syncophants . A narcissist has no friends (as he believes himself to have no equals). It is my belief that Obama sees the USA as an extension of himself. Therefore he resents the impertenance of countries that think themselves friends of the USA . Consequently Obama treats the leaders of such countries with contempt to show them their place. None may dare to presume themselves allies or friends of Obama or what he considers is now HIS country.
Sazorsky’s judgement that Obama is insane seems to me , unforetunately, to be correct. I would expect the more talented and able members of his administration to leave. Soon only the power-crazed and incompetent will remain.
All I want to address is this…it seems like there are a lot of critics who are picking at every little thing that Obama does and does not do. I find it quite hypocritical considering the 8 years of a MESS that Bush got us into. I can’t even think of ONE good thing that BUSH did to make a difference.
It’s very easy to show lies, deceit, etc of ANYONE. We as a human race are not perfect beings, there is not one person I know of that hasn’t told a lie. At least Obama is not a puppet being controlled by large corporations and special interest. Maybe we as the people and for the people should not criticize the job of one person TRYING to make a difference, but WE should go out into the world and BE the difference. People inherently are skeptical of change.
OUR country needs to change, OUR way of life and OUR consumerism…Look at your life, what you put out to the world everyday and then ask yourself, are you making this world a better place or are you destroying the world around you?
Happy Face,
It’s really sad that while you call President Bush a puppet of corporations and special interests, you clearly can’t see that President Obama is a puppet of different corporation and different special interests. Ever hear of George Soros, that guy who bought and paid for first the Dems and then the last election (he’s been trying for a while, BTW). And the change you say he’s trying to make is the destruction of the foundations of the country. Change for change’s sake is hardly ever a good thing, and every country that has moved to a more socialist/communist government has been a failure. Or do you think that those happy little utopias like Cuba and Venezuela are shining examples? Perhaps you should take an extended close up observation of those kinds of countries. Or perhaps you like being a bootlicker to an oppressive government.
8 year mess from Bush, huh? Try this one for size. Bush had to do what he did post-9/11 due the inaction and incompetence of the PREVIOUS 8 year administration.
Oh, and the obligatory “green” statement there. You first, buddy. You first. Let me know how living off the land in your 1 room sod and thatch hovel works out for you.
Would just like to add to Kyle Anne’s article that Obama also refrained today, 11th April, to show his respects to the Polish people(!!), whose President and some top-notch people all died in a horrific plane crash!!
When both Merkel of Germany and Brown of Britain…plus the Swedish Prime Minister spoke their piece on this tragedy then surely the Leader of the ‘Free World’ should be right there too in solidarity with their loss..
Typically Obama acted without the appropriate empathy showing his true ‘colors’:race and pity-mindedness!
You said it Ehunter, Barako is a very dangerous man. He has been programed to destroy America by Socialists,his friends.
Yes, I always loved the parrots who said he was “smart, brilliant, charismatic, etc.” I never could see or hear anything but a lying psychopath.”
You think there is going to be an election in 2012? Ha! Ain’t gonna happen. The guy whose opponents either drop out or are rendered irrelevant will create a crisis to position himself as president for life. Good times ahead!
I agree with the posts that state: Barry Soetoro is not stupid, he is not dumb, he is not making mistakes; he is intentionally undermining the Constitution, bankrupting the Republic, and getting a nation of leaches addicted to entitlements.
The only stupid people in the room is us for tolerating this crap as long as we have.
Wake up Sheeple, take action before there is nothing left to save.
To Happy Face….”At least Obama is not a puppet being controlled by large corporations and special interest.” Apparently you haven’t been paying close attention to Obama. He has said on occasion how he OWES the unions. They are his own special interest group because money from their cofers went to his campaign. Now he wants the American people to pay them what HE OWES in order to make union pension plans solvent. Maybe all that money that went to his campaign should’ve been left for the pensions. SEIU officials are his very best buddies. As far as Bush, he wasn’t perfect but since you can’t think of one thing he did to make a difference, I’ll help you out a little. He kept this country safe after 9/11 but your man Obama is trying very hard everyday to unravel our security and safety by bowing down to every enemy we’ve ever had. I guess it’s easy to have a “Happy Face” if you have blinders on and plugs in your ears.
Obama’s plan is to ruin America. He was raised to hate this country, and he does. All the lefties currently going along with him don’t understand that they’ll be the first hauled off if he succeeds. After no, nobody likes a traitor.
going back to adlai stevenson, democrats and their sycophantic media have always told us how smart their candidates are. JFK, bobby kennedy, mcgovern, all so smart. john kerry—brilliant! hillary clinton—the smartest woman in the world! bill clinton—brilliant! obama eclipsed them all, of course. asking to see proof is so racist!
eisenhower, gerald ford, reagan, quayle, palin, all “dumb.” the only reason they didnt call nixon dumb was that they preerred to call him a crook. republican voters are knuckle-dragging, bible-verse-spouting, mouth-breathing, mcdonalds-eating, TV-watching, book-avoiding cretins.
they ignore the consummate stupidity of democrats like biden, richard daley, and the entire kennedy clan.
i think the only A’s that obama received in school are the double A’s next to his name—Affirmative Action.
as for comparing obama to reagan, does that mean obama is stupid too?
I continue to be amazed that anybody calls the guy smart.
All evidence is to the contray, as Kyle-Anne points out.
But where is the evidence that supports his brilliance.
Is it remotely conceivable that we wouldn’t be clubbed daily with his grades in school, at any level, if they had been good. The fact that his transcripts are not published is concrete evidence that he was, at best, a mediocre student. Moreover, he only got into the schools in the first place because of affirmative action.
But what about his brilliant self-indulgent autobiographies? Jack Cashill has punctured that myth….but beyond that, where are any other writings that prove what a wordsmith he is. There aren’t any, mon ami. There are 2 or 3 clumsy poems and articles that illustrate just the opposite.
But what about the fact that he was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review? Well, actually, he wasn’t, the position was honorary, and he never published a single work of legal scholarship.
His career as a Constitutional Professor? Actually, he was a lecturer, and only talked about Civil Rights issues. All of his public statements display a profound ignorance of the Constitution.
Even I was sucked in to the myth that he is a brilliant “interviewer”, but over time, it’s clear that he is very very rarely asked a difficult question, and when he is asked a challenging one, he either stumbles badly (“spread the wealth”), filibusters (17 minutes to answer a simple inquiry about taxes), or tells some outrageous whopper (3000% reduction). The fact that he isn’t allowed to talk without a teleprompter proves that his handlers don’t trust him to speak without pre-ordained words. It is even highly likely that his msm interviews are planned in advance.
His vast knowledge? 57 states? 3000%? Ignorance about what collision insurance is? Cominskey Park? Can’t name a White Sox player?
Frankly, the guy is plain-ass stupid.
Stupid or malevolent?
Ignorant yes. That I’ll give you. Crude, crass, vulgar and ignorant.
But really stupid? Exceptionally stupid? I have my doubts.
I think his priorities are so alien to ours as to make him LOOK idiotic. As it is natural for us to assume that at some level he wants the same things we do. And were that true, one could only assume that he is going about it in the dumbest way possible.
Only … we have no grounds on which to base that assumption!
If you change your assumptions, if you assume that his actions are actually in tune with his priorities and goals, then he is doing a pretty decent job of destroying America without precipitating bloodshed in the streets — which is what I think he is working for, a bloodless coup.
THE GREAT REBELLION OF THE LUNCHROOM LADIES. THE POSTAL WORKER PUTCH. THE MoV MAKEOVER. THE UNION TAKEOVER OF THE UNION.
The affirmative action imperium.
From that point of view I’d grade him average or better raw IQ, with a real clever con-man/chess-player side.
Psychopath/sociopath? Maybe.
But not altogether dumb.
Alien and malign.
Conservatives underestimate Obama at their peril. I think that he’s smart, but not wise. He could “win” a debate with most of the likely Republican presidential candidates. And I don’t write this as an Obama fan.
Seems like you have bought into the myth.
The guy has been asked about 3 tought questions in his life, the press covers for every misstep, he doesn’t even have press conferences anymore, now he leverages his position as POTUS to bully opponents, and you see that as evidence he is a good debator.
Well it is if, like John McCain, you chuckle and bow down to him.
Obama didn’t even try to answer Paul Ryan. He knew he didn’t have a chance against somebody who has the facts and won’t be bullied.
That’s what people have to do. Point out the lies. Tell the world who he is.
Smart…..nope. A bully…criminally. Protected by the press…24×7. Quick on his feet….nope. Knowledgable….nope. Indoctinated….a committed marxist. Willing to lie to the country….absolutely.
Wow. A lot of venom directed at the president’s IQ by people who can’t even spell. H.L. Mencken was at least half-right.
If politics is 75% impression, Obama is already the most successful president in a generation. Dmitri Medvedev is only the latest foreign head of state to pronounce him as bright and engaged in discussion at an international level, and – more importantly – that no questions came up for which Obama was not well-prepared. Altogether a highly satisfactory performance, in view of the fact that “bright” and “engaged” were two terms never applied to his predecessor.
You’d think Americans would be proud, instead of inventing loopy conspiracy theories to try and tear him down.
No truely educated person would ascribe to the failed concept that is Marxism. That he does by deed goes to his mental image of himself. He wants to bathe in the adulation that only a “king” or dictator can get. Something to make up for his “loveless” childhood? Ignorant and a fraud in many areas. Passed along and passed along by PC advocates. When the camera is on him he struts. No camera –slouches with hands in pockets — Mr Insecure.
Nixon’s IQ was 143. JFK’s 119. Obama’s may be about 120. His memory is faulty/selective and he doesn’t show a grasp of details. Carter’s IQ is about 130 and while he’s into details (a micromanager) he was a complete failure as president. A president should have enough common sense to come in out of the rain, look good, sound good, promulgate and sustain American values, protect and defend Americans, and not be afraid to project and use American power to defend democracy. Obama falls short.
Geez Kyle-Anne why don’t you tell us what you really, really think of this
One man mental menage a trois, intellectual giant(?), social moron, severely “common sense” challenged person.
This article is a great display of Kyle-Anne’s trademark style of a velvet glove holding surgical steel.
Well done and said KA
Lee