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 ... ?
If there is a single thing that Barack Obama has proved to the American people — beyond any reasonable doubt — it is that he is not smart. And neither are those so-called brilliant folks surrounding him, aiding him, advising him, and egging him on against the will of the people.
Barack Obama is charismatic. Or at least he was until mainstream Americans figured out he was a habitual liar and stopped listening to him.
From his whoppers about small things on the campaign trail (his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz; his parents married because of Selma; his father got a scholarship to America from the Kennedy’s) to his lies about very big things (his health care plan will reduce employer insurance premiums by 3000 percent, or $3,000 — still a lie), this president is now only allowed in polite company because he is the president. In any real-world company, inveterate liars are shunned as utterly untrustworthy, unreliable, unwelcome guests. (Unless their last name is “Clinton,” we shouldn’t forget.)
The still-blind sucker crowd that elected this charlatan to the most powerful CEO position in the world, on the strength of his skin color and a resume fit for the back of a postage stamp, cling to the hollow claim that their guy is just too smart for the rest of us commoners to understand him. And that whopper is just as believable to any sentient person as the president’s 3000 percent rate-reduction claim about his health care bill.
The proof that Barack Obama is not smart lies in his actions over the past year.
Never has so much goodwill been so thoroughly wasted and abused.
President Obama came into office riding a wave of well-wishes that was truly unprecedented. He also faced grave problems. He did not face unprecedented problems, as he so likes to pretend.
If President Obama were really the smartest guy of his generation, then he would have done the following:
He would have, first and foremost, surrounded himself with unimpeachable, morally sound, and experienced cabinet members. Instead he filled his cabinet with Clinton retreads, tax cheats, polarizing ideologues, and unfit-for-the-real-world academics.
Dumb. Really dumb.
Second, President Obama — if he were really smart — would have told his Chicago intimates, especially Desiree Rogers and his wife, Michelle, that until the economy was in full — very full — rebound, there would be no expensive, vulgar partying in the people’s house. Knowing full well that he had come into the presidency on his own rhetoric that we were facing the worst “economic crisis since the Great Depression,” Barack Obama would have known better — if he were really smart — than to order up gala parties with imported Wagu beef at $100 per pound, while he was speaking out the other side of his mouth about the disgusting nature of executive retreats to Las Vegas. A smart man would have known the people would see him as a hypocrite.
Instead, the Obamas partied hardy to the thralls of every society page in the country, quickly making themselves the butt of jokes from coast to coast.
Third, President Obama — if he were really smart — would have turned serious executive instead of media addict. He would not have appeared on a late-night comedy show. He would not have spent more time in front of a camera’s glow than he spent at his desk. He would have rolled up his sleeves and gotten down to the hard work of governing instead of hamming it up in public 24/7, which any truly smart person knows is not only bound to get old very fast, but also sends out the message loud and clear that no one is actually acting as president.
And if Obama were really intelligent, he would have hired a speech coach for the express purpose of weaning him from those confounded teleprompters. A man, who had just captured the presidency as the intellectual elite from Harvard, should have been smart enough to know that teleprompters malfunction and that camera phones take pictures of teleprompters and that when the people think they’ve elected a smart man, they should not be so easily disabused of that notion. It’s not good for the image one has worked so tirelessly to create.
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.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She welcomes your comments at www.kyleanneshiver.com.
Obama puppet .... or, the "Dummy"
