So Obama was going out of his way to signal to the Brits that he wasn't going to support them on this Falklands thing. He was going to be reflexively anticolonialist (as he always is - it's one of his constants) and be on the side of The People. Except the people want to be British, but who cares about the actual people when you can be for The People.
So Obama goes for the intentional diss and calls the islands "The Maldives."
Um, yeah, I think "The Malvinas" is the phrase you are looking for there, dude. The Maldives are elsewhere. If it was just a flyby comment, talking about the islands as part of some list or obscure example, it would be a small thing. It's the sort of error people make all the time, and it doesn't mean much. A slip.
But the choice of name was his entire point and he couldn't get it right. If you were having a live serious political discussion and made that error, your opponent would gently sneer and say "I think you mean The Malvinas," and you would be utterly humiliated in that conversation. You would be revealed as a poseur who did not actually know anything about the subject but had just picked up a few scraps and were trying to club people with them.
In everyday conversation it would be a big thing, but in foreign policy it's nothing? Seriously?
Obama is IQ 115 masquerading as 145. Now, 115, with proper humility and graciousness, might actually be a high enough number to be a very good president. I'd prefer up over 125, but beyond that, you don't get much value-added for each ten points, as you might in STEM studies. 115 is doable.
But not if you pretend you are something else, the smartest person in the room and above all those others. Then 115 is death.
The inhabitants of the Maldives Islands, several hundred miles off the coast of Argentina, speak Austrian. Judging by the profit/earnings ratios of companies in the Maldives Stock Exchange, it is a prosperous place. While they are afraid of an invasion from Argentina, they know that the Maldives Marine Corpse will protect them.
ReplyDeleteDubya got hammered for not knowing in a debate or in some interview who was the President of XYZ. But if Dubya ever had a meeting with the President of XYZ, he damned well made sure that he knew the President's name and the name of his country.
There have been some studies that indicate that there is often an inverse relationship between mathematics achievement and a student's opinion of his math ability.
Sounds like the POTUS.
"Maldives", "alQuds". there is a clear pattern here.
ReplyDeleteIt is not "anti-colonialism". It is "anti-British Colonialism". Marxist and other colonialism is just fine, thank you.
"There have been some studies that indicate that there is often an inverse relationship between mathematics achievement and a student's opinion of his math ability"
ReplyDeleteI really hope the studies are correct since I firmly believe I suck at math. There may yet be hope for me.
L.Sprague DeCamp's Unbeheaded King series is a look at various forms of government disguised as fantasy novels. He (?) hits on that The People vs people in general and "smart" leaders knowing what The People want and having no interest in what peple, even as a majority, have said they want. He, I just realized I'd always assumed De CAmp is a he, is distinctly unflattering to that mind-set.
Yes, Obama is not actually that bright. I think he has plenty of intelligence to be a good president, but the problem is that he doesn't have enough intelligence to whack his way through the fog of academic correctness in which he has primarily lived his life.
ReplyDeleteReally, his performance is an indictment of the US higher education system. His education has left the poor guy with a lamentable inability to use his intelligence, buttressed and reinforced by a a formidable self-esteem.
He's very American, but he's not the type of American of whom we are ordinarily proud.
He reminds me of the Star Trek episode about the society whose rulers lived in the clouds. It's sad.
Anyone who read his books could have predicted this. Over and over again he demonstrated an utter inability to solve problems.
I haven't read the autobiographies, MOM, but I'm interested in what you say about the problem-solving. Can you give us some examples?
ReplyDelete@Tex, I'm not sure you need Obama's autobiographies to see a lack of ability in problem-solving.
ReplyDeleteI'm tempted to start with little things, like the bid for the 2016 Olympics to come to Chicago. The news reports about that bid didn't go into much detail about how it was prepared. But I found myself wondering...
Did Obama and team do any serious research going into that? Did they learn how the internal politics of the IOC work? Did they figure out how other cities won (or lost) the bid? Did they do prep-work to figure the odds that Chicago would win?
Or did they decide to go, make a speech, do some last-minute glad-handing, and expect to win?
I think similar questions could be asked about other things Obama has attempted to do, whether public policy or personal goals.
I have long said he sees himself as a best-of-both-worlds guy. I don't think it's just cynical sales pitch. I think he really believes that he should be able to walk into a room and be trusted by both whites and blacks, both Christians and Muslims, both free-marketers and socialistic types, etc. His history indicates that others see him as good at listening to both sides as well. He likely is much better than average at doing exactly that: hearing both sides and understanding them.
ReplyDeleteBut it's not enough. It's nowhere near enough. It's a nice little skill, but he relies on it as if it should fix everything - that he should be able to walk into a room and fix it just by saying a few nice things.
Trouble is, you see, Obama inherited Bush's mouth. It's all Bush's fault.
ReplyDeleteYes, L. Sprague was a he.
Herm. I actually disagree: I think Obama's IQ is probably quite high, maybe enough to break 140 on a good day.
ReplyDeleteHis problem is that he's lazy. (Or that more was never demanded of him, which may be a different way of saying the same thing.)
If you're glib, if you're good at summing up a conversation in a few sentences, if you can come up with interesting ideas in a blue-sky conversation, you can get quite far in school (assuming you're not studying a quantitative discipline, and Obama seems to have avoided anything having to do with math). Impress the professor with your smarts and you are likely to do well even if you mess up the details - the glamour cast by that assumption of intelligence will make such problems seem like nitpicks. You get used to that.
Worse, you don't learn the details in the first place. You don't acquire the knowledge base to understand that Austrians speak German (anyone conversant with modern European history, and therefore familiar with the ties between the two countries, would know that), or of more moment, that Afghans don't speak Arabic, and therefore no, we don't need to close down Iraq so we can move the Arabic translators to Afghanistan. You can get by with your intellectual laziness, your teachers (and later the media) excuse it and call you brilliant anyway, so you never correct it. If you say something that reveals profound ignorance, it will not be held against you so it doesn't matter.
Until....
Really, I think ninety percent of the problem is that the President is still a bright, promising college sophomore. If he were twenty, this would be fine. At fifty and in a position of responsibility, it's not fine.
karrde -- I agree about the present problem-solving, but I'm still curious about the early examples.
ReplyDeletejaed -- I just don't see the evidence of the IQ. Above-average, sure, but extraordinary intelligence makes itself known in all kinds of ways that I don't see in him.
jaed
ReplyDeleteReally, I think ninety percent of the problem is that the President is still a bright, promising college sophomore. If he were twenty, this would be fine. At fifty and in a position of responsibility, it's not fine.
That hits a lot of it. Obama has given me the impression that he hasn’t learned a thing in 30 years, since the time he was a sophomore at Occidental.
He never bothered to get the details right, such as speaking Austrian or the location of the Maldive Islands, because he could snow everyone with his ability to sum up conversations.
Has anyone here read any of The Audacity of Hope? When I read it, the book gives me the impression that it is a slightly edited transcript of Obama’s conversations. Sorta like "My Turn at Bat" as told to Sammy Sportswriter.
I think there is an explanation that covers both. My shorthand for it is SATV 700, SATM 500. I'm actually betting the math is below that, if only slightly, because then it would begin with a "4," which would be PR death. Otherwise the 700 would have been paraded.
ReplyDeleteRE: Obama and problem-solving.
ReplyDeleteDo we have a good record of the methods he and his team used when he started running political campaigns?
The evidence I have at hand isn't much, but it's mainly summary statements along the lines of "used various legal-tactics to eliminate opponents from elections".
This sounds like problem-solving, in the sense of using the rules of the system in ways that harm opponents and help friends. Also in the sense that the problem-solving efforts are more interested in the outcome of success than in honoring the customary methods of success in the system.
I also note that during his time in various legislatures, Obama didn't have many significant accomplishments in the realm of practical politics. That is, he didn't show a lot of skill in arm-twisting, horse-trading, etc.
Which does match the pattern I see in his accomplishments in office.
These are different kinds of problem-solving skills. One of them would be extremely useful as a lawyer and/or community activist. The other would be useful in a government official.
He's President Everybody.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, "Everybody Knows" that conservatives are bitter clingers, that alternative energy is the wave of the future, that motorists are wasting lots of gasoline and can easily economize, that anti-Americans overseas are resentful of capitalism and can be turned by giving into them, and that Columbus was opposed by flat-earth believers. The President believes what Everybody Knows.
extraordinary intelligence makes itself known in all kinds of ways that I don't see in him
ReplyDeleteNot sure about that. It can, certainly... but high intelligence doesn't always go with high (and visible) achievement.
Obama is IQ 115 masquerading as 145. Now, 115, with proper humility and graciousness, might actually be a high enough number to be a very good president…But not if you pretend you are something else, the smartest person in the room and above all those others. Then 115 is death.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of some analyses of FDR. It was said of FDR that while wasn’t the brightest bulb in the room, he had a “first class temperament.” While his Brain Trust argued vehemently about an issue, FDR would sort the arguments and come up with a decision. That somewhat sounds like Obama’s ability to sum up the arguments of opposing viewpoints, with the difference that FDR appears to have been better at making a decision. FDR had a lot more executive experience before becoming President than Obama did, so he had much more experience in decision making.
Regarding Obama as a 700V/<500M sort: when it comes to numbers, he is in total meltdown. He gives me the impression on numbers stuff that he has not done any analysis of the issue, but has instead copied someone else's talking point.
Though in support of his having a >500 M SAT score, I read in the past few months the memories of somnene who sat next to Obama in 7th or 8th grade math class. She said that Obama was very helpful in explaining math to her- much more helpful than the math teacher.
During the 2008 campaign, he made the outrageous claim that inflating tires will substitute for increased drilling. Anyone who has done any cursory analysis of 1) the reserves/production information in the US and 2) getting an accurate handle on i) how much energy is actually lost by not inflating tires versus ii) how some Whip Inflation Now like campaign can reverse those very soft and squishy numbers realizes that Obama didn’t know what he was talking about. Either Obama is incapable of doing such an analysis himself, or he is too lazy to do so. Or both.
The inflated tires claim is also characteristic of someone who has an inflated [yes, that was deliberate] opinion of his analytical abilities and his knowledge of issues- 115 IQ masquerading as 145. Obama’s “research” and “assistance” for Leonard Tribe on the joke of a publication about relating modern physics to the law is also an indication of someone who has an inflated view of one’s capabilities. [That Leonard Tribe put his name to such nonsense also doesn’t speak well of Tribe- who got a bachelor’s degree with honors in math, so is no dummy.]
I wonder what minimum IQ is needed to pass the bar exam. It wouldn’t surprise me that it is around 115, as I recall reading somewhere that 115 IQ is the minimum to get a Ph.D. – obviously easier to get in Education than in Physics.
When Obama tries to take credit for the increase in domestic O&G production during his term, his "inflating tires" claim should be thrown back in his face. The "inflating tires" claim is NOT the statement of someone who supports increased domestic drilling. What has increased domestic O&G production? Increased drilling .[duh]