# American's are too dumb for an Obama presidency. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 8, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295 "2008-12-08T20:02:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/61 "2008-12-09T11:02:03Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > It’s a shame that such people as us won’t likely be considered for high picks in an Obama administration. And frankly, that seems strange - Democrats _seem_ to look out for the little guy and did so much in the past to build up these land grant and other public colleges, not to mention small private schools. Asinine. Speaking as a “little guy”, I want Obama to select the very best people for the job, which means people who have the know-how and the where-with-all to carry out his vision. Like Janet Naplitano, for example, whose schooling was in Santa Clara and Virgina. > [@](#): > > There was some sneering during the campaign about Sarah Palin and the fact that she graduated from the University of Idaho after several transfers and about an extra year of study. It was just about the worst kind of snobbery from people whose own academic career was often hardly more distinguished, and sent an awful message. Sarah Palin is a fucking idiot, and it has nothing to do with what school she attended. She is a bullshitter who gets by on charm and tits. The crowds who wait in line to see her are equally bereft of intellect, and are, in the main, bigots and racists, as a visit to YouTube will show. > [@](#): > > Right now the Democratic Party is strong among the working class and among the professional class - and the priorities of the one don’t coincide with the other right down the line. This is one example of this, and one area where the Republicans will easily have an opening if the Democrats aren’t careful. There’s a difference between someone who attends Ivy League on a family legacy and then goes off to make a fortune, and someone who attends on merit and then goes off to change lives. Barack Obama knows the plight of struggling people because he gave his life over to them and lived among them, and in fact struggled a good bit himself. The only thing more socially cursed in this society than being black in the ghetto is being half-black in Kansas. He is a new kind of leader for the Democrats, and many of them even don’t yet understand who he is or what they have. The far left will turn on him before the right does. The left is as bigotted as the right, only in reverse. They assumed that having a black man would mean the fulfillment of all their weirdo left-wing nut dreams. It’s as though they didn’t even listen during his campaign. Obama is more libertarian than left, both fiscally and socially. That’s why I’ve supported him from the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/62 "2008-12-09T11:55:07Z")
And one more thing. Obama isn’t interested in the most clever or most intelligent solutions. He’s interested in solutions that work. He isn’t appointing people to figure out a vision. The vision is already his, and he’s doing what needs to be done to make his vision realized. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/63 "2008-12-09T14:07:56Z")
Liberal writes: \> The only thing more socially cursed in this society than being black in the ghetto \> is being half-black in Kansas. Obama never lived in Kansas. He probably spent almost no time there even as a child, despite his mother being born there. It’s hard to tell if he even knew any of his mother’s family who still lived in Kansas. His mother only lived in Kansas for a few years as a child. Her parents left Kansas and moved around the U.S. several times. She graduated from high school in the state of Washington. She and her parents moved just as she graduated because her father got a new job in Hawaii, so she enrolled at the University of Hawaii. Neither she nor her parents ever lived in Kansas again. Obama has no more connection with Kansas than he does with Kenya. He hardly knew his father and only knows Kenya from a couple of visits there, and he may have never visited Kansas. If you’re going to talk about Obama’s experiences, talk about Hawaii, Indonesia, California, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois, where he actually lived. \> Obama is more libertarian than left, both fiscally and socially. Give some examples supporting this idea. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/64 "2008-12-09T14:17:32Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Obama is more libertarian than left, both fiscally and socially. That’s why I’ve supported him from the beginning. I’m afraid I’m going to need cites for this as well - nearly all of his campaign rhetoric and his website platform seemed to be garden variety liberalism. There is a strange tendency for Obama fans to see their policy preferences in him - easy to have happen, as Obama himself can be vague at times. It seems at first glance that **Liberal** has fallen into this trap. It happened before with him - he insisted in previous threads that Obama was a principled Second Amendment supporter despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/65 "2008-12-09T14:21:40Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > Uh huh. You do realize, of course, that I chose those schools because Presidents Carter, Johnson and Truman attended them. > > Or maybe you didn’t realize that. No, but it makes no difference, what I said remains true. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/66 "2008-12-09T14:22:34Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > Oh what fucking tripe. I want the best goddamn people in this nation to be in charge of running it, not “people like us”. And I don’t give a crap where they got their education, nor, I’m sure, does Barack Obama. > > This is the most ridiculously stupid thing I have heard in a long time. As a wise person somewhere said, “I don’t want to sit down and have a beer with the president. I want him to be a LOT smarter than me and I want him to run the fucking country.” ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/67 "2008-12-09T14:27:36Z")
Since nearly 80% ot the public approves of Mr Obama’s transition efforts, and since this is an extraordinarily high rating [Poll: 79% approve of way Obama is handling transition - CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/09/Obama.poll/) it’s dumb to extrapolate from a minority opinion that “American’s _(sic)_ are too dumb for an Obama presidency.” Of course, half of all Americans have IQ’s under 100, so the approval rating doesn’t signify intelligence, either. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/68 "2008-12-09T14:32:29Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Are people actually complaining that Obama is choosing people who are too intelligent? Does intelligent and well-educated automatically mean “out of touch with the common man”? > > As opposed to _that_ crowd of human rights abusers? Comb-lickers? Warmongers? Non-critical thinkers? Uncredentialled FEMA directors? Vindictive cover blowers? Mis-intelligence gatherers? > > I will take my chances with change. Bra-fucking-VO. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/69 "2008-12-09T14:43:51Z")
Whenever conservatives whine about the “intelligentsia” it reminds of the dumb kids who sat in the back of the class who could not get peer approval for success, so they high-fived each other when they got Fs and made fun of the nerds. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/70 "2008-12-09T15:37:30Z")
So we are agreed - people who graduate from [Harvard and Yale](http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html) can be presumed to be better qualified than someone who flunked out of [law school and divinity school](http://www.larryelder.com/Gore/goredubiousrecord.htm). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/71 "2008-12-09T15:55:24Z")
Sigh, No. What we CAN agree on is the mere fact of going to Yale or Harvard (or other Ivy league schools) shouldn’t disqualify you from a position requiring great intelligence just because…you have a great intelligence. But merely going to the school does not, by default, make you intelligent or qualified to be in a cabinet position. I really can’t believe we’re having this conversation. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/72 "2008-12-09T16:05:01Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > So we are agreed - people who graduate from [Harvard and Yale](http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html) can be presumed to be better qualified than someone who flunked out of [law school and divinity school](http://www.larryelder.com/Gore/goredubiousrecord.htm). > > Regards, > Shodan If you honestly believe that this is a useful contribution to the discussion, you’re dumber than a warehouse full of rocks. I suspect you don’t, and that you’re just trying to get a rise out of the liberals. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/73 "2008-12-09T16:47:16Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > As a wise person somewhere said, “I don’t want to sit down and have a beer with the president. I want him to be a LOT smarter than me and I want him to run the fucking country.” I think it was John Stewart. “I don’t want the president to be a regular guy, I want him to be **embarrassingly superior!** Like this guy!” [pic appears of one of the huge-headed Talosians from the _Star Trek_ pilot [“The Menagerie”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek))] “Mr. President, there is trouble in the Middle East!” [scrunches up eyes and makes humming noise] “It is done.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/74 "2008-12-09T16:48:17Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > If you honestly believe that this is a useful contribution to the discussion . . . Does he ever? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/75 "2008-12-09T17:12:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > So we are agreed - people who graduate from [Harvard and Yale](http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html) can be presumed to be better qualified than someone who flunked out of [law school and divinity school](http://www.larryelder.com/Gore/goredubiousrecord.htm). > > Regards, > Shodan Congratulations **Shodan**! With this post, you have locked up the award for “Missing the fucking point completely”! The judges cited your persistence and your tenuous grasp of reality as “really standing out in a class by themselves” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/76 "2008-12-09T17:22:58Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > [Quote=UncleBeer] > > And the remarks about JFK’s Camelot are equivocal at best. > > > [@](#): > > > > . . . President John F. Kennedy’s “best and brightest” led the country into the Vietnam War. > > And botched that miserably. Eisenhower, not Kennedy. [Quote=Wikipedia] # 1 November 1955 — Eisenhower deploys the Military Assistance Advisory Group to train the ARVN (South Vietnamese Army). This marks the official beginning of American involvement in the war as recognized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. [/quote] Admittedly, the first large scale deployment of troops happened under Kennedy, but Eisenhower was the guy who put us there in the first place. [/quote] Your point is not really pertinent to this discussion. Regardless of which president took which action, the phrase “the best and the brightest” refers to the book by David Halberstam of the same title, taken from an earlier, ironic description by Halberstam of the staff that Kennedy assembled who made enormous errors in judgement regarding the goals and the methods employed in the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Johnson retained the majority of Kennedy’s staff in the early days of his presidency–corresponding to the time when the war was ramped up and the policies of the next seven years established. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/77 "2008-12-09T18:06:19Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Since nearly 80% ot the public approves of Mr Obama’s transition efforts, and since this is an extraordinarily high rating [Poll: 79% approve of way Obama is handling transition - CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/09/Obama.poll/) it’s dumb to extrapolate from a minority opinion that “American’s _(sic)_ are too dumb for an Obama presidency.” Perhaps the Obama transition is going better than that of, for instance, the Bush one because Obama isn’t dealing with people who are so spitefully petty that they trash the White House on their way out. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/78 "2008-12-09T18:12:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I think it was John Stewart. > > “I don’t want the president to be a regular guy, I want him to be **embarrassingly superior!** Like this guy!” [pic appears of one of the huge-headed Talosians from the _Star Trek_ pilot [“The Menagerie”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_(Star_Trek))] “Mr. President, there is trouble in the Middle East!” [scrunches up eyes and makes humming noise] “It is done.” I realize this is probably only in jest, but I’m pretty sure the presidency is already way more than sufficiently imperial. When “The People” expect the president to wave a hand and state, “It is done,” and Congress has so thoroughly abdicated its own leadership responsibilities as this one has done, the danger of an imperial presidency should be quite obvious. It leads to exactly the abuses of constitutionally delegated powers and curtailing of freedoms that we’ve seen in the current administration. The overwhelmingly positive response from “The People” to the incoming Obama administations actions leads me to believe we’re likely to head yet farther down this dangerous pass. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/79 "2008-12-09T18:13:29Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Your point is not really pertinent to this discussion. Regardless of which president took which action, the phrase “the best and the brightest” refers to the book by David Halberstam of the same title, taken from an earlier, ironic description by Halberstam of the staff that Kennedy assembled who made enormous errors in judgement regarding the goals and the methods employed in the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It’s doubly ironic because Kennedy got the nomination in the first place by disparaging Stevenson, who Bobby Kennedy especially denigrated as an effeminate and ineffective intellectual. The more liberal wing of the Democratic Party was pressing for Stevenson to be appointed Secretary of State after the election - the Kennedys offered him instead the UN ambassadorship, not seen then as a plum administration job. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295/80 "2008-12-09T18:16:52Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Perhaps the Obama transition is going better than that of, for instance, the Bush one because Obama isn’t dealing with people who are so spitefully petty that they trash the White House on their way out. > > Regards, > Shodan Your timing is off there little buddy. Obama has not yet gotten into the White House. As for your “trashing the whitehouse” meme: The cites I can find all list $13,000 - $14,000 as the total cost of getting the White House into shape for Bush II. This includes replacing keyboards (the infamous “W Key” episode), and routine cleaning (which is always done as a matter of course). Naturally, the partisan investigation into this “trashiing” cost much more than that. If Bush’s transition was thrown off by a minor annoyance, it speaks volumes for his teams inability to function. But then you’re not particularly interested in the facts, are you **Shodan**? I guess I’ll try to be more **Shodanesque** then: “So you’re saying that Bush’s transition team was unable to appoint capable people to cabinet in December of 2000 because someone was going to remove the “W” keys from the whitehouse keyboards at some later date?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americans-are-too-dumb-for-an-obama-presidency/476295.md?page=5)