Sort of. Harvard published the scores of its incoming class by race and undergraduate institution. There were two black Columbia transferees that year; one scored in the 94th percentile, the other in the 98th. Since we don’t know which one was Obama I went with the lower one.
Obama is a very good speaker. And a pretty good politician. And a good, decent man .
But a great intellect?
One political cartoon summed it up perfectly, in July 2008:
While running for president the first time, Obama made a grand tour of Europe, doing all the things that an aspiring politician should do to boost his image : speaking to large crowds, meeting prime ministers, —and included a speech in Berlin at the same site John F Kennedy had spoken so famously a generation earlier…
The cartoonist drew Obama standing next to the Berlin Wall, declaring
“Ich bin ein Beginner!”
Even as someone who voted for him twice, I recognize that that rules.
That makes him all the more intelligent.
Thomas Jefferson is definitely considered one of the best Presidents of all time.
When all is said and done, I think Obama will be at the bottom of the average Presidents on the list.
Let Obama learn a second language before I even give the idea any thought.
Theodore Roosevelt didn’t think so. He was furious at Jefferson for not having expanded the fledgeling U.S. Navy when it was so vital to the country’s survival. Yes, we won a number of critical battles in the War of 1812…but with absolutely inadequate resources. Six bloomin’ Frigates vs. the entire British Navy. Not a single ship of the line.
Jefferson had other faults and flaws. Second tier, maybe, but not first tier. (The Louisiana Purchase was magnificent…and Jefferson resisted it, doubting he had the constitutional right!)
He didn’t. Only Congress can appropriate money or approve treaties, both of which were legally required.
Our Constitution has been violated in extreme circumstances to be sure, but I appreciate Presidents who at least know the rules. You have to know the rules to know when it’s appropriate to break them. The Roosevelts cared nothing for rule of law, they just figured a President should be able to do whatever he wants. Andrew Jackson was another one like that.
Actually, it’s not clear that a Treaty is required for the U.S. to purchase land from another country.
It could simply be accomplished by a high-level agreement.
Note the recent Straight Dope column about countries giving up land: were all of those that affected the U.S. done by Senate-approved treaty? (Did the Senate actually take up the swap of small acreage with Mexico to restore the river border?)
The Gadsden Purchase was done by treaty, as was Alaska. Of course, the easiest way for a President to take land without Congress’ involvement(other than a possible declaration) is war.
Not by a looooong shot!@
How many scholarly papers has he published and what are they?
And has any President lost more 9-0 constitutional decisions than this President?
From the same article (bolding added):
And he wrote only one scholarly article http://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/exclusive-obamas-lost-law-review-article-012705
That’s the best part of the Obama presidency: all the racial reconciliation. :rolleyes:
It’s truly a shame that the presidency hasn’t brought them out. We won’t know HOW great he is until he’s left office. How ironic. :rolleyes:
Obama could have been a great President, but he should have stayed in Washington longer. I know that sounds unusual, but when you’re from Chicago, DC is actually a fairly ethical place by comparison to learn the art of politics.
Quote:
And he wrote only one scholarly article http://www.politico.com/story/2008/0...article-012705
Quote:
The six-page summary, tucked into the third volume of the year’s Harvard Law Review, considers the charged, if peripheral, question of whether fetuses should be able to file lawsuits against their mothers. Obama’s answer, like most courts’: No.
Such brilliance! Imagine… a fetus sueing?
This is on par with a Martain sueing NASA for trespassing. My respect for Harvard Law School has dropped considerably. People actually write such garbage? amazing.:smack:
I think it might be a mistake to compare people today to the polymath nobles of yesteryear. If Thomas Jefferson were born even 50 years ago, I highly doubt he’d have made significant contributions to as many fields, and that goes for the others of the time as well. Fields are extremely deep and have a ton of background now. Not to mention they have (likely exponentially) more contributors all aiming at making contributions every day. It’s difficult if not impossible to have the breadth of knowledge, time, and dedication to make that many meaningful contributions to many different areas. Especially when fields have so many vast subfields (most Artificial Intelligence people only have a cursory knowledge of Cryptography and so on).
I feel like some people are expecting that in order for Obama to compare to these people, he also needs to have made multiple contributions to (for example) the fields of avionics, rocketry, and biology. I don’t think Obama comes to Jefferson’s level of relative intellect, personally, but I also don’t think you can meaningfully expect anybody to be a good career politician that’s also managed to gain that depth of knowledge in multiple modern fields, hypothetical modern Jefferson included.
Even with patentable inventions, it’s unlikely you’ll make many meaningful gadgets people will remember in 100 years in your spare time while undergoing Presidential duties when Apple has entire well funded R&D divisions looking for the next big thing.
Even if you look at our more “modern” geniuses, they’re primarily known for a small handful of very closely related sub-fields, with maybe one or two curveballs thrown in on occasion.
Until he gets off the teleprompter. Then it is uhs, uhms, 57 states, speaking Austrian in Austria, etc. Dumb as a stump.
Can we please get the “fifty-seven states” thing straight? Of course Obama doesn’t believe that there are fifty-seven states. Do you seriously believe that someone with a bachelor’s degree and a law degree would not know how many states there are? If you do, then you’re either deliberately trying to distort Obama’s record or know nothing about what people learn in school.
This all comes from one speech during his campaign when he stumbled in an offhand statement. He talked about how many states he had visited so far (as of May 2008) during his first Presidential campaign. He wanted to say that he had almost visited all the forty-eight states in the contiguous part of the U.S during the campaign. (He hadn’t got to one of those forty-eight yet.) He said that his staff had told him that he should put Alaska and Hawaii off as yet until he finished the contiguous states, just out of efficiency. He wanted to say that he had visited forty-seven states. He stumbled in talking and started to say that he had visited fifty states, and then he corrected himself and switched to saying that he had visited forty-seven. This made it sound like he was saying fifty-seven states. People make hesitations and mistakes in speech all the time. It proves nothing:
Furthermore, there is no evidence that Obama can only speak well with a teleprompter (compared to any other President or Presidential candidate). Everybody uses teleprompters for campaign speeches these days. If you want to compare Presidents purely by how well they speak without a teleprompter, then the President that was the best at it (during the television era) was Bill Clinton, who was able to wing it in speeches quite well. The worst was Ronald Reagan, who was very good in prepared speeches but awful, especially towards the end of his second term, in spontaneous speaking. It was clear even then that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. The spontaneous speaking style of a President has nothing to do with how good their policies are.
What is true is that when answering questions, Obama has a lot of hesitations and fillers (i.e., things like “um”) in his speech. That’s just the way he talks. Hesitating and saying filler words proves nothing about one’s intelligence. It’s just a part of a person’s personal style. If you want to argue about President’s intelligence, don’t use how much they hesitated as evidence. There’s no connection between speaking style and I.Q.