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| Home Front: Politix |
| Obama's empty intellect |
| 2010-06-22 |
| Richard Cohen, Washington Post One of the great masters of liberal conventional wisdom, a card-carrying member of the herd of independent minds (and the guy who cuckolded Peter Jennings), takes a hard look at Obama and sees . . . well, here, let him tell you: It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all. It consists instead of a series of challenges -- of problems that need fixing, not wrongs that need to be righted. As Winston Churchill once said of a certain pudding, Obama's approach to foreign affairs lacks theme. So, it seems, does the man himself. For instance, it's not clear that Obama is appalled by China's appalling human rights record. He seems hardly stirred about continued repression in Russia. He treats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. The president seems to stand foursquare for nothing much. This, of course, is the Obama enigma: Who is this guy? What are his core beliefs?... Now, while Mr. Cohen may be the perfect example of a standard-issue Mk.1 Mod 0 factory-spec conventional Washington liberal who parrots all the "right" thinking, he's actually on to something here (emphasis added): Fortune has not smiled on Obama's presidency. His one uncontested attribute -- a shimmering intellect -- has become suspect. I wouldn't call it "uncontested," but go on. A world of smart guys has turned against us. Everyone at Goldman Sachs is smart, but they seem to have the amorality mocked by the songwriter Tom Lehrer in his sendup of the celebrated American rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, a former Nazi (" 'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von Braun"). The oil industry is full of smart people, and so is the mortgage industry. Smart people seem to have brought us nothing but trouble. Smarts without values is dangerous -- threatening, scary, virtually un-American.... |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #5 Obama's empty intellect, empty heart, empty suit, inept, clumsy and lazy. It is time for him to resign. Before something happens where we need a true leader, he should resign. There is a difference is saying, "I'm the President" and actually doing a job as the leader of the country |
| Posted by: whatadeal 2010-06-22 12:15 |
| #4 Fail. Two years behind the times. Enroll Cohen in the remedial journalism class. |
| Posted by: ed 2010-06-22 11:40 |
| #3 And yet if I were to say this, I would be branded as an anti-intellectual American who trusted in common sense instead of science. I love the part where he brands those who disagree with The One as "enemies". From he who will not call Islamicists enemies. |
| Posted by: gromky 2010-06-22 11:23 |
| #2 The founders would be somewhere between tears and apoplexy looking at what these "smart people" are doing to the USA. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2010-06-22 09:58 |
| #1 Hetreats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. Not really. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-06-22 09:57 |