Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:
I feel sorry for President Obama. He’s running for re-election but I don’t think he truly wants it. The job’s no fun anymore.
Look, here’s the bottom line: Barry was an affirmative action kid his entire life and Thomas Sowell is correct that affirmative action is harmful to minorities because it throws them into the deep end when they’re not prepared for it. A student who would have succeeded at a second-rank school will struggle against those who made it into a top-rank school on merit. The results show in low minority graduation rates, grades and class rank. Anyone who works with an affirmative action hire knows “minimally qualified” is not the same as “well qualified.”
Nobody knows President Obama’s grades, test scores or class rank at Columbia University or Harvard Law School. He was elected President of the Law Review by popular vote but never wrote a law review article. He worked for an undistinguished law firm and tried no cases. He was an adjunct teacher at the University of Chicago Law School, which there is no performance review. Chicago Democrat Machine trickery got him into the Illinois state senate – where he did nothing of note – and the United States Senate where he voted “present.” Obama stole the nomination from Hillary because in the Democrat hierarchy of victim worthiness, Black trumps Woman. Voters picked the Black guy to assuage their guilt, not for his competence.
Nobody ever expected anything of him, they were happy to have him fill a quota and do nothing embarrassing. Joe Biden nailed it: an articulate, clean, non-threatening Black man who looks good in a suit.
“President Of The United States” sounds like a cool gig but it’s no fun. People criticize every move and that’s a tough adjustment for a pampered kid. Notice how quickly Presidents age in office and ponder the reason for it. Nothing in Barack Obama’s life prepared him for that relentless pressure.
Yes, the Greek columns, stadia of fainting women and a Nobel Prize were cool. But three years on, Rahm is gone and free golf doesn’t outweigh the irritation of everyone demanding decisions then bitching about them. Even worse is the sinking realization that he’s in over his head, the economy sucks, the world is going to pot, he doesn’t actually know what to do and he can’t fake his way out of it. That’s got to be an awful feeling.
President Obama is going through the motions to get re-elected but his heart isn’t in it. The job’s no fun anymore.
I’m at a loss to think of a President who was less prepared for the office.
I’ve been thinking the same thing Joe, you really nailed it!
Nailed. It.
Hah, Scott’s comment hadn’t been posted yet when I made mine so I didn’t see his until after I posted mine.
Joe Doakes wrote:
Nobody knows President Obama’s grades, test scores or class rank at Columbia University or Harvard Law School.
We know that Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard law. That means he was in the top 15% of his class (summa cum laude is the top 5%, magna cum laude is the next 10%). This is really meaningless, though. You can read about the immense, unrelenting pressure for law schools to enroll and graduate people who self-identify as “black”, and for law firms to hire all those blacks who pass the bar, here:
http://rightcoast.typepad.com/rightcoast/2007/01/more.html
The Right Coast is written by University of San Diego law profs.
I believe, in the absence of hard data, it is reasonable to assume that Obama’s grades at Occidental and Columbia were less than outstanding, or he would have released his records.
I also believe that we can learn what kind of law student Obama was from his career at Harvard. As Mr. Doakes notes, he published nothing, and his position at HLR was an elected one. It was not awarded for academic merit.
Typically HLR’s chief editors go on to clerk for SC justices, or have distinguished careers in private or public practice or in academia. Obama, who surely saw what top-rated talent looked like at Harvard, chose to become a politician, and a politician in a state and city known for its rigged elections and corrupt public institutions.
I think that, all taken together, this means that Obama’s intellectual capacity is that of a middling-through humanities undergrad at a 1st or 2nd tier private college.
Based on the way the School Lunch Czar, Michelle embraced him, she didn’t look like she was into it, either. In fact, she had the look of “I would rather be anywhere else right now, than here” on her face. I guess that now that she and his highness have become millionaires themselves, the lavish vacation trips that were paid for by the taxpayers, aren’t such a novelty anymore.
I think it was Bill Clinton who said that the perks of the POTUS — private airliner, entourage, limos, presidential estates, and what not, would cost a private citizen 50 million $ a year to duplicate.
And yet his planet-sized ego won’t let him conceive of stepping down or (gasp!) losing.