Stupid is as Stupid does: Is Obama Smart?

Via Ace of Spades I saw this story that ran in the Wall Street Journal called Is Obama Smart?

Before you read it, I want to point out for the record that I am not hugely interested in how smart our politicians really are, since I vote mainly based on which politician better realizes that governments are instituted among men  only for the purposes of better protecting my life, liberty, and property than I could do so myself in a true anarchy. If I had a chance of a genius who hated liberty and wanted to redistribute wealth or an idiot who loved liberty and wanted to let me keep the fruits of my labor, I'd choose the idiot. In fact, I'd prefer an idiot tyrant over a genius tyrant to- I imagine they'd be less successful than a genius in pushing for regulations and rules and fees and taxes which control me and seize my wealth.

That being said, by looking at whether Obama is smart we can learn two important things; first, what does it truly mean to be smart; and second, whether his supposed intelligence just another example of bizarro world where smart is dumb and dumb is smart.

...I just think the president isn't very bright.

Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché? As for the small speeches, such as the one we were kept waiting 50 minutes for yesterday, we get Triple-A bromides about America remaining a "Triple-A country." Which, when it comes to long-term sovereign debt, is precisely what we no longer are under Mr. Obama.

Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent. At the height of the financial panic of 1907, Teddy Roosevelt, who had done much to bring the panic about by inveighing against big business, at least had the good sense to stick to his bear hunt and let J.P. Morgan sort things out. Not so this president, who puts a new twist on an old put-down: Every time he opens his mouth, he subtracts from the sum total of financial capital.

Then there's his habit of never trimming his sails, much less tacking to the prevailing wind. When Bill Clinton got hammered on health care, he reverted to centrist course and passed welfare reform. When it looked like the Iraq war was going to be lost, George Bush fired Don Rumsfeld and ordered the surge.

Mr. Obama, by contrast, appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn't. In politics, a failure of communication is always the fault of the communicator...

There is more, all of it good, all of it pointing out that Obama is not a smart guy. That's okay though- although he lacks experience, doesn't know his or government's limitations, and has surrounded himself with yes-men, the fact that he isn't smart is not why he is one the worst Presidents in the history of our nation. He's a bad President because he erodes the quality of life, encourages abortion of babies, puts in place policies that result in people dying, removes choices and freedom from people, acts in a tyrannical manner, and uses the power of government to unjustly take property from people so that he can give it to others. He's a bad President not because he isn't smart, but because he is a tyrant.