In Which I Learn A Little More About Racism In America

Richard Cohen of the WaPo joins the club bashing Barack, but he also offers an inadvertent lesson about racism in America:

Obama has always been the man he is today. He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance — the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is. He has next to none of the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians. He would eschew the cliche, but he feels little of their pain. In this sense, he has been patronized by liberals who looked at a man and saw black and has been reviled by those who looked at a black man and saw “other.”

Now wait a minute.  As best I can tell, Mr. Cohen is saying that when an earnest liberal looks at Obama he figures that Obama must be both a great speaker and a believer in all sorts of earnest, feel-good liberal theories - because he is black.  However, if and when a right wing Neanderthal looks at Obama and mutters "Oh, geez, I bet he believes in all sorts of loopy, never-worked liberal theories - because he is black", well, that nasty right-winger is a racist for projecting beliefs onto a person without waiting for actual evidence.

Puzzling.  I will take it as yet more evidence that I will never be smart enough to be an earnest lib.

Let's note that back in the day Geraldine Ferraro was exoriated for suggesting the obvious - that Obama's race gave him added appeal.  Eventually, we were unsurprised to learn that Obama agreed.

Comments

[daddy]

Chinese TV Channels and Al Jazirah are full of video of the riots in London.

Al Jazirah seems to be pushing it as is a legitimate response by minorities to a racist country. Their interview footage is Brit Islamics saying it's the fault of the police killing the minority guy and that the Government and police should be blamed not the rioters.

China is just graphic footage of the burning and looting, and I don't detect that they are trying to paint it as the fault of the cops. I get the sense they are thinking "When the heck are the authorities going to come in and kick ass and restore order?"

[Thomas Collins]

I adhere to a third explanation. The so-called loony, racist, sexist, misogynistic, ableist, uneducated, bitter clingist, lowIQist, Bible thumpist, globalwarmingrejectionist crowd evaluated Obama not on race, but on prior record, and came to the conclusion, not surprisingly enough, that Obama exquisitely combined leftism, poor judgment and contempt of America. The progs were the ones applying their own racial stereotypes.

[Janet]

Ditto what TC said.

[Captain Hate]

Cohen is really losing it; he should join Kruggy and Tweety as the proprietors of Jonestown v2.0

[macphisto]

+2.

[Barbara-Lurking]

TC-
Do I dare mention that you omitted "birtherist?"

[Neo]

The progs were the ones applying their own racial stereotypes.

The dearth of independent information on our first black President attests to their disinterest in reality, that continues until they can't ignore it any longer.

[Comanche Voter]

I fondly remember the Cohen column where he was out for a bicycle ride (prolly with the same goofy ass helmet that his hero wore on that metorsexual bicycle rider picture) and had a dream. About Obama!

Sorta like Saul on the Road to Damascus.
I'm glad to see that there's still space for morons on the WaPo op ed page.

[Thomas Collins]

Barbara-Lurking, I figured I left out some of the things those of us who didn't participate in the Obama Love Fest have been called. Thanks for adding one I omitted. I'm sure there are others.

My favorite insult, however, is not any word or phrase, but the look on my friends in October of 2008 when I argued that, of Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin, Palin was clearly the best qualified to be POTUS. I now cherish those looks of contempt I received.

[MICHAEL BESCHLOSS]

Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader.

Our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people that smart and that capable.

He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.

[narciso]

The bigger story, as daddy, punctuates, is the events coming from Croydon and thereabouts, Doc Zero concurs in Human Events:

U.S. media coverage of all this has been remarkably muted. They haven’t ignored the story, but the coverage has been superficial, and noticeably out of proportion to the scale of these horrible events. Watching an American news report about London on TV, and then taking a look at the coverage by the BBC, presents a jarring contrast. Of course, our weekend coverage was dominated by the U.S. government’s credit rating downgrade, and later we had the awful chopper attack in Afghanistan to deal with, but these events shouldn’t have crowded out the amazing story of a major Western capital – the storied city that gave birth to our own political system, and much of our culture – torn to shreds by gigantic hordes of rioters

[Threadkiller]

If I were a liberal my first thought might be:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,"

And if I were a liberal friend of a liberal that just said that, I would probably respond with:

”Don’t forget! He is light-skinned with no Negro dialect.”

I am not a liberal, so I can’t say things like that.

[Melinda Romanoff]

The 2012 Presidential election is over.

Is there nothing that Ditka can't do?

[MarkO]

Now here's a punch line:

"He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President."

Fine. Proof? Grades? Writing? Or shall we go with the intellectual stammer and the leading from behind?

Let's see what you've got. I've got a career of nothing buy being something.

Looking forward to new and wonderful information. If all you have is bile, I've read it already.

[MarkO]

nothing "but" being.

[qrstuv]

"his IQ is off the charts" but he does not know how liability insurance works and does not even know that he is ignorant on that point.

Riiiiiight.

[steve]

He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President

If this is what we get with the smartest guy ever, then count me among those wanting someone a bit less smart.

But how smart could he be? Stupidity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different response. In what way has Obama done anything differently to deal with our problems? Heck, he not only hasn't done anything different, he's even giving the same speeches.

And while it's nice to see liberals like Cohen in such a tizzy, it's even nicer to know that guys like him would never have given Obama the nomination had he not been black. No white candidate would ever have gotten the nomination with such a thin resume and lack of accomplishments. Give Obama credit, he played the crowd for the bigots they are.

[macphisto]

"but he does not know how liability insurance works and does not even know that he is ignorant on that point."

and can't remember how many states there are in the country of which he's President, or his own age or the age of his daughter.

[Thomas Collins]

Drudge Headline:

"American Baseball Bats Selling Fast in UK..."

I hope the law abiding shopkeepers and residents are getting their share before the supply runs out.

[Boatbuilder]

As a Right-Wing Neanderthal, I am offended. I believed that Obama believed in all sorts of loopy, never-worked liberal theories because he told us he did. I also believe that Thomas Sowell is black because I've seen pictures of him. I don't believe that Thomas Sowell believes in unicorn farts because he has eloquently criticized unicorn farts in his writings. I believe that Obama believes in unicorn farts because he wrote glowingly about them in his books and spoke about them in his speeches. If the geniuses like Cohen and Bechsloss weren't obsessed with and blinded by race they would have seen these things.

[Ranger]

Well, considering that it's against the law to cary even a kitchen knife for self defense in England, I imagine the conversation at the sporting goods shop goes something like this:

Shopper: I'll take a Softball bat, Cricket Bat, Baseball Bat, and a fusion powered multi-bat in the 40 watt range.

Shop Owner: Hey mac, just what you see on the shelf... But any one of these is good for home defense.

[Texas Mom 2010]

Some of the most successful family members I have (self made millionaires) did not or could not go to college. Any one of them would have made a better president than this guy. IQ is no use if the person cannot practically apply intelligence to reality rather than wishes and dreams. Hah! Dreams From My Father should have been a clue that Obama does not deal in the real world.

[lyle]

He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.

Woodrow Wilson had a PhD. Slick was a Rhodes Scholar and purportedly the smartest preznit evah. Keep fluffin' your man, Barry, though. Always sounds like you're trying to convince yourself more than anyone else. 'Cuz if he's not that smart, what does that make YOU?

[BB Key]

Rush on Cohen : Cold not cool , you heard here first 3 years ago...

[Jim Ryan]

"IQ off the charts." Clinton's was about 150, I'd guess. Obama is about 25 or 30 points below that. I don't have the IQ to do the math, but I'm guessing the difference puts Zero at about 120 or 125: moderately bright. With average effort he gets B's in school. With the effort level he shows these days, he would have gotten C's back then. With the sociopathy he also evinces, he would have tried to manipulate the teachers into giving A-'s.

[Frau Wahlzettel]

Cohen's criticism is still a love letter to Obama and a smearing of Pres. Downgrade's opponents:

Obama’s communications handicap, his loathing for the pornography of politics, could cost him a second term. In the current New York Review of Books, Andrew Hacker cites the findings of the University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato to point out that “an usually high proportion” of Obama’s 2008 majority came from new voters, “notably students and minorities.” If a large number of these Obama voters are no longer elated by the historic novelty of the candidate and/or are disappointed by his performance, turnout will be depressed and Obama will be in peril. The passion of his haters is fearsome; his admirers cannot be tepid.

[Frau Wahlzettel]

Bent Willie actually crammed (admittedly using the notes of others, of course) and took tests. We have no record of Obama doing any work while in college or law school.

[Frau Wahlzettel]

By record, I mean academic or anecdotal record.

[Extraneus]

From the previous thread...

Is Obama smart?

When it comes to piloting, Barack Obama seems to think he's the political equivalent of Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager and—in a "Fly Me to the Moon" sort of way—Nat King Cole rolled into one. "I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."

On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

Of course, it's tempting to be immodest when your admirers are so immodest about you. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.

Over to you, MarkO.

[MarkO]

He's just not that smart.

Thanks, Ex.

[Porchlight]

conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

and

I just think the president isn't very bright.

are not mutually exclusive

[A Stephens]

Yep. The candidate who Obama reminded me of most was John Edwards. I have zero doubt that were their complexions swapped, then we'd be looking at the other in the White House. Obama deserves respect for being a good family man, but politically they're the same empty suit, put forth by the cynical progressive cabal who knew that stylistic appeal, when coupled with impossible promises, not to mention a little voter fraud thrown in for good measure, could finally get the Trojan horse through the gate.

[Captain Hate]

I always thought Slick's vaunted IQ was wildly overstated, manifesting itself mainly in doing carny tricks of carrying on a policy discussion while doing crossword puzzles to get over on the rubes in the MFM. How hard is it to be the smartest boy in Hope, Arkansas? I've never looked at his transcripts but I find it hard to believe from watching a major bullshitter like him that they were heavy on the math and hard sciences. I'm sure whatever brain power he had was employed primarily to snag cooter.

Even if he was as smart as claimed he was a terrible President in terms of not delegating things effectively. One of my lib friends was outraged to discover a huge length of time during which he never conducted a full cabinet meeting. Also thanks to his slovenly attitude regarding security, El JEFe is able to claim to have eliminated bin Laden.

[sbw]

If O is so smart, why can't he respond substantively to opposition? Have a good idea? Show us why it is better. Explain in more than platitudes why the good ideas others have are not better than what you present.

If O is so smart he would use rhetoric to explain, the way it was intended.

Naw, he's not smart.

[Bill in AZ sez it's time for Zero to resign]

"He’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President"

Anyone who, at 50 years old, still believes in the unobtainable socialist libtopia of unicorns and rainbows is dumber'n'shit.

[Porchlight]

Obama only thinks he's smart because people have been kissing his ass his entire life (with the exception of early childhood which I imagine must have been difficult and lonely for him).

He's never encountered serious opposition in anything. Never. He's always been told what a genius he is. Can't blame the guy for believing his own press after 40 solid years.

He's the first Affirmative Action President. No more, no less.

[Captain Hate]

Yeah I was gonna try to make the points that you did, Porch. I'd also add that he came into office with a wealth of good will from people who didn't vote for him, just from the thinking that the nation's first black President being successful would be a good thing for the country. That's something very different from what Cohen's ilk used in putting their hopes in a leaky basket; but he was a poor choice for either of them.

[Jim Ryan]

All's I'm saying is that Slick could speak extemporaneously in essay form. And that gets you to the 150 mark, I'll warrant. That's all's I'm saying. Whenever he's about, I mark him as bright. Obama seems to have a dimness next to Slick. Extemporaneous speaking isn't Zero's forte, and if you don't have that or math chops (which Zero shows none of), you can't be much over 120. Or so say I without any evidence, anyway.

[Extraneus]

Obama without the TOTUS

Would anyone here ever do this on any subject? It's not that he was trying to explain something. The man obviously didn't even have a thought in his head.

[Extraneus]

Stuttering Barry

[Sue]

I like that..."I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

So, LeBron, baby, how'd that finals go for you? ::grin::

I agree. He is LeBron. Not able to live up to the hype.

[DebinNC]

David Maraniss, WaPo, 1994:

Clinton has a nearly photographic memory -- he recently stunned a friend visiting the White House by saying, "Let's call your parents!" and then reciting a number he hadn't dialed in more than a decade ("It's four-seven-two, ten-eleven, right?").

Clinton demonstrates the difference between being smart and being wise. As dysfunctional as his upbringing was, Clinton's mom loved him dearly, and it shows. Little Obama was unloved, and it also shows.

[macphisto]

without TOTUS Obama makes W look like the Oracle at Delphi.

[Porchlight]

Slick has at least 20 IQ points on Barry.

[macphisto]

having a photographic memory isn't evidence of intelligence. it's possibly evidence of being an idiot-savant, though.

[macphisto]

at LEAST.

[Captain Hate]

Would anyone here ever do this on any subject?

In defense of the Jugeared Fellow, speaking in front of large groups isn't easy for most people. Any time Mrs H addresses even a small group she sounds like somebody with a meth IV. Having somewhat taken El JEFe off the hook, I'll put him back on by stating that his over-reliance on the teleprompter reflects his lazy attitude toward anything that might be considered work.

[Threadkiller]

Does Mrs. H read this blog?

[Captain Hate]

I don't even think she knows of its existence.

O/T Tammy Bruce is skewering McCain for not apologizing for his "hobbit" comment because he said it was "a fact".

[Extraneus]

Ok, granted, Captain, but that wasn't Barry's issue. He just forgot the bullsh*t line he was supposed to memorize and didn't understand the concept well enough to form a cogent thought about it before talking.

[DebinNC]

This time last year for his 49th birthday:

AP: "The game [featuring Obama, LeBron, and other pros, past and present] was played for [not with] a [very, very small] group of "wounded warriors" -- troops injured in action -- and participants in the White House's mentoring program. It took place at a gym inside Washington's Fort McNair, a short drive from the White House. The president was inside the gym for about two hours....The reporters assigned to keep tabs on the president were shut out of the gym, forced to wait in vans outside. Asked why media coverage was blocked, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama "just wanted to play." [with his bb buds, no wounded warriors were included].

After the game some of the players joined Obama and a group of his friends [but none of the wounded warriors] for a barbecue at the White House, capping the president's 49th birthday week."

That night Michelle returned to the WH from her lavish vacation in Spain.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Smart people rarely have to tell you how smart they are, they don't have to prove they are smart, and the smartest thing smart people do is surround themselves with people even smarter. And smarter doesn't necessarily mean having a fancier degree from a fancier school. Smart people recognize talent and other factors that go into success. The smartest thing smart people do is listen.

[Captain Hate]

I'll agree with you on that, Ext; every time he gave a stump speech for BammyCare or the debt issue, even with TOTUS he sounded borderline illiterate with an embarrassing lack of insight into the basics of either situation.

[Neo]

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) -- Assuming the grimmest role of his office, President Barack Obama on Tuesday privately honored fallen forces returning home from war, this time the troops killed in a helicopter attack that claimed more American lives than any other strike of the Afghanistan war. Obama was flown to Dover Air Force Base, where the remains were carried off a military cargo plane in flag-covered cases.

The Philly TV stations were hinting at this over the weekend.

[Threadkiller]

You crack me up, CH!

[Captain Hate]

Likewise, TK.

[lyle]

IQ in and of itself is a very poor predictor of "smart." I can't be the only one to know really bright people who are (take your pick): indolent, impulsive, imperious, slovenly, impervious, recalcitrant, unfocused, undisciplined...

[Threadkiller]

Not to brag, but I must be bright.

My father called me sun.

[Jim Miller]

Actually, you can put a rough upper limit on Clinton's intelligence just by asking this question: Was he a National Merit Scholar, or even a finalist?

As far as I can tell, the answer to that question is no, so that tells us that he did not have an IQ of 150, or even 140.

He would have had an advantage coming from Arkansas, because at that time the National Merit people normed the finalists by state.)

Somewhat similar arguments tell me that Obama is unlike to have an IQ above 120.

FWIW, Hillary was a finalist.

[Stephanie]

My father called me Dammit. My brother was Jesus Christ.

H/t. Bill Cosby

[Porchlight]

Jim Miller, I think you might be able to make a credible argument that all National Merit Scholars have IQs of 140 or up. But surely you're not saying that the *only* people with those IQs would have been National Merit Scholars. There are plenty of high IQ people with crummy grades.

[Captain Hate]

Mohammed Ali's IQ was only 78 but I think he compensated for that by being glib and outgoing until he took too many shots to the noggin.

[MarkO]

"Hillary was a finalist." Then she flunked the bar. Bill didn't even show up to Yale Law until the middle of his first semester. He is smarter than Obama by a serious magnitude, but he was never interested in law school.

[rse]

Sara,

I have always noticed the brighter people are, the more willing they are to concede when they do not know something. They take it as a matter of fact that there is lots they do not know.

The weaker, the more they think they can wing it and pretend.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

I've seen unfocused and undisciplined very smart people many times. They exhibit many of the traits that lyle lists. I think I started to understand this better in watching my 2 sister first cousins. The younger is beyond smart, IQ in the stratosphere, her older sister is very average. My Aunt told me once when they were both still in elementary school that she didn't worry about her older daughter, but she had grave worries about her younger. I was a teen at the time and didn't understand, as it was obvious that my younger cousin was far beyond the abilities of her sister 3 years older.

My Aunt, a teacher, told me that everything came too easily to her younger daughter. She never has to focus, she has no discipline for learning because she gets it on the first pass. Whereas her older daughter had to struggle to maintain a low B average. She had to study hard just to barely pass. She went on to an average college, where she got average grades and became first a teacher and is now a school principal. Her much brighter sister went to a very good college, sailed through, and went to work for a fortune 500 company.

However, within 7 years, the younger sister was bored with her job, bored with the people she worked with and decided to look for better pastures. She BS'd her way into another high paying job, which again she quit as soon as she got bored and since then it has been hand to mouth for her as she flits from one new and exciting venture to the next.

[Porchlight]

IQ in and of itself is a very poor predictor of "smart."

Actually I think IQ/intelligence and "smart" are roughly equivalent in meaning. It means the ability to learn.

However, raw intelligence/smarts/ability to learn is a quality independent of, and not an accurate predictor of: willingness to learn, common sense, competence, willingness to work hard, wisdom, ability to lead, willingness to lead, or any moral character trait. One can have any or all of the above and not be as intelligent as another person who has none of the above.

[Jim Miller]

Porchlight - I should have just said Merit finalist, because you get to be a finalist by scoring high on the test -- which, like the SAT, can be interpreted as an IQ test.

You go from a finalist to a scholar by showing academic achievement and extra-curricular stuff, as well as the high test score.

So, unless Clinton didn't take the test -- and it was pretty universal for good students at the time -- he didn't score high enough to be a finalist, even in Arkansas.

[MarkO]

Let's do this: LSAT for Clinton and Obama. There. That's really easy.

[Porchlight]

Possibly, Jim Miller. I don't remember ever taking that test, though I was in honors classes in high school with the Merit Scholar applicants. But I might have taken it and am just not remembering.

Clinton was a go-getter, so it's more likely that he did take it.

I just meant that there have to be some pretty smart people out there who never got anywhere near a Merit test, for whatever reason. I do not include myself in that group. ;)

[Porchlight]

Good thinking, MarkO. How about Hillary and Michelle while we're at it.

[Extraneus]

The weaker, the more they think they can wing it and pretend.

I've described this here before, but I was taught by a wise mentor a long time ago that people in an organization can be put into one of four categories, two each on two axes:

x-axis: Competent or Incompetent

y-axis: Aware or Unaware

Competent people who are aware of their competence are obviously the best, most productive team members. They will never take offense at being corrected when they're wrong, and they rarely consider the possibility that correcting someone else will be taken as an attack.

Competent people who don't know they're competent are good, too, but need more management assistance and ego stroking.

Incompetent people who are aware of their incompetence can be useful, too. They typically stick to what they can do, and it's often valuable stuff that has to be done.

Incompetent people who are unaware of their incompetence are the least productive, most dangerous, most easily offended, longest grudge holders there are. If you have one of these on your team, don't ever give them an important assignment. Instead, work diligently to rid yourself of them. If you find yourself subordinate to someone in this category, work with great care to extricate yourself from the situation.

I put Barry into this last quadrant.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vnjagvet]

The IQ test results have been available for a few recent presidents.

Richard Nixon was widely recognized as being very intelligent and his actual test score was 143. JFK was also considered by his supporters as being very intelligent, but his actual test score was 119 on the Otis scale.

Interestingly, SAT scores have been available for W and Clinton. W came in at 1206; Clinton at 1032. Heh.

[rse]

OT for Kim-

I do not know if you monitor the National Academies Press releases, but our govt has decided the climate change science is over. I saw 3 different hit you over the head and change your behavior comrade citizen, publications just this week. The most troubling laid out the goals on making sure we are all climate literate. It considers creating wise ones on the issue that the herd will defer to. Especially creepy as it is tied into the new national science frameworks. Love how they analogize to evolution with its doubters.

[Threadkiller]

I think Odummy is smart enough to be a host on "The Five".

[Agent J]

Some great post in the last two hours..I like the line, "smart people surround themselves with smart people"..by natural selection all of my friends are smarter then I..and that is why I like to be associated with this JOM crowd.

[Frau Wahlzettel]

Hi, Agent J!
btw -You and I must be the depression babies in the group, right? (Much cuter than the boomer babies and not full of ourselves)
I tried the fancy chicken liver recipe and almost had bacon poisoning! Just joking. I did have a grease spattered stove and surrounding area, including me. I think I will like "your" Luchow's recipe more but will add bacon just in case. German liver recipes always call for bacon or Speck.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

My first real job beyond being a camp counselor, was in the office of a large multi-national corporation that produced huge industrial fans and blowers. My salary was $30 a week, take home $22. My job was to be the final checkpoint for the engineering specs for new designs. I had to check all the figures that were going on the specs and these needed to be perfect since most of the new designs required retooling.

My one and only tool to do this job was one of the old comptometer adding machines. After a few days of struggling, I noticed that the engineers all carried slide rules and used them constantly to do calculations. I knew that we had several at home that had belonged to my engineer Dad and Grandfather, so I went home and asked my Mother if I could have one and could she teach me how to use it. I learned quickly and took my Dad's ivory slide rule to work the following Monday. I made such an impression with the head of the engineering dept., he got me promoted immediately to a much better job and one where I never needed to use the slide rule or do any kind of math above adding up the lunch bill.

I went home happy to have a better paying position but po'd that I'd spent all that time learning to use something and never got the chance to show off my new skill. My Mom said I was missing the point. She explained the promotion came for initiative and that I'd showed the bosses I cared about the quality of the product, etc, etc. Unfortunately, that is what happens for people who are astute enough to figure out what is needed, but never have to show they can do the job. I got lucky, but luck just meant I figured out how to do one very small job that impressed those who didn't expect a $22 a week employee to master, it didn't make me an engineer.

My Mother said to me in anger one day that I was good at anything I tried, but I never had the passion to become expert or even superior at anything. And in that, I'm very much like my younger cousin. I immerse myself in learning about something that catches my interest, but then I get bored and move on to the next thing. I figure if there is an old phrase to describe something, it must apply to many and there is an expression that describes us perfectly: Jack/Jill of all trades, master of none. I find it hard to understand the kind of passion I envy in so many others.

[Mark Folkestad]

Great story up on Fox News online. Michigan, under new leadership, set out to root out abuse in welfare and food stamps. They have removed thirty thousand college students from the food stamp rolls, twice what was expected. One wag in the comments said that this would have the unintended consequence of greatly decreased boozing on campus, because students would have less discretionary funds.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

How hard is it to be the smartest boy in Hope, Arkansas?

Just as hard as it is to be the smartest boy in any other city of 10,000.

[Frau Wahlzettel]

Obama the Sitzpinkler has never displayed any Sitzfleisch. That is the ability to sit on your rear for long periods of time, studying or staying at the task until the job is done. Merely being intelligent does not lead to success. In Obama's case he was deemed useful for his superficial attributes.

As for O's youth, why didn't anyone want him around? He(?) wrote that his grandparents agreed to let him live with them "as long as he stayed out of trouble." What did they know that we don't (and never will)?

[Jack is Back! (literally)]

First of all, the reason baseball bats are selling like hot cakes in Old Blighty is the are 10 fold cheaper than cricket bats that run between 200 to 400 quid on the high streets. Secondly, they are more weildly and deadly. Cricket bats are good for spankings but because of their light weight and mass not as reliant a weapon in close quarters.

All the areas of distubance (even Notting Hill to you disappointed Hugh Grant fans) are what the Brits politely refer to as "mixed" and are part of the "dependency" or "public job" sector.

Coming soon to America. At least we have an armed citizenry and it will not get past the "dependency" sectors over here.

[Porchlight]

Wow, Mark F. Imagine what could be done if every state and fed agency set out to do the same. If 30K college students in MI alone are removed on the first pass...that's pretty frightening.

What angers me most is that the inflated numbers are then used to justify more programs and ever more expanding budgets.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Can you imagine if a Repub....

Politico:

Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee…

“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Mark & Porch-

That's 30,000 newly un-loyalized voters removed from the ranks.

[Agent J]

Frau- I think for me to recoup the taste of that recipe would be impossible. cooked by ones Mother in Law, on a wood burning cook stove, in Upper Michigan..(it always taste better if someone else prepares it),

As for being born in the depression, just when did it start and end. On a personal note, in my Fathers case it started in 1930 when he and my mother with two young sons returned to his parents home farm in West Central Iowa from the Seattle area..my father in 1954 told me that he was still working his way out of the depression in 1954..

I was born in 1936, at home, in a small town in Eastern Iowa. That home, and the small creek that was adjoined, have been removed and now is a fertile corn field.

As for IQ, someone mentioned, the focus factor. I have been tested and retested, I can assure that most of you are well beneath my score. But with my score and a dollar I can sometimes find a cup of coffee. I did not have focus through school, once in the working world, I never had focus, and now at age 75 I refuse to focus..but I always had fun. I (we) sure have some smart kids and grand kids, and damn good looking ones to..and so far they all focus.

[Stephanie]

You do remember my remarking that in the packet of documents that came from my son's college was an application for food stamps?

Left hand giveth, right hand taketh away.

And the college students are gonna be pissed at the right hand. That the college should never have been in the business of giving applications to college students is of no consequence. It was part and parcel of getting them used to the yoke. Now they will clamor for it.

We are so screwed.

[narciso]

Ah, Treacher, he does his thing, from the piece:

don’t know about you guys, but sometimes I feel like maybe the left’s “New Civility” scolding campaign was just a cynical attempt to shut up their opponents. Like maybe, just perhaps, their outrage was a mite forced. It could be, just throwing out a hypothetical here, it could be they didn’t really think that a map with crosshairs on it had magical mind-control powers or anything.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/09/obama-may-have-to-kill-romney-says-dem-strategist/#ixzz1UZTCYyLT

[Danube of Thought]

I believe Clinton's IQ is very high, and I suspect the same is true of Hillary. I have read various retrospective gueses that would put Lincoln at 150. My own guess is that Jefferson would score extremely high, and that John Quincy Adams might have scored higher than any other president. I have no doubt that Carter had a high IQ. I'd be very surprised if Obama's were as high as 130.

I think a president must be at about 120 to succed, but beyond that threshhold level IQ tells us nothing about one's ability to succeed as president.

It is analogous to NFL linemen: how much they weigh doesn't tell us how good they are, but they all weigh at least 300 pounds.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

OMG! Baucus, Murray, and John "Coward" Kerry, as Dem picks for super committee? Retch!

[narciso]

Yes, you'd think they might have thrown in Mancin or Webb, they're as phony as a three
dollar bill, but it gives the illusion, that
they care.

[Jack is Back! (literally)]

DoT,

Chauncey Gardner didn't have an IQ at all but wowed the elite political and ruling class nevertheless.

[narciso]

From the Telegraph, we've moved from merely
'Clockwork Orange' to 'Twenty Eight Days'

22.36 Notts Police report on Twitter:

Twitter nottspolice Canning Circus Police Station fire bombed by a group of 30-40 males. No reports of injuries at this stage. A number of men arrested. Fire service at scene

Fire at Canning Circus Police Station is extinguished, scene being preserved for forensic evidence. At least 8 arrested

22.08 Video from Enfield, containing very strong language from the beginning, showing what looks like a gang of vigilantes chasing people through the streets:

[Ranger]

showing what looks like a gang of vigilantes chasing people through the streets

Would that be ordinary citizens trying to protect their neighborhood?

Funny how those burning and robbing are called "protestors" and those trying to stop the burning and the robbing are "vigilantes."

[Extraneus]

Check out the pic I posted at the end of the more recent thread of a guy stripping off his clothes to give them to a thug in London.

That guy will never forget that humiliation. It wouldn't be surprising if he's arrested for murder within days.

Surely the gov't could hand out baseball bats for free.

[Ranger]

Well, I anticipate the BNP will get a lot more popular in England over the next few months.

[MarkO]

Are there enough of us to fight back and will we?

[Extraneus]

Surely there are enough of us.

Historians[15] have estimated that approximately 40 to 45 percent of the colonists supported the rebellion, while 15 to 20 percent remained loyal to the Crown. The rest attempted to remain neutral and kept a low profile.

Whether we'd fight back in this day and age is another question.

Hopefully enough of us would.

[DebinNC]

MarkO, apart from lib enclaves like Asheville and Raleigh, I'm pretty sure NC looters would be introduced to folks like these...with some armed women added. Other than my lib b-i-l, I can't think of anyone I know well that doesn't own a firearm of some kind.

[narciso]

Chaitred seems quite naive,

Today’s story by Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin, suggesting that Obama’s campaign plans to personally discredit Mitt Romney, suggests a campaign decision that’s not just morally questionable but politically questionable as well.

The Obama campaign seems to have cast about for the last election in which a president with mediocre approval ratings, stopped at 2004, and decided it should therefore do the same thing Bush did. It certainly helps that they may – may; I still think Romney is highly vulnerable — face a Republican nominee with a record of extreme flip-flopping. But the far more straightforward message for Obama seems to me to be painting his opponent as, well, a Republican. That’s an easy case to make!

[Mark Folkestad]

TV reminder. TLC has "Crazy About Pippa" on in one hour, at eight central, nine eastern. Clean your eyeglasses, gentlemen, and put cotton in your ears so you don't hear your women fussing.