HE DOESN'T KNOW NOTHIN', AND HE DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW NOTHIN' – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  One of the great myths about Barack Obama is that he's an intellectual.  He is not.  An intellectual is widely informed, is curious, is endlessly challenging his own ideas.  Obama fails all three tests.  He doesn't know much, doesn't seem to want to know, and hasn't exactly challenged the myths he lives by.

Oh, sure, he's "bright," whatever that means.  And he has some nice diplomas.  And he speaks well, although it's hard to recall anything he says.  (Compare please to Ronald Reagan.)

But in the hothouse atmosphere of the left, Obama's brain is a big deal. 

I've noticed that the left is concerned with two things – style and money.  Substance is way behind.  The left is comforted by the way someone sounds, whether he (or she) speaks in the proper manner, whether there's a hint of intellectual superiority, real or not.  Thus the left, in the 1950s, fell madly in love with a shallow governor named Adlai Stevenson, who spoke beautifully and had nothing to say.  I stood right behind Adlai Stevenson once when he was making a speech.  Eloquent.  Well phrased.  Can't recall a damned thing he said. 

Now, more and more people realize that we have the Second Coming of Adlai in the White House.   American Spectator has a piece that reports on one impression of Obama gleaned by businessmen visiting him at the White House.  The comment is by a representative of a corporation that had to take a big charge against profits because of the passage of Obamacare:

"Most of these people [in the Administration] have never had a real job in their lives. They don't understand a thing about business, and that includes the President," says a senior lobbyist for one of the companies that announced the charge. "My CEO sat with the President over lunch with two other CEOs, and each of them tried to explain to the President what this bill would do to our companies and the economy in general. First the President didn't understand what they were talking about. Then he basically told my boss he was lying. Frankly my boss was embarrassed for him; he clearly had not been briefed and didn't know what was in the bill."

Impressive.  Very impressive.  Of course, Rev. Wright never lectured on business economics. 

The problem extends overseas.  Our dear leader has felt...

" slighted" by European leaders and their staffs, such as French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both of whom have come away less than impressed with Obama's style and substance.

And those are two of the most pro-American leaders in Europe. 

Change we should never believe in.

March 29, 2010