My brother thinks that Obama is really just not that intelligent--I suspect that Obama's been protected as a very attractive, affirmative-action baby from the get-go. His rise has been meteoric, and all because of the wrapping, and not because of the package itself.

Obama has been sold as a luxury brand. He's a shallow, solipsistic camera whore, and nothing more. Perhaps a victim of the soft racism of low expectations means that people read into him more than was really there.

I think he is probably a pretty smart guy, but not so smart that we don't each personally know 100 people just as smart or smarter.

I think his self-assessment on how smart he is has been artificially inflated by years of simply not being challenged. Take 100 watts away from his smile and raise his voice two octaves and the guy never gets out of Chicago.

Demonstrably, whatever smarts he does have have not been buttressed by any real experience or hard won real world knowledge.

Community organizer, per se, is not a real job. Nor is Illinois State Senator. Nor is United States Senator...especially when you are an absentee United States Senator.

Even with public policy, his theoretical area of expertise, he has shown no uncommon knowledge and has not proposed anything that hasn't been seen already.

It is almost like he thinks he is so....something....that he need not do the work necessary. Not only did he cede total control over the authoring of the Health Care bill to the Pelosi/Reid/Waxman/Baucus Axis, by his own admission isn't reading what is coming out of those meetings.

During the last administration that was called being "incurious". Not so much anymore. I guess because while the current President doesn't even read the most important legislation in 70 years, he reads the right books.

His one true gift during the campaign was to become a near perfect projection screen.

I agree with Walsingham; he was (and is) merely a blank screen onto which you can project your own scenario.

Back in January, I asked someone I knew was a big supporter of his, “What makes you think Obama is qualified for the job of President of the United States?” His answer was, “Because of how well he ran his Presidential Campaign.” Seriously, how do you reason with someone like that? And there are millions of them like this! And this guy was a teacher!

Any President who has not taken office by succession ran a suscessful campaign. What is his point, exactly?

Conor A very thoughtful piece. I am setkpical that Obama's specific stance during the campaign pushed Bush to adopt the Iraq withdrawal pledge, or multilateral talks with Korea. In my view, the Iraq timetable is driven largely by the success of the surge, which created an opening for Iraqi's to force the issue (aided to be sure by Democratic control of Congress). Same for Korea it was more than just Obama's criticism that led to a change (if it was a change) there.I think you raise an excellent point regarding Bush's failure to guard his power prospects by bringing in Congress, and the courts for that matter, or at least anticipating their reactions, in the early days of the War on Terror. It's one I've made as well. In the end, he had to negotiate iwth both so why not start from that position, rather than being forced to bargain and all the lost of prestige and reputation that caused? I think Bush officials would probably cite two responses: first, the urgency they felt to act quickly after 9-11. I think they didn't believe they had sufficient time for a long, drawn out policy process. My response to this has always been that Congress likely would have been more pliable early in the crisis than later. But there's a second response Bush officials might make: that they DID keep Congress apprised. We often forget that Bush did get Congress to pass resolutions of support to prosecute the war on terror and to invade Iraq. More importantly, as the Pelosi controversy suggests, there may have been alot more behind the scenes consultation going on than we know about, at least so far. That's one reason why I suspect Obama is not eager to take up a Truth Commission-like inquiry it may implicate Democrats as architects, or at least willing participants, in the early controversial stages of the war on terror.A final thought: don't underestimate the advantage Obama has with hindsight it enables him to continue those pieces of the Bush war on terror that have worked and have political support, while jettisoning the others. So although you and others are correct, I think, to point out that he has changed the tone of the prosecution of the war on terror, I'm not so sure he would have used the same language had he been in Bush's position, presiding the in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. Of course, we'll never know .

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