Is there any explanation for it?
As he notes, there must be, because (as we’ve been told so often by our moral and intellectual betters) the president is a brilliant man. I have to say that I don’t think that John Kerry is the dumbest person in Washington, or even in the Senate (which has people like Patty Murray in it). But that says much more about Washington and the Senate than it does about John Kerry’s intelligence. He sure wouldn’t be the smartest person in most of the places I hang out.
Yes, but how many of those smart people that you hang out with can get a fire plug moved 10 feet from in front of their Beacon Hill townhouse because it spoils the view?
See, smarty-pants.
😉
His lack of foreign policy experience (and its one of those areas where experience trumps intelligence) is why I voted for Senator McCain. Unfortunately none of the Republicans running this round, except perhaps Gov. Huntsman, are any better.
Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience isn’t the problem. We’ve had lots of successful presidents who started out with little to no foreign policy experience. But they hired experts and then — and this is the crucial part — THEY LISTENED TO THE EXPERTS.
Obama’s problem is he thinks he can run foreign policy better than the foreign policy experts he put in place. He thinks he can do everything better than the experts.
Sometimes I just get disgusted with people that continue with the puzzle in their eyes asking “why?” Obama has answered that question beyond any doubt. You either get it or you don’t. There’s no point in stating it explicitly.
@McGehee,
It also matters which experts they hired and listened to.
Obama is listening to “studies” majors who never learned a thing since the days when they were in some university’s student union planning campus protests against gender oppression, or for saving whales, trees, owls, minnows, or sea turtles.
“Obama’s problem is he thinks he can run foreign policy better than the foreign policy experts he put in place.
Oh come now, you know there are countless “experts” that can come up with a coherent U.S. policy. But is that good enough for Obama’s America? No sir! You got to gin it up, make it bold, make it sparkle with some glitz and pizzazz. Why, you need some healthcare needin’ reformin’? Oh shucks anybody can pull that off. But Obama gonna show you how to bend that cost curve so far you think you’ll be staring at Halle Berry. Trying to settle a budget deal? Pssh, anybody can just cut away at the government spending and balance a budget. Obama gonna do something so bold, so epic, it’ll be carved in stone for all eternity…..or till 2013. Why you see that wheel sitting over there. You think that wheel is round? Let Obama at it and he’ll make that wheel so round it’ll be square; now it’s been Obamified! You trying to eat that sandwich with a side of chips? Nah screw that, Obama gonna show you how to put those chips INSIDE that sandwich and BAM! Now you got a Chipwich bitch! Now that’s what I call the boldness.
Didn’t he once say that he knew more than any of his advisers?
RE: “But that says much more about Washington and the Senate than it does about John Kerry’s intelligence”
As an old friend once told me after a short stint in DC: “Washington is a town full of first-rate second-raters.”
George, I was going to retort merely that Obama isn’t listening to anybody, but David Hoffman has already referenced the source of my position. Obama has claimed to know more about everything than anybody else — including his experts.
He could have hired Cato, Bismarck and Disraeli and nothing would be different.
Yes he’s inept and inexperienced. That ain’t it.
Yes, any advisors he’s got are professors (if he is that) like himself. That’s not it either.
You are blind because the reality is too ugly to accept.
Obama will tell ya he loves America.
His actions, in every single foreign policy decision he made with no exception I know of, says he loves our enemies and hates our friends.
The reality is just too damned ugly to see for some. Find somebody to slap you out of it. Walking around with a delusion is not healthy.
His narcissism is irrelevant. Try to focus. Actions, repeatedly, speak.
Of course I could imagine what folks would say if he claimed we had to worry about the Soviet Union like Rep. Bachmann
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/08/michele-bachmann-soviet-union-/1
Yes, the inconsistency of the expectations for President Obama and the lack of them for the Republican field running against him…
Myself I wish Senator McCain had won…