Obama's Rocky Mountain High IQ

How smart is President Obama? The American Thinker quotes historian Michael Beschloss on Obama's IQ, who "says it is off the charts", while admitting he does not know what it is. One of the reasons republican moderates voted for Obama is because he is "so smart". It is unclear what "smart" really means in politics. I think it is the red herring of politics. Universities are loaded with faculty who are "smart". But 80% are liberal. In politics, policies matter, not technical interpretations of esoteric material; the usual purpose or functionality of high IQ smarts. He attended Occidental/Columbia undergrad and Harvard Law. Bush attended Yale undergrad and Harvard Business School. Bush released his grades and SAT scores (1206 on Verbal and Math--pre-1974--like 1300 today) as did his opponents, Kerry and Gore. Using the "Otis Gamma and Scholastic Aptitude" score, one can infer Bush's IQ to be 130. This places him in about the top 2-3% in the country. This is higher than John Kerry and lower than Al Gore. The latter was a massive underachiever in college.

We do not know Obama's SAT, LSAT, or GPA scores because he won't release them. His Columbia GPA was estimated by the WSJ to be between 1.8 and 3.0 (C- to B) because he did not graduate with honors. He was at the bottom 15% in Occidental. He was in the top 10% at Harvard Law because he graduated "magna cum laude". So we assume he is smart, but how he got into Harvard with that record is peculiar. In any event, he will not release his records. But Beschloss calls him the smartest president ever. That just tells me that Beschloss is the dumbest historian ever. Does this matter? Not his scores. But what does not releasing his academic records tell you about his personality?

How our super smart president is handling the health care debate gives us further insight. He has been on the road "selling"---what, I am not quite sure. Lets analyze his speech in Grand Junction Colorado on August 15th. Transcript of President Obama's Grand Junction speech . He begins by discussing the need to prohibit denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. He also brings up the issue of insurance companies dropping coverage after a condition is found. He does not give any numbers as to the depth of this problem or why it even occurs. He then switches suddenly to the topic of his stimulus package, a clear non-sequitur. He gives a summary of all the great things it has and will do for Colorado. In order to keep on track, he states, "health insurance reform is a key pillar of {a} new foundation for lasting prosperity". Why? Because companies can't continue to "slash payroll" by paying for health insurance, which presumably will happen without his "reform".

He then starts speaking in his "jokey" voice about how health care is an emotional issue and that "TV loves a ruckus", referring to town hall meetings. But unlike those meetings, there have been many constructive ones. You just have not seen them, like the one he had in Montana. He tells the audience what health insurance reform will mean for "you". First, there will be no more "arbitrary caps" on what can be paid. He then weirdly tells the audience that Colorado does not allow small businesses from "excluding pre-existing conditions". Huh? I thought that was one of the big problems. How did Colorodo do that? But to get that benefit "one has to pay higher premiums". He claimed a family in Indiana hit their lifetime cap in one year after treatment for their son cost a few hundred thousand dollars. In NJ, I am looking at policies right now. Of the 8 I am looking at, half have no limit and the other a $5 million lifetime limit. How can NJ do this without Obama care? It must be a miracle.

Out of pocket costs have been increasing too. He claims that 12 million people (4%) in America did not get insurance due to pre-existing conditions. He cited a "recent report". Under his program you "can keep your doctor" and you "can keep your health plan" if you like it. When you have to tell people they can "keep their doctor" if they wish, you are scaring people, not calming them. ("Why wouldn't I be able to keep my doctor?")  He started listing all the groups who favor reform. Nurses (ANA), doctors (AMA), AARP, and "broad agreement in Congress". But the "special interests" are fighting against him. (Are Nurses, Doctors and AARP not special interests?). These scare tactics by "special interests" go unnamed, as to who they are and how they are "scaring".He closes by asking Grand Junction to "knock on doors" and spread the word. Because "change never starts in Washington".

This is the sales pitch for......what? Well, he is the smartest president in history. That was supposed to be enough. But it is impossible for people to listen to him and take any comfort in what he is saying. He makes no mention in Colorodo of the massive projected federal deficits; no mention of the crucial need for providing incentives for economic growth; no mention of the "45 million uninsured"; no mention of the "public option"; no mention of "end of life counseling"; no mention of "quality adjusted life years"; no mention of his statements that he prefers a "single payer system"; no mention of how to insure more people and keep costs constant; nothing about "tax equalizing" employer provided insurance with private insurance; nothing about portability. And so on.

Is there any wonder the "scare tactics" work so easily and the public opposes "his plan"? Just as he hides his grades and SAT scores from the public, he also hides what he really thinks about health care  "reform". Truly "brilliant".

Comments

[Patrick Of Atlantis]

You know that if Obama had gotten straight 'A's, everyone in the world would know about. If Obama had gotten better grades than George W. Bush, everyone in the world would know about it.

[malclave]

On the Tonight Show, Obama admitted that he belongs in classes for the developmentally challenged.

[GC]

lawyers always think they are the smartest people in the room. however, 9 out of 10 of them would flunk out if they had to study applied sciences (physics, chemistry), engineering (electrical, chemical), or mathematics. obama strikes me as the type of "academic" who has learned that doublespeak, delivered convincingly, can mask all manner of intellectual deficiencies.

[AmericanHeretic]

Consider this. Perhaps Obama will not release his school records because he claimed on his applications for matriculation that he was born in Kenya.

[ImChiquita]

"But Beschloss calls him the smartest president ever. That just tells me that Beschloss is the dumbest historian ever."

This is the greatest editorial ever.

[NoMoBama]

Can you say....'affirmative action'?

[JRo]

As an academic myself, I can say with total conviction that turning the US government over to an "intellectual" like Obama is like turning a pro football team over to an armchair quarterback.

[mixplix]

His first day in office he signed an Ex. Order# 13489 that sealed his records. Google Executive Records and see that order.

[Raven]

This is a great analysis. It seems the libs always have a brilliant candidate and even some conservatives buy into the notion that elected presidents are highly intelligent. Give me a break. These bozos get elected on the strength of their finanacial backing and social connections not on their intellect. I have to agree that none of them could handle any of the basic sciences or higher mathmatics. Lets face it folks politicians are politicians precisely because they are not the sharpest tacks in the box!

[ELmo]

Americans elected someone they knew almost nothing about. They didn't seem to have a problem with it then, and Obama seems to want to keep it that way.

The "Free Press" hasn't done very well at getting him to disclose who he is and what he actually stands for.
It's shameful.

[Mike Rulle]

Beschloss is remarkably absurd--if you listened to his Imus interview. And he is an ostensibly serious guy. But Obama writes 2 memoirs, themselves plausibly ghost written w/o attribution, and that is the "official" history. No more needs to be done. Now he is trying to pull the same thing on health care. And when people do not buy it, they some how are the dopes. He is bad and getting worse.

[Jim]

I don't know who George Allen Miller is, but apparently he thought Barry's administration would be more transparent??

[Jim]

Lost the link on the last post so here it is!

http://www.georgeallenmiller.com/2009/01/22/president-obama-revokes-executive-order-13233-on-day-one/

[Phil]

He is nothing but a fraud. He claimed "foreigner" status and got special grants and set-asides. It doesn't matter about his birth records, the school records are more imporetant. We need to see his school records. He won't show them because he knows he lied about his citizenship just to get in. How else could someone in the bottom of his class get into Harvard? Publish the records and we can impeach him for the liar that he is.

[Andrew Sheldrick]

I recommend that JRo take the time to read Executive Order 13489 rather than rely on the FreedonWorks Cliff Notes. EO 13489 did not "seal Obama's records". It reversed a Bush Administration EO amending the process for the release of Presidential records; the Bush Order had significantly extended the scope of the executive privilege doctrine, in the process repealing an EO signed by President Reagan. The Obama EO restores the substance of the Reagan EO and thereby INCREASES public access to Presidential records. None of these EOs affects what constitutes a "Presidential record", which is governed by the Presidential Records Act itself.

The widespread propagation of these silly and unfounded statements is a serious impediment to meaningful debate on healthcare or any other major issue. We are - to quite Barney Frank - becoming a nation of dining room tables.

[Bruce]

I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person, but am certainly well short of being a genius. In college and grad school if I worked really hard I got very good grades. When I didn't work hard I got B's and a very occassionnl and painful C. I remember really envying the guys who could nail exams without working hard. To me they were the "geniuses". And when those people found subjects which motivated them to work hard, they could be scary smart.

Projecting this personal experience means one thing to me. Obama is far from a genius. If he were, he would have pulled great grades at Occidental and Columbia, regardless of his poor work habits. The fact that he couldn't means he is like me, a person with a pedestrian intellect.

I'm sorry to rain on the parade of those who want to bestow magical powers on Obama, but he is rather ordinary.

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[maz hess]

A president is smart, when he succeeds in protecting his country from bad things. But events which don't happen you can't mesure. What you can mesure is how he fights his opponents: An indication could be how many win-win situation he is able to create. When you look at the 2012 election you see only win-win situations for obama. So maybe he has an iq-score over 200 points over all.....