John Dean: Is Senator Barack Obama Truly Too Elite To Be Elected President?

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14666


Is Senator Barack Obama Truly Too Elite To Be Elected President?
by John W. Dean | May 16, 2008 - 9:38am


Further Thoughts on Obama's Intelligence and Education as Possible Barriers to His Victory

— from FindLaw

snip//

Framing Obama as an Arrogant Intellectual Elitist, When In Reality He Was a Successful Striver from a Family of Modest Means

Barack Obama was raised by a single mother who, from time to time, needed food stamps to survive. He attended one of Honolulu's better schools only because his grandparents recognized his natural intelligence early and encouraged it by living in a two bedroom apartment so they could help with his tuition. Ultimately, he attended Columbia and Harvard Law, thanks to scholarships and student loans.

Nevertheless, Republicans are going to punish Barack Obama for succeeding – even though it is hard to believe that, if they are of modest means, they would not urgently want the same for their own children, and that if they are wealthy, they would not deeply admire friends' children who succeeded despite obstacles, as Obama has.

Ironically, Obama has done exactly what conservatives preach: pulled himself up to the top by his own hard work, and taken advantages of his God-given gifts. He was not only president (in essence, editor-in-chief) of the prestigious Harvard Law Review – an exceptional accomplishment for any Harvard Law student, but also the first African- American ever to hold the post. Yet this is just one of many distinctions that will be used as evidence of his elitism.

Obama has authored two books without ghostwriters. He was a law professor at the prestigious University of Chicago Law School. He can employ soaring and moving rhetoric when speaking, and he has read widely and deeply (and even enjoys the works of diverse, controversial and complex philosophers). He thinks and speaks extemporaneously with remarkable clarity and logic. In the time of, say, Lincoln, similar skills and accomplishments would mark one for the presidency. Today, all this surely will be held against Obama as the campaign proceeds.

snip//

In short, if past is prologue, and Senator Obama appears too smart, or the GOP successfully paints him as an elitist, he will have trouble winning in November. But maybe Bush's horrid presidency has changed the rules. Maybe Americans are ready to reconsidering wanting to elect the less intelligent candidate. And maybe Democrats can effectively deal with this bogus charge. I will return to these issues and this important subject in my next column.
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[FSogol]

1. Nonsense. He didn't look too elite when he was shooting pool the other day.

[babylonsister]

2. You're right, nonsense. What really bugs me is the fact

that Clinton had a big role in spreading this b.s.

[bigpenguin]

3. Maybe I'm crazy

but I WANT the president to be a whole lot smarter than most people. It's a radical idea, but Bush has truly shown us what happens when we go for someone "like us".

[depakid]

4. As opposed to the admiral's son

who graduated at the bottom of his class despite having every advantage, crashed several aircraft (nope, McCain isn't an ace) was a serial adulterer before divorcing the woman who stuck by him when he was a POW, only to marry an heiress, who flies him around the country in her private jet refuses to release her tax returns.

21st Century America really has become Kafakaesque....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Bush changed things

I believe that a majority of Americans want someone with intelligence to lead this country for a change.

[GoesTo11]

6. Obama should let people know how he got to be where he is

Most people haven't read his bios.

They wouldn't know that his grandparents sacrificed to send him to the private school.

They wouldn't know how he got into Harvard, how he got to be president of the law review, and what it means.

Success through smarts, sacrifice and hard-work is not the same as elitist wealth. (Like being an admiral's son and an admiral's grandson and marrying a gambling money heiress).

[Segami]

7. It has become evident that their talking points strategy to ' define ' Obama

as an intellectual elitist is making its way around Republican talking-head circles and news outlets. They should be proud of their ways since this technique is an oldie created by non other than the grandfather of mind-shaping propaganda, lies and distortions.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Joseph Goebbels - Hitler's Minister of Propaganda

[Homer Wells]

8. Regardless of how one defines "ELITE"

I, for one, would be proud to share a fine bottle of Chardonnay with him.

:toast:

[marmar]

9. Beaujolais nouveau.....

:toast: