Why Is President Obama So Lazy?

[CaptainChatham]

- Waldo ... I would really like to, err, channel Trump's daughter Ivanka but I am not now nor am I ever likely to channel The Donald with whom I disagree on an array of issues and policies and whose relentless and off putting self-promotion is exceeded only by that of your hero Barack Obama.

- What I am channeling is reason and common sense, things that are regularly suspended by the MSM and many posters here where Obama is concerned.

- Lets try to be reasonable and sensible:

1/ Obama is a narcissist and a relentless self promoter who has written two books, both about his favourite subject - himself, and who misses no opportunity to tout his achievements or at least things that can be spun as achievements for the true believers and other gullibles.

2/ If Obama's scores on his IQ, SAT and LSAT tests and his grades in high school and university were sufficiently outstanding (regrettably for him, these are quantitative matters and so cannot be spun for his moronic followers) then he would long ago have released them to a curious public.

3/ Instead, Obama has mandated that his test scores and his grades be sealed from the public more securely than Fort Knox or the secret formula for getting the caramel into the Cadbury chocolate bar.

4/ Ergo, Obama's test scores and his grades are not very impressive after all.

- Do you see how this reason and common sense thing works now?

[Smallc]

2/ If Obama's scores on his IQ, SAT and LSAT tests and his grades in high school and university were sufficiently outstanding (regrettably for him, these are quantitative matters and so cannot be spun for his moronic followers) then he would long ago have released them to a curious public.

I assume you're aware of the designations that Obama achieved at Harvard?

[Shady]

Completely true in fact.

Adjusted for inflation, spending under Obama has actually decreased:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/23/facebook-posts/viral-facebook-post-says-barack-obama-has-lowest-s/

Yes, it's amazying what one can achieve by not counting the trillion dollar Obama stimlus boondoggle and the two trillion dollar Obamacare fiscal nightmare. Just blame Bush. It's the usual deffense of the first affirmative action president, where nothing is ever his fault. I'm guessing he'll ride through two full terms without ever being held responsible for the results of some of his terrible policies.

[Shady]

I assume you're aware of the designations that Obama achieved at Harvard?

Like what?

[Smallc]

Yes, it's amazying what one can achieve by not counting the trillion dollar Obama stimlus boondoggle and the two trillion dollar Obamacare fiscal nightmare. Just blame Bush. It's the usual deffense of the first affirmative action president, where nothing is ever his fault. I'm guessing he'll ride through two full terms without ever being held responsible for the results of some of his terrible policies.

The stimulus is in fact counted, but nice try.

Like what?

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/obama-graduated-harvard-magna-cum-laude-is-harvard-a-reliable-source/question-2819423/?link=ibaf&q=&esrc=s

But of course, the same people who are birthers don't believe the second.

[CaptainChatham]

1) Perhaps you could find evidence that relevant experience is correlated with performance for Presidents.

2) Obama had more relevant experience than Abe Lincoln. Neither Roosevelt had a whole lot of experience. Same goes for Wilson. All 4 of them are generally ranked pretty high experts.

3) The 3 presidents who had previously spent 8 years as VP were Nixon, Adams and GHW Bush. Did not seem to help them out much.

4) However, electoral-vote.com ranks the 3 Presidents who had the most relevant experience as Buchanan, LBJ and Ford....no thanks.

- Son - I couldn't believe that an intelligent guy like you would make such ridiculous statements as that relevant experience is not correlated with performance and that FDR and Wilson had limited experience until I actually read the study you have swallowed whole - the electoral-vote.com propoganda to con the rubes overseas to vote for Obama - and then I understood your curious comments.

- The study is a bogus piece of utterly misleading garbage. It simply adds up quantitative experience in any area of government and any job and uses this as a measure of relevant qualifications. So, for example, six years running your mouth in the state legislature is given more weight than four years running the state as governor in terms of relevant presidential qualifications. And it doesn't give any weight at all to senior executive experience in the private sector so that, for example, four years running your mouth in the state legislature is given more weight than three years running a major Ivy League university like Princeton.

- Like Obama, FDR had a few years in his state legislature. But unlike Obama, he had senior executive experience as the assistant secretary of the navy and chief executive experience as the governor of the then largest state in the nation, New York. Similarly, Wilson had three or more years as president of Princeton and a term as governor of New York. To equate the relevant experience of these two leaders with Obama's experience as a community organizer in Chicago is an insult to FDR and to Wilson.

- Lets cut to the chase. For many years, I made a very good living analyzing senior and chief executive positions in terms of their experience, achievement, ability and leadership style profiles and than analyzing and selecting the appropriate executives for these positions.

- Particularly since the advent of huge and complex government in the 30s and 40s with the Great Depression, The New Deal and WWII, the most important experience set for presidents has become executive experience and the most effective presidents (e.g. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton) have had serious executive experience before becoming president. We've already discussed FDR while Truman had private sector small business experience, federal leglislative experience and understudied an ill FDR as his VP, Ike commanded the largest armed force in the history of the world and was a university president after the war, Reagan ran the actors' union for several years and had two successful terms as governor of the larbgest state in the union, California, and Clinton was a three term governor in Arkansas. All fo them had far more relevant experience than BO brought to the presidency and performed accordingly.

- So if you wish to buy into a bogus study put together for propoganda purposes and if you also wish to really believe that relevant experience for the job of POTUS which is being chief executive of the most complex and costly and powerful organization in the world doesn't actully matter and if, incredibly, you also truly believe that Obama was not the least qualified presidential candidate of the big government era, you are entitled to your opinion.

[Shady]

The stimulus is in fact counted, but nice try.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/obama-graduated-harvard-magna-cum-laude-is-harvard-a-reliable-source/question-2819423/?link=ibaf&q=&esrc=s

But of course, the same people who are birthers don't believe the second.

Nope, no stimulus, or the even larger Obamacare. Anyways, so why won't Obama release his grades then? Like every other president.

[Smallc]

Nope, no stimulus, or the even larger Obamacare.

No, in fact, the spending was calculated including the stimulus bill. The Facebook post that claimed that spending has grown slowly under Obama - including the stimulus bill - was being scored.

Anyways, so why won't Obama release his grades then? Like every other president.

So Harvard is lying then. I see. Just another racial based attack on the 'first affirmative action president'.

[CaptainChatham]

I assume you're aware of the designations that Obama achieved at Harvard?

Fortunately for Obama, the criteria for being one of the law students chosen to head The Harvard Law Review were altered in the 1980s before he was chosen so that academic results/grades were no longer the determining factor. This was done so that Harvard could choose more vizmins to head up the Law Review and, if memory serves, Obama was the first Afro-American to attain that position under the new criteria. All we know for sure is that he did reasonably well academically at Harvard but not as well as Mitt Romney, for example, whose marks are not sealed and who was one of the 10% or fewer who took the combined law and business degrees program which forces students to complete both degrees a full year ahead of taking them separately and in which Romney finished in the top 15% on the law side and the top 5% on the business side. All this stuff reminds me of the last Democratic `genius`who ran for president, John Kerry in 2004. Albeit not quite as fullsomely and shamelessly as with Obama, the MSM played up the supposedly brilliant intellect of Kerry in contrast to the supposedly deficient dummy IQ of George Bush. Conveniently, it was only several months after the election that the IQ tests taken by both of these guys when they entered the military in the early 70s were leaked to the media and even then were not widely reported by the MSM. The tests showed that both candidates were in the superior range (125+) and that Bush actually had a slightly higher IQ than Kerry. With Obama, of course, we will never know but can certainly speculate.

[Shady]

No, in fact, the spending was calculated including the stimulus bill. The Facebook post that claimed that spending has grown slowly under Obama - including the stimulus bill - was being scored.

So Harvard is lying then. I see. Just another racial based attack on the 'first affirmative action president'.

No, it wasn't calculated with the trillion dollar stimulus and the even larger Obamacare.

I don't know if Harvard is lying. But why won't he release his grades? No racial attack. Stop being ridiculous. You don't think it's odd that he won't release his grades like every other president?

[Smallc]

No, it wasn't calculated with the trillion dollar stimulus and the even larger Obamacare.

Take that up with politifact. I personally though, don't care to see his grades. He's obviously extremely intelligent.

[Smallc]

Fortunately for Obama, the criteria for being one of the law students chosen to head The Harvard Law Review were altered in the 1980s before he was chosen so that academic results/grades were no longer the determining factor.

And the other designation? Hmmmm?

[Shady]

Take that up with politifact. I personally though, don't care to see his grades. He's obviously extremely intelligent.

Well, he speaks well. I'm not sure that necessarily means he's extremely intelligent. I personally don't care about his grades either. I just don't understand why he hasn't released them. It's odd.

[Smallc]

Well, he speaks well. I'm not sure that necessarily means he's extremely intelligent.

I don't think I was talking about that. He's an excellent writer, he graduated, as evidenced by his designation, near the top of his class, and he has some very considerable life accomplishments.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Smallc

[waldo]

You don't think it's odd that he won't release his grades like every other president?

Obama's transcripts!!! Have you no new material? Now, the last time you flogged this you were most insistent that, "Obama had his college transcripts sealed". Of course, I incessantly dogged you to provide a supporting citation. You... never... put... up! Asking, again - citation request:

additional citation request for your claim that, "every other president has released his college transcripts". As I'm aware, the only college transcripts of a U.S. President 'released' are those of Dubya... and they were leaked. Dubya steadfastly refused to release his records. So, again - citation request:

[BubberMiley]

citation request:

I've tried that before. You'll never get it. It's one of those knowing lies that is repeated because he's got nothing else. Once exposed, he disappears though, and that's always funny.

[Shady]

Obama's transcripts!!! Have you no new material? Now, the last time you flogged this you were most insistent that, "Obama had his college transcripts sealed". Of course, I incessantly dogged you to provide a supporting citation. You... never... put... up! Asking, again - citation request:

additional citation request for your claim that, "every other president has released his college transcripts". As I'm aware, the only college transcripts of a U.S. President 'released' are those of Dubya... and they were leaked. Dubya steadfastly refused to release his records. So, again - citation request:

Sorry, not all presidents, but the last several, including presidential candidates.

[BubberMiley]

Try again. This time with citations.

[waldo]

^ likewise

[punked]

Has always been the same here to with those posters

[Wayward Son]

- Son - I couldn't believe that an intelligent guy like you would make such ridiculous statements as that relevant experience is not correlated with performance

Actually, I didn't make such a statement. I asked you to provide evidence for the statement you made. Something that you have not bothered to do. My gut would tell me that evidence and performance should correlate, but I don't care what my gut wants to believe, I care what the evidence actually says.

and that FDR and Wilson had limited experience until I actually read the study you have swallowed whole - the electoral-vote.com propoganda to con the rubes overseas to vote for Obama - and then I understood your curious comments.

Any evidence that electoral-vote.com is partisan? I don't know or care either way, but the only thing I could find stated that the person who runs the site is a Libertarian, who likes Goldwater, wants a balanced budget and leans towards the democrats. Doesn't seem like a propaganda site to me, but I understand that to you anything that is not to the far right extreme is socialist propaganda.

- The study is a bogus piece of utterly misleading garbage. It simply adds up quantitative experience in any area of government and any job and uses this as a measure of relevant qualifications. So, for example, six years running your mouth in the state legislature is given more weight than four years running the state as governor in terms of relevant presidential qualifications. And it doesn't give any weight at all to senior executive experience in the private sector so that, for example, four years running your mouth in the state legislature is given more weight than three years running a major Ivy League university like Princeton.

No metric can be perfect, so it measures the quantity of years which it feels qualifies, and not necessarily the quality of those years. I understand that is not the way you would do things: How much relevant experience to be President of the US is obtained by being President of Screen Actors Guild? Who did that? Reagan! Oh, I love Reagan! Being the President of the SAG is great experience. How much relevant experience to be President of the US is obtained by being a community organizer? Who did that? Obama! Oh, I hate that socialist! None. Absolutely no experience. Your extreme political bias leaves you completely incapable of looking anything political in an unbiased manner. And that is why sites use metrics that are concrete. They don't claim that it is perfect, but it does weed out some of the bias.

- Like Obama, FDR had a few years in his state legislature. But unlike Obama, he had senior executive experience as the assistant secretary of the navy and chief executive experience as the governor of the then largest state in the nation, New York. Similarly, Wilson had three or more years as president of Princeton and a term as governor of New York. To equate the relevant experience of these two leaders with Obama's experience as a community organizer in Chicago is an insult to FDR and to Wilson.

I think that both FDR and Wilson would be fine with their achievements and not be worried if someone like you felt any comparison was insulting. Further, I did not say that either had less experience than Obama (only that Lincoln did), but only that both did not have a lot of experience. Neither did TR who you chose to skip over. Wilson, but the way, was not Governor of New York for a term, but Governor of New Jersey for a fraction of a term. He was running for President for a year out of his two years as Governor, and people like Prince and Ackerman took the oath to be acting governor for at least 13 periods during those two years - which included month long absences in the year before Wilson was running for President.

- Lets cut to the chase. For many years, I made a very good living analyzing senior and chief executive positions in terms of their experience, achievement, ability and leadership style profiles and than analyzing and selecting the appropriate executives for these positions.

Anecdotal. I could not care less.

- Particularly since the advent of huge and complex government in the 30s and 40s with the Great Depression, The New Deal and WWII, the most important experience set for presidents has become executive experience and the most effective presidents (e.g. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton) have had serious executive experience before becoming president. We've already discussed FDR while Truman had private sector small business experience, federal leglislative experience and understudied an ill FDR as his VP,

Truman was VP for 82 days.

Ike commanded the largest armed force in the history of the world and was a university president after the war, Reagan ran the actors' union for several years and had two successful terms as governor of the larbgest state in the union, California, and Clinton was a three term governor in Arkansas. All fo them had far more relevant experience than BO brought to the presidency and performed accordingly.

- So if you wish to buy into a bogus study put together for propoganda purposes and if you also wish to really believe that relevant experience for the job of POTUS which is being chief executive of the most complex and costly and powerful organization in the world doesn't actully matter and if, incredibly, you also truly believe that Obama was not the least qualified presidential candidate of the big government era, you are entitled to your opinion.

I am open to believing or not believing that previous experience is correlated to performance as soon as you actually provide legitimate evidence to show that it is actually true. I also trust that you must have supported Barak Obama in the last election as he had 4 years experience as President - certainly the most relevant experience - and Romney had no oval office experience.

[roy baty]

Take that up with politifact. I personally though, don't care to see his grades. He's obviously extremely intelligent.

Unfortunately intelligence does not make one a great leader. That is quite apparent with this President.

[roy baty]

I also trust that you must have supported Barak Obama in the last election as he had 4 years experience as President - certainly the most relevant experience - and

Your statement on his experience is relative only to the quality of the record of his first term. Based on that record, many could easily say Romney was the best man for the job. Voters have changed, the media has changed, and not to mention so have conservatives. That's why he won a second term because in the past, any president who had ran on an economic record like he had would never have been handed a 2nd term.

Edited March 10, 2013 by roy baty

[CaptainChatham]

- Wayward Son ... Have it your way, son.

- There is no relationship between the relevance and quality of an individual's prior experience and his performance in a senior executive position - none at all. Any moron off the street will do so the most cost effective select process is to just stop the first 2 people you encounter on the street and flip a coin to decide who gets the top job.

- And given number one, there is obviously no relevant and meaningful experiential difference in Wilson's sterling performance as a reformist governor of New Jersey for a couple of years including some of his time on the presidential campaign trail and Obama's non-performance as a senator for a couple of years including most of his time on the presidential campaign trail.

- And it is also a slam dunk decision to vote for Obama in 2012 because he had been president for four years even though he screwed up everything he tounched and failed to come close to achieving any of the goals he set in the 2008 campaign and even though Romney was hugely successful in academe and industry and the NFP sector and government and achieved virtually all of his goals in these endeavours over many years. Given a choice, one should always vote for the screw up because the quality of experience doesn't matter and the screw up needs the gig.

- Happy now, son?

[Pliny]

Actually, that isn't even remotely true. Most of the current accumulation of debt (the deficit) comes not from Obama era policies, but from policies enacted under the Bush administration.

This sounds rather fuzzy. If it were true Obama and Congress could have changed the policies in the first few years but

didn't so they are now his.

Obama has, in reality, increased spending at a rate that is far lower than that of most POTUSs

Sorry Shady, you are wrong on this count. He has increased spending at a rate far lower than that of most PsOTUS.

The joke of it is that Bush's last year included the 800 billion dollar tarp program and Obama instead of returning to

normal budgetary levels kept them up at that high level. It isn't hard to keep spending from rising too much when it at the highest level it has ever been. The fact it keeps rising at any level is deplorable. But, hey, any means he can get the gullible public to put a feather in his cap.....