Obama’s Competence

Orin Kerr just gave me one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten

This may be the best blog comment ever at the VC:

For that matter, what’s the evidence that Obama is actually intelligent? He was a “law professor” for 12 years at the University of Chicago.

Talk about a question that answers itself, to the extent magna from HLS doesn’t.

Sorry, no. We know that Obama got into Harvard via affirmative action.  We have no reason to believe that his grades weren’t given via affirmative action, too.  For that matter, How many black African-American lawyers who graduated “magna” from Harvard Law and lived in Chicago wouldn’t be offered “lectureships” (not a tenure track position) at the University of Chicago law school?

And we know that Obama is good at schmoozing people.  Once he got there, I’m sure everybody loved him.

But, once he got there, he did nothing to demonstrate intellectual ability.  No scholarship.  He certainly didn’t engage in political discussions with any of the (many) people there who disagreed with him, and who could have helped him flesh out his beliefs by pointing out weak spots in his arguments.

Sorry, but in this modern “affirmative action” age, no credential held by a member of a favored class has any real meaning or value.  What does have value is actual accomplishments that outside observers can evaluate.  If he were an architect, we’d look at the buildings he’d created.  An engineer, we’d look at teh things he’d designed or built.

He’s a “professor”, and a politician.  For the former we’d look at his published scholarship, but there is none.  For the latter, we’d look at the programs he’s pushed, the laws he’s passed, the things he’s done.

And there, we find pap, and unmitigated failure.

He’s won elections in places where only Democrat votes have mattered.  That’s it.  That’s the sum total of the “accomplishments” of Barack Obama that can be judged by the voters.

Competence, thy name is not “Barack Obama”

Tags: Accomplishments, Affirmative Action, Competence, Election 2008, Senator Obama