Posted on 03/01/2010 4:09:45 AM PST by Zakeet
Watching President Barack Obama at the White House health care summit last week, it was hard not to have an obvious thought:: Could George W. Bush have done this? It is tough to imagine Bush leading a seven-hour gabfest on a complex policy matter, being able to master the specifics and nuances, and field questions about in-the-weeds details as Obama did. Which brings me to another idea: Are Democratic presidents smarter than Republican presidents?
Before proceeding, let me stipulate that there are different sorts of intelligence, and conventional (or book) smarts does not guarantee a president a good ride. (W., some folks claim, has oodles of social intelligence.) Yet it is all too easy to envision either Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter hosting an event like the health care summit and doing a fine job. Weeks before he moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Clinton, well known for his lust for policy wonkery, demonstrated his talents. In December 1992, as president-elect, he skillfully played host a two-day economic summit in Little Rock, Ark., with 300 business and labor leaders.
Jimmy Carter, who graduated in the top 10 percent of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy and who subsequently studied nuclear engineering, was also a smarty-pants. In a 1979 Atlantic Monthly article criticizing Carter's "passionless presidency," James Fallows, who had been a speechwriter in the first half of Carter's only term, observed:
With his moral virtues and his intellectual skills, he is perhaps as admirable a human being as has ever held the job. He is probably smarter, in the College Board sense, than any other President in this century. He grasps issues quickly. He made me feel confident that, except in economics, he would resolve technical questions lucidly, without distortions imposed by cant or imperfect comprehension.
Carter would labor over thick briefing books, pore over budget tables, and check the math. (But, Fallows lamented, he also could get bogged down in bureaucratic minutiae, such as when he personally reviewed requests from staffers to use the White House tennis courts.) Carter would have relished a policy showdown like the health care summit.
Now think of George W. Bush, his father or Ronald Reagan at the helm of such an event.
I shudder at the thought of Obama planning a military operation like D-Day. He would have required the GIs to read the NAZIs their miranda rights.
Only a lefty snark could put this forward. OK, here goes. Wilson, a Dem, damn near ruined Europe with boundaries and the League. FDR brought socialist views to America though he wasn’t one. LBJ, Nam, Great Society. Both failed policies. JFK, Cuba??? Now Pubs. IKE, a decade of peace and prosperity. Reagan , more jobs, great economics, beat the USSR. Nixon, opened China, knew more about foreign policy than any Prez since TR. And TR, btw was a wonderful leader. W. Bush, tax cuts that worked. Took on the Islamos. Yeah, Obama could have a nice seminar and teach us all.....leftist nonsense. And that makes him or them , smart?????
Nice reply!
“Clinton, well known for his lust...”
I had to stop right there...
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