Somerby has a great column up. After skewering Keith Olbermann, he goes after this column by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. Kristof:The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.May I please see the evidence that Obama is an "out of the closet, practicing intellectual"? First, let's define our terms...
An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions...So when Obama contradicts himself on, say, NAFTA, you can blame the classics. I see no other evidence that the man reads great works of literature for fun. Has he ever quoted Sophocles? Shakespeare? Stan Lee? Anyone?
What will people like Kristoff do when the Obama of real life replaces the Obama of projection and imagination?
16 comments:
What will people like Kristoff do when the Obama of real life replaces the Obama of projection and imagination?
Like every other jackass pundit, he'll find a way to say it was someone else's fault. But the good news is the NY Times stock is only about 9 bucks away from zero. Sic transit gloria.
OK, so how about translating the Latin for us ignorant cretins? (At least I was able to read the French in the previous post, but I drew the line at learning Latin, a "dead language").
catlady
I know the second one. "Quos amor..." One translation: "If love takes hold, it'll keep holding on."
Sic transit gloria = glory fades
Oh. Wait. That's not what catlady wanted. Delete!
BHO is NOT an intellectual. He is a Kenya/Chicago thug pretending to be an intellectual.
I hope we all can see how intellectually Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and company are with their fast talking, glib, friendly, fraudulent way they represent their opinions as news fact.
Time to put up my FCC links on the DailyPUMA site.
http://www.DailyPUMA.com
Of course Obama is an intellectual.
It says so on his website!
This would be the same Nick Kristoff who was so wowed with Obama's adeptness with reciting his Muslim prayers in Arabic -- with the perfect accent? Yup! Definitely proves he's an intellectual since he learned those prayers in childhood and had them fully memorized. Kristoff's had a mancrush on Obama for a very long time. Move along, nothing new to see here.
Credula vitam spes fovet et melius cras fore semper dicit. Quos amor verus tenuit, tenebit.
"It's incredible how my spaciest followers eat meals of crassness, for they are simpering dicks. Still, the more they catch the virus, the better!"
What will Kristoff do?
Why, the same thing he did after writing about W a loving ode entitled "Reagan's Son" in NY Times Magazine. STFU for a while, hoping people will forget...
Well, he does have the lingo, words and gestures of the great hip hop artists down pat.
How doe these people convince themselves that Obama is a great intellect? Is it a fad like the newest hip haircut? The increasingly silly utterances from the "intelligentsia" of this country remind me of their prior facination with Werner Erhard's est and Dr Phil. They are always the ones to fall for this snake oil first and in the biggest way. It really seems to be about what is lacking in their lives. This is just another "human potential" movement in the form of a ego driven light fingered Chicago pol. Remember "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"? The faux intellectuals will get bored and drop it soon enough.
Why is it that just because somebody went to Ivy League schools, including Harvard Law School, he or she is automatically an "intellectual" or a "genius"? I hate to tell the Eastern elite, but where you go to school doesn't mean squat to the country at large.
After all, George W. Bush graduated from Ivy League schools as well.
"Obama of real life replaces the Obama of projection and imagination"
Violet at Reclusive Leftistm calls the latter "Obama the Fantasy Construct" and suggests using a designation, such as an asterisk (*Obama). Or one might use Obama™.
Definitely two different President Elects. so we might as well distinguish them.
djmm
A very old documentary of Hugh Hefner has Hugh calling himself an intellectual (holds pipe, "The Playboy Philosophy"), he even defines 'intellectual', but he hedges somewhat on whether he's also a genius.
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