Is Obama Stupid, Smart, Engaged, Disengaged, Responsible, Irresponsible

Obama The Obtuse

May 15, 2013 by Bob Livingston 

UPI FILE

One after the other, the scandals break and President Barack Obama feigns ignorance. He didn’t know guns were walking to Mexico. He didn’t know that Benghazi wasn’t caused by a video. He didn’t know he was lying when he repeated his claim “the video did it.” He didn’t know the Internal Revenue Service was targeting Tea Parties and small-government advocates. He didn’t know his own Department of Justice was stealing the phone calls of a major news organization.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know. He didn’t know. He didn’t know. He’s the smartest man in the world, and he didn’t know.

During the run-up to the 2008 election, we were treated ad nauseam to reports of Obama’s superior intellect. After all, he attended college at Occidental, Columbia University, Harvard School of Law… or so he says. He was first an editor and then president of the Harvard Law Review… or so he says. He was a law professor — err, lecturer — at the University of Chicago School of Law.

Brilliant guy, or so they say. Yet when it comes time to own up the responsibilities of the Presidency, he’s strangely absent… or absentminded. In a word, he’s obtuse.

Obtuse Obama’s sycophants will no doubt rush to his defense. He couldn’t know everything going on, they’ll say. It’s the gun dealer’s fault. It’s Eric Holder’s fault. It’s some low-level IRS department heads’ fault. It’s the media’s fault. It’s George W. Bush’s fault… or Dick Cheney’s. It’s the Tea Party’s fault. It’s Weeper John Boehner’s fault or Mitch McConnell’s. There was no cover-up. We shouldn’t know everything government knows. He wasn’t targeting his enemies. What does it matter? It was a long time ago. There’s just no there there.

Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.” Bill Clinton was content to pass the buck to Janet Reno. Obtuse Obama doesn’t where the buck has gone; he just knows he doesn’t have it. Like a petulant child, he always blames someone else when he’s caught with hand in the corrupt mess he created.

And do not doubt that he’s corrupt. Obtuse Obama’s problem is that now even the mainstream media can’t ignore it. It’s hit them too close to home (wiretapping AP’s phones, threats to whistle-blowers, thuggishly threatening reporters who don’t toe the line, siccing the IRS on reporters who dare ask tough questions); and by ignoring it, they’re losing what little shred of credibility they had left.

In addition to being obtuse, Obama’s a thug. I told you this a little more than a year ago. He uses the politics of personal destruction — and he has throughout his political career – and he doesn’t care about collateral damage. He’s Tricky Dick with better-fitting suits and a complexion that hides his 5 o’clock shadow.

But if it makes his sycophants, his slavish followers — those talking-point parrots who come here day after day and dribble out their foolishness on Obama’s behalf — happy, we’ll just call him Obtuse Obama. That way, he’s not responsible for his failures. But Mr. and Ms. Obama Worshipper, don’t tell us anymore how smart he is. You can’t have it both ways.