I think the staff-driven distinction is a good one. Another consequence is that McCain, even in his vaunted "town hall" format, generally can't address the actual point of questions: he does some gestures, makes an unrelated crack, and generally pivots to some issue that he thinks he knows (generally war).

Obama actually listens to questions and generally addresses the substance of the question in far greater detail.

I'd like to think this is an asset in a candidate but recent electoral politics indicates it doesn't matter that much. Still, it's nice to have a smart politician rather than a talking-points-regurgitator.

I enjoy your posts MJ, though I rarely comment. Thanks.

MJ, I think you're right. Obama is smart. But I think there's even more to it. Hard for me to put my finger on it... Maybe he's also "smooth". Or is it "cool"?

Al Gore is very smart. In 2000 he had command of the issues and could speak, and form actual sentences using real words, and combine those into complex thoughts expressing an idea... (While George Bush was and is, more-or-less, as intelligent as a small soap dish.)

But Gore's intelligence was somehow a negative. He was a "nerd", or a know-it-all. (I know why he was caught sighing on stage during the first debate -- he couldn't BELIEVE he was on the same stage with this DOOFUS who didn't know what he was talking about! I couldn't believe it either, but somehow the guy won. Twice.)

So clearly being smart is not enough. Don't get me wrong, I am delighted that Obama is so smart, and seems likely to win. It renews my faith (to some degree) in our system. But I think it's just lucky for all of us that he's also cool. (By which I don't mean just "popular", but cool-headed, wise, savvy, etc.)

-- ARG

Bill Clinton was smart as well but to be elected President it takes more to being smart. You have to be likable as well. Bush was likable enough but he was dumb as hell.

McCain is also likable as well. Most people really want to like John McCain but he is also dumb as a rock.

You know, I think you are right! People forget just how good Clinton was, when he was on a role.
If you ever saw his eulogy for Yitzhak Rabin, where he spoke for an hour, without notes and traced the whole history of the US, Israel relations. It was spell-binding! Barack Obama is everybit as good as Clinton, without the elevated testosterone affliction

Birth of the Cool

Yeah. I first noticed this with his questioning of Petraeus and Crocker at Foreign Relations. He ever so gently backed Petraeus up and forced out of him a definition of what would constitute 'success' in Iraq. It was something to see.

Nelson of Florida was sitting next to him, grinning through the whole session, as if he were thinking . . . man . . . he's good.

Nelson was a Hillary supporter.

what's depressing is none of this may matter, as today we elect Presidents by how they are defined by their opponents. A lazy media makes it all the more possible.

This time, four years ago (i.e. prior to the 2004 Dem convention) 99% of the U.S. outside of Illinois had not heard of Obama. Now he's about to be elected president. That's pretty darn amazing, especially given the competition and the obstacles. It hasn't been handed to him. So, yeah, smart, cool, "a natural politician," shrewd...also, funny, inspiring, and so on.

Great post. Rec'd

One of Peres female assistants in Israel said when she saw Obama "what a HUNK"!

I agree with what you say, MJ, but I disagree with the comments about W's cranial power. I'm in the same camp as the NYTimes's Frank Rich (see The Greatest Story Ever Sold) on this one. W's not stupid. He's narrow-minded, amoral, corrupt, completely ruthless, and smart. He recognizes there's only one constituency that matters—the Have-Mores—and he takes care of them so they will take care of him.

Remember right after the 2006 election when the Repugs got so spanked that most (if not all) of us thought we'd reined W in on Iraq? The election results were what anyone with a working moral compass would have considered "the will of the people."

But leaving Iraq in early 2007 would have meant trouble for Big Oil. So we had a Surge. What's a few more coffins when your friends need help to protect their business interests, right?

My point is that calling W "stupid" boxes those of us who oppose him into a smug mindset because, of course, we're all so much smarter than he is. But our smugness (if that's what it is) blinds us to the truth about W.

If the last eight years have taught us anything, it should be that W is ruthless AND amoral AND corrupt AND smart. Not book smart, to be sure, but gutter smart.

I figure W needs to protect the Have-Mores now more than ever because that's who's going to pay his way starting January 21, 2009. He's never made a living on his own and he's not going to start then.

For that reason, I figure W will do anything to get McCloudy elected and we must bear that in mind. There are more ways to steal an election than purging voter lists in Florida.

I can't help thinking that Israeli politicians and the Israeli public are sick of American pols who invoke 'Israel' the country to refer to 'Schmisrael' the foreign policy plank, and would like someone in the White House who treats Israel as a separate country rather than a political kipa.

Hard for me to put my finger on it... Maybe he's also "smooth". Or is it "cool"?

Lee Siegel made 'sprezzatura' uncool. But sprezzatura -- “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it” -- seems to fit here.

The Republican equation is that if you disagree it means (at best) that you lack understanding of the issue.

If you agree with the Republican position, your depth of knowledge is not questioned.

Well this doesn't go over too well when you deal with foreign leaders.

You also cannot be an honest partner or chief negotiator if you can't grasp the details, and if you can't understand when the person you are negotiating with is giving you bs, or holding an unreasonable position.

When he meets with foreign allies here is what they find out: he isn't going to negotiate away allied positions under any circumstance. If he had cowered under the military expertise of our generals on the ground, what would he do when faced with Iranian madmen?

I just can't help noticing the stark contrast with Bush, when he publicly blessed Putin. It took Bush one sentence to negotiate away any leverage the US could hold while Bush remained in office.

He's smart. He reads. He knows his sh*t.

That was my opinion of President Gore, too.

Oh, wait. The Supreme Court (acting extra-judicially) did not like it. Neither did Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. So we got a man who does not read and has no clue what's going on.

McCain is another of those who don't read and don't know their sh*t. So Arizona has passed their law that you can't vote unless you can provide a birth certificate, and the Texas governor and state AG want to demand state issued picture ID's to vote. Katherine Harris may be dumb as a post (apologies to fence posts) but the Republican Party has every possible Harris-clone hard at work.

If McCain can get the election to the Supreme Court somehow, they will use the 2000 decision (that stated it was not a precedent) as a precedent to select another fool for President.

Obamas political gifts seem to cause a lot of unforced errors in his opponents, it is like they are taking chances to keep up.

Although in the case of McCain he is pretty much stuck with conservative dogma that is not match for any kind of reasoned response. In response to a problem conservatives will either say "bomb it" de-regulate it" and most importantly "lower taxes on it"

Nothing in the conservative tool box prepares them to deal with other countries or most domestic problems so in the end McCain probably winds up looking even dumber and oldr than he is.

I think MJ nailed it, when he said, "Turns out you're a better politician when you know what you're talking about". For years Bush has been saying, "You gotta listen to commanders on the ground". Then he went out and cultivated the commanders on the ground to all agree with the WH line. People who disagreed, like General Schenseky were all retired early. Republicans thought they had Barack in a box by pushing him to go and visit General Petraeus, knowing that Petraeus was going to tow the party line for them. But, being the constitutional lawyer and political professor that Barack is, he knew that Petraeus does not give direction to the President. The President give orders to the military, and promptly checked him proper!
After 8 years of bush, man it's fun to watch SMART in action!

Obama's got Gore's brains and Clinton's naturalness. One hell of a strong alloy.
Sorry Walnuts.

Great article M.J. what bothers me is the MSM is trying not to be to impressed and as a result they are not doing their jobs when it comes to McCain. This is dangerous because voters do not get coverage of how different the two of them are. No one covered his social security statements, that is huge but it did not get any attention. Then you have Katie with the same question asked over and over. She understood exactly what he said but she wanted to trap him into saying something else so she could lead with it.

I love what the Jordanian official said about the meeting with King Abdullah, "...he gets it,... he is sharp and he listens..." Then again you have to look for these quotes the media is not showing the positive, it's like this race to show how he is not reaching this group, or how he might screw up, or how it will be interpreted.

Obama is certainly more knowledgeable (and expresses his knowledge more fluently) than McCain. But I have to take issue with this:

On the Arab-Israeli issue, all they know is that they need to sound pro-Israel. So they end up mouthing the most superficial pieties. They are afraid to talk about the Palestinians because they might say the wrong thing.

They pander and pander, knowing that they won't get into trouble by just sucking up.

Not Obama.

Sorry, MJ, did you hear any of Obama's AIPAC speech? Talk about sucking up! The whole "undivided Jerusalem" thing is still getting Obama in trouble... and it should. It was a stupid thing to say. It's pissed off a lot of Palestinians. And Jews who are now hearing the Obama campaign's walkback attempts have every reason to think he doesn't mean what he says.

I found Obama's AIPAC speech to be one of the most blatant panders of his career to date.

I agree with Tim that McCain can't take the pace even of the pre-nomination season. His apparent fatigue makes me think that he will be forced to step aside by the time of the Republican convention, to be replaced by an appointed candidate. It won't be Romney.

Is it my imagination, or is Condoleeza Rice being groomed for a more public position? I heard that the she has been given lessons in elocution and presentation, and her overall appearance has changed.

Would they dare have her run against Obama? Who else might they insert into this race?

One other thing: Gore did win in 2000, and Kerry probably won in 2004. Democrats haven't figured out the voting machine thing yet, but those in control of the proprietary programming know how to swing an election.

Obama is not showing me any independent thinking on the ME at this point nor does that surprise me.

If Obama isn't too dependent on his advisors/staff/Dennis Ross/? then what explains the AIPAC Jerusalem booboo? Either he didn't know the issue well enough to refrain from saying something so loaded or he did know and courted the controversy anyway.

His statements about Hamas were very troubling and could get him into a sticky wicket down the road.

"Israel should not talk to Hamas as long as it poses a threat to its citizens."

{Bullshit. They already are "talking to Hamas".}

He added, "If someone was to fire at my house, where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything within my power to stop him and I expect Israel to do the same." Sen. Obama also declared that peace "will not be achieved by endangering Israel's security… I was among the first to declare that Israel has every right to defend itself. No country in the world would agree to a situation in which missiles continuously land in its territory."
ttp://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126939

{So, if the IDF goes into Gaza and slaughters the inhabitants, that'll be okey dokey?}

Does anyone want to bet that Obama knows that the vast majority of rockets fired from Gaza are NOT attributed to Hamas?

Sorry, Obama is not up to speed on the region and his Israel-centric POV needs to expand in order to take facts-on-the-ground into account.

......after he wins, of course.

MJ is being disengenuous. Obama's rhetoric is indeed a product of staff/advisor briefings. Being familiar with the code, at this point, I could have probably written this stuff myself as a parody of what is "acceptable" language when it comes to Israel.

So far the trip has been an unqualified success. Obama looks and sounds 'Presidential'. So far, for me, the stylistic highlight has to be King Abdullah of Jordan personally driving Obama to the airport in Amman. He didn't have his chauffeur drive...nope...he personally got behind the wheel of his Mercedes 600 and hit the gas. Now that is cool to me.

I can't wait for the European part of the trip. I think the Middle-East was the most difficult leg in terms of having the potential for a gaffe. No gaffes and in fact I am not sure it could have gone better. Maliki endorsing the Obama withdrawal plan, the Abdullah-Obama joy ride to the airport, the trip to Israel, the meeting with the Palestinians and the very warm words from Peres, and for more bonus points the easy swatting away of Andrea Mitchell's loaded question. I am VERY impressed with Senator Obama so far on what could have been the most problematic part of the trip.

@ DougW. That's about as nice as I get.

Obama has been my choice since he slammed back @ the Aussie PM John Howard on the day after he announced his run.

FP re the region of troubles is MY thing and the status quo is unacceptable. Under the under the circumstances it's also understandable.

Unless we are faced with more hot wars and/or a ground IDF invasion of Gaza, the status quo will do fine until the Obama presidency is truly underway.

Obama's roster of advisers/minders is fair game. If applicable, so are their counterproductive policies. The vetting of these people has been underway (under the radar) for who-knows-how-long by those with special interests in maintaining influence. Some are more worthy of attention than others.

Dennis Ross beleives that freeing Jonathan Pollard is a worthy goal.

Obama has always been a foreign policy wiz. McCain knows the military, but he is not a strategist, and he does not know foreign policy. I actually think Obama would be better served to pick a running mate who is strong on the economy. Evan Bayh is my pick.

Last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas honored a terrorist who had crushed a four year old Jewish girl's skull with a rifle butt.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1002733.html

Yesterday, Obama praised Abbas for being a "moderate".

Meanwhile, old Rosenberg has a firm grip on the true villains in the Middle Eastern scenario: "Joe Lieberman, the Israeli media, the right-wing pro-Israel organizations are just waiting to pounce on some misstep."

Keep bashing those Jews, MJ! Doing so is what pays your rent.

And always remember...anyone who does not consider it "moderate" to slaughter Jewish children is an evil neocon.

He's not Bush and Bush has set the bar so low that all you have to do is speak in coherent sentences. It is so refreshing to listen to someone who is articulate.

Finally! Thank You! I won't say anymore because you've said it better than I ever could.
He knows his stuff. Obama reads. Obama listens. So when he talks, there's substance.
Thank You!

So what's Obama's secret. He's smart. He reads. He knows his sh*t. And it shows that he picked cost for transporting autos to have his cars transported with a great company. That is why the Republicans who are counting on him to lose this election through some verbal blunder are very disappointed.

Obama is not going to hand this election to him by stumbling. auto transport

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