and Intellectual they both are NOT http://the-undercurrent.com/paper/obama-the-intellectual/
>>> In action, Obama is clearly not an intellectual. He, like Bush and other >>> politicians, is a pragmatist—the exact opposite of an intellectual. Issue >>> after issue, including taxes, the Iraq war, and the environment, reveals >>> that Obama has made decisions, not with reference to firm principles >>> derived from a careful and scholarly investigation of the facts, but by >>> trying to find some middle ground in a landscape of competing opinions. What is different about Obama is that he self-consciously knows and proclaims his approach. But what’s so significant about that, if the approach itself is anti-intellectual? Obama openly embraces the view that it is impossible to use the intellect to ascertain the right way to handle the war or deal with the economy, and so he adopts the tack of just trying things and seeing what happens. Consider Obama’s claim that his “core economic theory is pragmatism, figuring out what works” (“Obamanomics,” NYT, 8/20/08). How is this any different from prior, allegedly non-intellectual politicians, other than that those politicians didn’t happen to be explicit about their methodology? However much Obama seems to sport the trappings of an intellectual—and clearly he does—in practice, his policy consists in shooting from the hip, making short-range decisions without adherence to any firm set of guiding convictions. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
