Intellectually yours

Via Glenn Reynolds, it appears that someone is questioning the crammed-down concept of “Obama the intellectual.” Indeed, that’s one of the themes of the last couple of days, as his Harvard Law Review “experience” is being questioned as well.

Only I already asked that question in a post called, well, “Obama the Intellectual?” In June. As I said regarding another fabulously credentialed young Democratic President:

Intellectuals are as intellectuals do. Bill and Barack utilized their credentials, as they had every right to and as almost everyone else does, as stepping stones toward the realization of their grand ambitions. But neither of them can in any way be credited as having demonstrated a genius for anything other than achievement of that ambition. And this is not the same, we should recall, as a genius for leadership or government, with which we might credit a Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan. Neither man can be credited with being the moving or creative force behind the building of any great institution, public or private; of a noteworthy government program, initiative or policy; or a political movement that transcended the political institutions of their time and place.

Originally posted on Likelihood of Success.

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