<p>“Columbia, Harvard Law, president of the Harvard Law Review, civil rights attorney in Chicago, teacher at the University of Chicago Law School, oh, and let me think… senator? How qualified would you like him to be? Shall we raise the spectre of the smarts of Sarah Palin here?”</p>
<p>I’d feel a lot better if he’d as much as run a lemonade stand at some point in his career. Can you name any Democrats who ran against him who didn’t continually harp on his inexperience?</p>
<p>He ran a grass-roots political organization. I think he is qualified. I’m happy to get shrub and his evil deeds out of the presidential post.</p>
<p>There’s a good reason why Obama has never released his college transcripts. We just haven’t heard it yet. And he became editor of Harvard Law Review when the publication switched from merit-based selection (a writing competition) to a student popularity vote. During his tenure as HLR Editor, he never wrote anything, which was considered highly unusual.</p>
<p>One thing is for certain: Obama’s children will be going to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, no matter what their grades, test scores or ECs look like. And that is precisely the reason why the U of I’s President just got canned.</p>
<p>The actress who attended Columbia is Julia Stiles, whom I understand is very bright.</p>
<p>As for Obama, there is a reason why he is President of the United States and “jamesscchen” is just a …</p>
<p>No need to finish the sentence…you all get my drift.</p>
<p>Yes, people do harp on his inexperience; it’s one of those ideas that people have seized without much regard to the facts because there is so little else to gripe about. Family connections and money got George Bush into Yale, don’t they say - for sure it wasn’t intelligence. The same family connections got him a job in the family business, and then a governorship, and then a presidency. You don’t seem to cavil at any of that, Schmaltz. For Obama, there was nothing giving him a leg up. He got there because he is smart and because people respect his integrity. And running a presidential campaign that well was perhaps even better than running a lemonade stand?</p>
<p>Artmommy, how did you make all those posts? Are you in an alternate universe?</p>
<p>There is a difference between actually being IN CHARGE of something, and being a “staff” person, senator, teacher, or other such person who really doesn’t make executive decisions. He wasn’t running his own campaign…he was just saying what the teleprompters told him to say. </p>
<p>Bush was governor of Texas. Clinton was governor of Arkansas. G.H.W. Bush was Vice President. Reagan was governor of California. Carter was governor of Georgia. Ford was VP. Nixon was VP. Johnson was VP. You have to go all the way back to 1960 to find someone who was elected president without high-level executive experience. And at least he was in charge of a PT boat.</p>
<p>2kidsincollege, why the personal attack against jamescchen? Why not just offer an opposing view supported by fact? Granted, that is more work.</p>
<p>Deprofundis, you called another poster a “tiresome man”, but what is tiresome to me is the unfounded attack by so many liberals against GW Bush’s intelligence. If you listen only to the liberal media, without so much as doing any of your own research, you may just be misguided. Exactly what connections got W into Yale? Remember, he entered Yale in the early 60’s, before his father entered politics. Are you suggesting that Yale was so impressed by the fact that his father co-founded a business that they accepted a sub-par candidate? Or did Yale correctly predict that the father of this unknown applicant would one day have political connections?</p>
<p>This whole Dumb Conservative, Smart Liberal propoganda really got revved up during the Bush/Gore campaign. Now we are stuck with this urban legend that Gore is brilliant and Bush is dumb. You can just believe it, or you can research it yourself, Deprofundis. Let’s compare W to another politician touted by the media as brilliant. In his sophomore year at Harvard, according to The Washington Post, “Gore’s grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush’s transcript from Yale.” Gore, the author of “Earth in the Balance,” received a D in a Harvard science course. In 1971, Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School, where he received 5 F’s. He later dropped out. Gore then enrolled in law school, but again dropped out. He’s brilliant? Bush is dumb?</p>
<p>Come on. If all we do is listen to the hype, then we really have no clue as to the intellingence of any of these politicians, or their kids, or celebrities, or posters on CC. It is arrogant and smug, to say the least, to assume that Bush is less intelligent than we fancy ourselves. </p>
<p>Now, having said all of that, let me “name drop” and say that, in the late 70’s, back when W was just a business guy, my spouse had an opportunity to meet with him on a business deal, and he was very impressed by his quick decision making, his immediate grasp of complicated ideas, his intelligence, and his genuine, down to earth, niceness. But the press can remake anyone into anything they want. I may not be as smart as, say, Al Gore, but I’m not so dumb as to eat everything the media is feeding me.</p>
<p>I take issue with your assumption that I am just listening to the hype, and that I am willing to tar all Republicans with the same brush. </p>
<p>I listened to George Bush for a long time, as we all did; I listened to him fumbling for words, unable to structure a sentence, unable EVER to present a coherent set of thoughts - he never surprised me by seeming suddenly insightful, by being able to answer a question well or eloquently. It was clear that his minders were never going to let him loose on unscripted or unscheduled sessions, and clear too that he just wasn’t up to it. So yes, however he got into Yale, I would imagine it wasn’t because of his surpassing intellect. This man was your president. Weren’t you embarrassed?</p>
<p>And intellect is not divided along the left and the right. William Bennett, for instance. He’s a smart one. McCain was good, I thought, and decent too. But not George W.</p>
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<p>Perhaps there was indeed none, for whatever supposed “external influence” that got him into Yale sure didn’t help him when he applied to UT’s law school, from which he was rejected in 1970.</p>
<p>No, I was not embarrassed. Why would I be embarrassed? I do not equate eloquence with intelligence. Eloquence is a good indicator of, well, eloquence. Eloquent speakers are not necessarily good leaders, or ethical, or intelligent. Bush often took questions from reporters without a teleprompter. Look for that telltale glare and the left to right turn of the head the next time your president is speaking “off the cuff”.</p>
<p>Barfly,</p>
<p>It wasn’t a personal attack. The last time I checked, Obama is our President and what I, you, or anyone else thinks of the other person is open to interpretation. I kept my opinion to myself.</p>
<p>As for GWB…by his own admission, legacy is what got him into Yale. It certainly wasn’t his high school academic record or test scores. </p>
<p>Having witnessed GWB on the national stage for 8 long years, there is no doubt he is far from being an intellectual. </p>
<p>As for Obama’s use of a teleprompter, he uses it for prepared remarks. What’s wrong with that? When he answers questions, it retracts back in its base. </p>
<p>If this is your best stuff…it’s going to be a long 8 years.</p>
<p>
Perhaps the dean at UT law school foresaw the admissions scandal at UofI and rejected the former President. =)</p>
<p>Why isn’t anyone mentioning Obama real root? Occidential. Ultimate dumb school. Getting into any subsequence schools is a result of AA.<br>
abovethelaw said Michelle Obama is pushed out of her law firm because she was incompetent. Just like her husband.</p>
<p>Wow. “Look to the mote in your own eye” springs to mind…</p>
<p>Mods: Can you please move this to the politics forum?? I keep coming back to this thread thinking we’re going to talk about UofI, or other admissions scandals, or meritocracy, but all that’s here is political vitriol. Boh-ring.</p>
<p>Will this scandal, in any way, negatively affect the ranking of UIUC next year?</p>
<p>I agree with VeryHappy. When it’s moved there, I can ignore it for the dull arguments it’s full of, instead of mistakenly believing people will actually talk about the subject at hand.</p>
<p>If I wanted political debate, I would go to a political forum, where at least both sides would try for actual arguments instead of dissolving into: “sarah palin!” “teleprompter!” “Bush at yale!” </p>
<p>Dull, dull, dull.</p>
<p>a lot of the U of I officials crying “foul” on this issue were part of the circle that knew about it for years.</p>
<p>They are all a bunch of lying bumbling hypocrites.</p>
<p>Also, U of I is so easy to get into. I see no reason why anyone would need a political connect to get into a school where 70% of ALL people are accepted.</p>
<p>UIC’s acceptance rate is lower than UIUC’s. UIC’s rate is about 60%.</p>