One of the hallmarks of the incompetent individual is that he doesn’t realize his own incompetence; he tends to significantly overrate his own capabilities. In his piece entitled “American Narcissus“, Jonathan Last provides an interesting quote taken from a New Yorker article about Obama/Soetoro/Soebarkah:
Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” After Obama’s first debate with McCain, on September 26th, [campaign political director Patrick] Gaspard sent him an e-mail. “You are more clutch than Michael Jordan,” he wrote. Obama replied, “Just give me the ball.”
We are informed that Valerie Jarret thinks Obama has never really been challenged intellectually and he has been bored to death his whole life. But that doesn’t indicate what she believes it does, that he’s extraordinarily intelligent. It actually tends to indicate that his intelligence is only moderately above average and he has been permitted to skate completely unchallenged by those around him his entire life. Malcolm Gladwell asserts that expertise of the highest level can only be developed by thousands of hours of practice; while the assertion is, like so many of Gladwell’s other ideas, almost surely incorrect, it must be admitted that Obama possesses an exceptional expertise in selling himself to the gullible. This is not only something he has spent his entire life doing, it appears to be the only thing he actually knows how to do.
No wonder the man is so bored. Even as president, he’s still doing exactly the same thing he was doing as a pompous law student. And the combination of his clueless narcissim with his incompetence is what makes his presidency and its inevitable fallout so damned entertaining.