Info on Obama's academic past starting to trickle out

I know I base my vote strictly on how a candidate performed in his political science classes 30 years ago.

 

When the president loses the election in November, I'm not going to miss all the racist invective, gross mischaracterizations, distortions, phony allegations, stupid innuendo, historical amnesia and outright lies that sprung forth during his time in the White House.

 

Old_Tony as Election Day draws near:

WHERE ARE THE TRANSCRIPTS! WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

DAMMIT!!!

 

Oh, you'll still get it. Just substitute "Mormon" for "Muslim" and "Ed Schultz" for "Rush Limbaugh."

 

It's Silly Season right now. People are filling time until the conventions.

 

Alas, Romney is actually Mormon.

 

So he says.

 

And, he didn't complete the program at Oxford, right?

The guy is brilliant, but lacks discipline. I think Hillary, and her discipline, has been crucial to his success.

 

That's correct.

He's really smart, a wonk even in a lot of ways, but he's just not an academic. I can see where the tedium of the curriculum in an Oxford masters program or at Yale Law, which essentially is training future academics, not future lawyers, would bore him to tears.

 

Where is the hue and cry for Romney's Harvard grades?

 

I finished just a handful of spots above the bottom half of my class in my small-town Southern high school (not a bastion of high academic achievement) and graduated in the bottom-most 1% of my not-so-selective-at-the-time undergraduate institution (one more D or F and I'd have had to find an easy B or A in an extra semester of work). Around 30, I drifted back into a master's program (aptitude tests can be wonderful things) and found that succeeding academically was actually something of a pleasure. One thing led to another, hence the "doctor" in doctorquant. So, sure, that happens.

What chaps many on the right -- not a major irritation, mind you, but an irritation nonetheless -- is the disconnect between what the President's supporters might be willing to overlook with respect to his preparation and what they'd be shrieking about were he not of their political liking.

As the years have gone by I've observed that to many Democrats -- especially those in the upper socioeconomic strata -- it is very important that their guy be "an intellectual." Because so many of those who are of that stripe are/were serious achievers in their day, there can be an uncomfortable irony that their guy might not have been as brilliant (or as focused/dedicated) as they had been. W. and Kerry had largely interchangeable educational backgrounds, but Democrats close to me always clucked about what an intellectual Kerry was as compared to W. Now that might have been true, but based on those folks' preferred form of evidence (educational credentials and observed performance in pursuit of such) it was a wash.

But, no, I don't believe President Obama is dumb. I don't even think he's average. He's clearly an exceptionally intelligent man, and he has the record to back him up. I wouldn't be surprised to find, however, that there are a few blemishes on that record, and that those blemishes would draw some serious fire from his supporters were he not of their political liking.

 

How intense was the cry for Clarence Thomas's academic record? I'm actually asking. That would be the closest parallel.