One refrain repeated numerous times is that President Obama is too intelligent to cling to leftist ideologies in the face of mounting popular pressure for centrist or bipartisan solutions. This communication strategy first appeared during the 2008 campaign and has re-emerged again more recently, particularly in the wake of a popular revolt against his efforts to nationalize healthcare, among other things. His keen political mind and pragmatic approach have been touted to assuage moderates who noticed a consistently hard-left voting record as well as a series of radical sound bites throughout his public career. Unfortunately, this belief that intelligence trumps ideology represents wishful thinking at best. More cynically, this talking point is nothing more than a “red herring” that is not supported by the evidence.

Putting aside the specifics of President Obama’s record, for the moment, the premise of the argument is fatally flawed. In fact, history is replete with examples of brilliant minds encased in pathological ideologies. The 20^th century alone served to document numerous incidents of tyranny and mass genocide (Mao, Stalin, Hitler… to name just a few) for nationalist or revolutionary ideologies. This is not to say that President Obama can or should be compared with these historical villains or that he is lacking in intelligence. The truth is quite to the contrary. Simply put, however, there is no evidence to support an inherent correlation – whether positive or negative – between intelligence and ideology.

Back in the 2008 campaign, the “intelligence over ideology” argument was first put forth by Obama supporters in attempts to counter the reality of his public record. His previous voting record was thin, but consistently hard-left nonetheless. In addition, his public statements regarding “redistributive policy” (i.e., the Joe the Plumber incident) and “social justice” made moderates squeamish, to be sure. The importance of this communication strategy was paramount to garnering support from independents. They were attracted by his personal charisma but struggling to reconcile his own history and to discern his governing philosophies. Right on cue, the mainstream media collaborated to herald this dubious claim as fact. As a result, candidate Obama went on to dominate the independent vote and he captured the White House.

Now that the popular tide has turned against major elements of the Obama agenda, the same chorus – lead by many of the same players – has again resurfaced. Obama partisans now like to draw parallels with President Clinton’s successful move to the center after the 1994 Republican Revolution in the House. In hindsight, President Clinton was masterful in co-opting key provisions of the Republican “Contract with America” mandate (i.e., welfare reform) and his presidency was saved as a result. Despite the similarities in charisma and personal popularity, however, President Obama is not like his Democratic predecessor in many ways. Most importantly, President Obama’s meteoric ascension to power from Community Organizer to State Senator to U.S. Senator to the Oval Office involved no legislative compromises. His voting record – that is, when he actually took a position – was categorically far-left. In the end, he rose to the pinnacle of political prominence on charisma alone, and he did so with his ideological purity intact.

And so, the question remains: can President Obama reassess, reposition and lead this nation from a more centrist perspective? Of course, anything can happen. One needs look only to the resurgence of the Republican brand in just a year – despite a serious lack of Party leadership – to demonstrate the unlikeliest of possibilities. However, there is nothing in his past to provide optimism that a more moderate course correction will be forthcoming. The next six months will be important because, without a change, President Obama and the hard-left Democratic leadership will be repudiated at the ballot box in 2010, and maybe even 2012.

Stanley Kurtz hit it out of the park with his article on NRO:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjRjYzE0YmQxNzU4MDJjYWE5MjIzMTMxMmNhZWQ1MTA=   

Daniel Gross counters with the following on Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2201641/

Despite the class warfare and race-baiting argument put forth by Mr. Gross in Slate, the current global financial crisis has its roots squarely in Washington politics.  In truth, real political pressure was brought to bear on otherwise free markets to relax credit standards with a politically correct goal of increased home ownership.  This Federal public policy - facilitated primarily by Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, which are government sponsored enterprises ["GSEs"] that buy & re-package over 50% or all US mortgages - resulted in the creation of exotic "sub-prime" loan programs that were major contributors to this crisis (borrow up to 125% of home value, no money down, consideration of welfare payments as qualifying income, etc.).  The systemic deterioration of mortgage credit standards were abetted by the disappointingly poor performance of the credit rating agencies and disreputable lenders - on this point I would concur with Mr. Gross.  That said, the key point that Mr. Kurtz detailed is irrefutable: liberal advocacy groups like ACORN, with the help of Democrats in Washington, were directly targeting those institutions that could advance their liberal social agenda while playing race & class warfare cards against any who opposed this influence.  Their success in these efforts set the stage for this financial crisis.

So long as home values continued to appreciate, these dubious mortgages were propped up by the increased equity controlled by the borrowers.  Re-Fi, cash out, and repeat. However, when housing values started to fall and marginal borrowers were faced with making payments based solely on free monthly cash flow and, in some cases, staring down balloon payments and/or rate increases, the house of cards began to fall.  As recently as June of this year, Congressional Democrats were strident in their opposition to any restrictions or additional oversight on Fannie/Freddie (proposed by both the Bush Administration as well as prominent Congressional leaders, including Sen. McCain) and in fact, denied that there was any cause for concern.

Watch this and then tell me who is being honest about this travesty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Note that Franklin Raines - former Fannie Mae CEO, Obama economic advisor and major campaign contributor - actually says, "These assets are so risk-less…."  Shocking!  It is noteworthy that Mr. Raines walked away from the burning wreckage that is Fannie Mae with millions in his own pockets while the tax payers are left holding the bag.  For their efforts, Reps. Frank and Waters just flat out deny any problems exist and, for good measure, Rep. Clay inserts race into the debate by calling the inquiry a "political lynching."  That's choice.  And then Mr. Gross attempts to make this same argument with historical mortgage default statistics - from a time, ostensibly, in which rational credit standards were the norm.  Sorry, but the argument rings hollow right about now.  

Mr. Gross further states that the CRA did not force lenders to make these exotic loans, but he's not being truthful here.  Federal oversight provisions of the CRA became the hammer with which Democrats in Congress could apply pressure: Federal approvals for potential mergers or expansion plans concerning these financial institutions were withheld until commitments for relaxed lending standards could be extracted, thereby advancing liberal social policies in the process.  And it doesn't matter whether you are directly regulated by the Feds or not - a lender would not likely originate a loan that they could not sell on the secondary markets.  By creating the strong demand for "sub-prime" debt on the secondary markets, and contributing to the spread of that debt throughout the financial system in the form of increasingly complicated financial derivatives, Freddie/Fannie helped make this domestic real estate bubble a global financial crisis. 

In reality, I would love to hear Mr. Gross and Mr. Kurtz debate.  I'd bet that it'd be a short fight.  However, it appears that we are not likely to witness any truthful public discourse until - at least - Nov. 5th.  In the past few months, for example, the Obama campaign has orchestrated several attempts to silence critics (including Mr. Kurtz) who were appearing as guests on public forums, i.e. Chicago talk radio.  These efforts employed the use of tactics similar to denial of service attacks and were coordinated explicitly by the Obama campaign itself.  If this counts as any foreshadowing, one could expect the "Fairness Doctrine" to be resurrected in the next Congress and quickly signed back into law.  That's progress, I guess. In light of the current polling trends, I will shortly begin reading Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg, to prepare for the next administration. You might want to pick it up, too.