Cantor: The President "Just Doesn't Get It"

Cantor had previously described Obama as "in over his head."

He offers a fuller outline of Obama's serious intellectual deficiencies to NRO.

Obama seems to think about issues on the level of babytalk.

He�s overly sensitive to someone differing with him on policy grounds,� Cantor says.

And he�s isn�t persuasive. �There�s never any sort of economic argument that he can make for his position. It always reverts to that social-justice end,� Cantor argues.

Not that Obama uses the phrase �social justice.� �It�s �fairness.��

What�s more, Obama�s prickliness is �directly opposite� Cantor�s experience with Vice President Joe Biden: �I had almost seven weeks with the vice president, and those talks were substantive. He and I spoke weekly. Our staffs met daily. The agenda was set. Our staffs had done the initial �tolerance test� as to probing how far either side could go on a particular issue. And if it was too far, we tried to stay away from it.�

By contrast, Cantor believes the president�s ideological mindset is impenetrable: �This guy just doesn�t get it.�

"Fairness" is an emotional response, particularly when there is no supporting concrete evidence offered to explain why one position is fair and one isn't. It's just a gut thing, which is fine for a disengaged voter in deciding for whom to vote for President, but the actual policy wonk in chief is supposed to have a stronger grasp of the details of the problem beyond "fairness."

Does the supposed intellectual not think in terms of numbers and abstractions?

posted by Ace at 01:50 PM

| Access Comments