PrintNovember 19, 2007
Obama missed a slam-dunk
Barack Obama really dropped the ball on the driver's license question in the latest CNN-staged debate. He could have scored major points with undecided and even conservative voters, and established his superior intellect and depth.
Obama is not only not a great thinker, he might be no thinker at all. It had to occur to him, as Hillary was ridiculed for her half-witted answers, that he might have to answer the same question she handled so badly. So he should have been well-prepared for the question with a ready and acceptable answer. He wasn't.
That shows a significant failure in his thought process and that of his staff. The Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared", is evidently not part of Obama's approach to life.
The Harvard-educated lawyer, a former University of Chicago Constitutional Law professor missed the issue entirely. The correct answer to the question is this:
The US Constitution is a grant of powers to the Federal Government from the states. Powers not given to the Federal Government are reserved to the states.
Driver's licensing is not a power given to the Federal Government. It is a state issue. As president of the US, I would have neither authority nor responsibility for driver's license issues.
That answer is both accurate and succinct. It is readily understandable. It would have demonstrated both Obama's intellect and his credentials as a constitutional scholar.
Instead, Obama's answer showed that he is neither a strong intellect nor a constitutional scholar, and he failed what should have been the simplest test, one which could have easily shown him superior to the other candidates.
