More to the point though, the evidence seems conflicting.  On the one hand, he ran a remarkable campaign in 2008.  He sensed what the American people needed to hear, and he emerged from nowhere to defeat vastly more qualified opponents.  On the other hand, his performance as President has been dismal.  Most Americans recognize that his policy preferences range from the irrelevant to the counterproductive, and leftists contend that he has been ineffectual in pursuit of their agenda.

So is Obama smart?  Yes.  Obama is a certain kind of smart.  Unfortunately, it’s the wrong kind.  President Obama is the sort of smart that our finest institutions recognize, promote, and reward.  There is no surer path to academic success than learning the orthodoxy of your field and the particular bent of your professor; explaining why only those blessed with suitable experience, training, and insight can comprehend the complex problem under consideration; and then parroting the professor’s previously articulated answers shortly before he or she reveals them to the class.  Mastery of this skill continues to pay dividends in the real world, most prominently among business consultants versed in telling corporate boards what they want to hear, and attorneys capable of tailoring their arguments to the predispositions of the judges before whom they appear.

It is unclear that these skills bear any relationship to problem solving acumen, but they do earn high grades, glowing recommendations, consistent promotions, and top dollars.  They also perpetuate a self-congratulatory status quo by ensuring that the current generation of leaders selects successors whose uninspired, orthodox thinking most clearly mirrors their own, and who have little incentive and less ability to seek innovative solutions to challenging problems.  Furthermore, the preference for such skills institutionalizes the idea that our challenges are so complex that only a trained priesthood can grasp them—much less address them.  The central belief of our academic elite is: “Trust us.  We’re smarter than you are.”

Only folks possessing this type of smart comprehend that every aspect of human existence is more complicated than it appears to be.  Thus, for example, only they can see: How paying people not to work increases employment; How penalizing the successful motivates investment in productive ventures; How embarrassing allies motivates other nations to operate in America’s best interests; How apologizing for the spread of liberalization and democracy invigorates those fighting for their freedom; How kowtowing to dictators encourages them to reconsider the morality of their governance; How threatening uncertain regulation reassures businesses considering expansion; How partially nationalizing industries improves competitiveness; How favoring some racial or ethnic groups above others reduces discrimination; How diverting money from a productive private sector to a stagnant public sector improves productivity; How promoting union benefits above meritocratic promotion enhances efficiency; How growing the government expands freedom and reduces dependency; or any number of comparable truths and the policies they imply.

There are two important points to note about all of these complex connections and their policy implications.  The first is that they are undeniably true.  The second is that those who take a narrow-minded approach to factual observation and logical inference may nevertheless deny them.  And that is precisely why expertise and academic training are critical.  In the absence of such training, our leaders might well succumb to the seduction of common sense, and ignore the intricate theories that explain the appropriate path to preferable policies.

President Obama is smart enough to know that he is always the smartest one in the room.  His biggest fans—Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman come to mind—consistently wish that the lesser lights of America would step out of the way and let Supersmart Obama solve our most challenging problems.  But facts, logic, and common sense have seduced much of America.  Only two groups appear immune to their allure: those with little interest in either facts or logic, and those whose training tethers them to the mast of expertise in the face of the sirens’ song.

So is Obama smart?  Absolutely.  He possesses the skills necessary to navigate our most prestigious institutions and to perpetuate our most important mutual admiration societies.  He is smart enough to impress in any role that does not require innovation, problem solving, or execution.  Unfortunately, the Presidency is emphatically not that sort of job.

In a potentially unrelated note, the educational groups that gave Obama the widest margins of victory in 2008 were those lacking a High School diploma and those possessing an advanced degree–accelerating a 30-year trend .  I suspect that there may be a simple connection between these observations, but I regret that I hold far too many advanced degrees to see it.

Marilyn Buck was a Marxist terrorist who participated in conspiracies that led to the deaths of multiple police officers.  Buck helped the Black Liberation Army, a violent Marxist offshoot of the black panthers, acquire weapons and ammunition.  She participated in the robbery of an armored car where a guard was murdered.  If that wasn’t enough, Buck was also charged with the bombing of the U.S. Senate, Ft. McNair, the Washington Navy Yard Officer’s Club and a New York City federal building.  In many states, Buck’s behavior might have led to a midnight reservation in the electric chair.

Yet Holder’s DOJ unlocked Buck’s jail cell and set her free last summer. Justice concluded that Buck “expressed a dramatic change from her previous political philosophy.”  Releasing Buck reflects an alien attitude that has caused the Obama years to be characterized by an ideological disconnect with most Americans.

The letters which persuaded the Justice Department were stuffed with crackpot arguments and have yet to be reported over the last year.  They are full of lawlessness and arguments from extreme fringes of political thought.  What’s worse, the letters are on the letterhead of government and private institutions, institutions most Americans incorrectly think are worthy of respect.

Consider Jill Elijah.  She writes on behalf of Buck’s release that “a warm nurturing living arrangement is available to Ms. Buck in my home located in Brooklyn. . . . I and my family look forward to her joining our home.”  The letterhead?  Harvard Law School, where Elijah runs the criminal justice institute.

Also on the letterhead in the Elijah letter to the Justice Department is Charles Ogletree, President Obama’s dear friend and mentor.  Having Ogletree’s name associated with such a request was like mailing Buck the keys to her jail cell.  Ogletree’s daughter Rashida was recently hired into Holder’s Justice Department as a lawyer.

Note the efforts of James Kyung-Jin Lee.  He seeks Buck’s release hoping she can visit Southern California: Buck “would benefit from the refreshing environment and welcoming community, she would also, I believe, enhance the community through her example and fortitude in prison.”  The letterhead on Lee’s lunacy?  University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of Asian Studies. How reassuring that professors at California’s state university admit they would welcome a Marxist terrorist and feel sufficient sympathy on campus to use school letterhead.

Joseph Velasco, a self described “teacher, storyteller and artist” sent a letter to DOJ arguing for Buck’s release saying: “someone like Marilyn is a role model . . . . I welcome the creativity and intellect that she will bring to our community. . . . Marilyn will find a welcoming home here.”  The letterhead on Velasco’s letter to DOJ?  The official stationary of the Santa Barbara School District, Santa Barbara High School.

A letter from Das Williams states Buck “participated in many educational and cultural activities. . . . Having her serve any more time is pointless and will accomplish nothing more than wasting of government funds.”  Williams sends this letter on the letterhead of the City Council of Santa Barbara, where Das served on city council.  Williams now serves in California’s State Assembly.

There are many more.  Philip Moffitt of the Life Balance Institute argues in a letter Buck’s release “would be a positive step toward healing the past and our society.”  Merle Woo, “retired educator,” tells the DOJ “what a shame she cannot be among us, the public, who could benefit so much from her teachings and great human spirit. . . . With her brilliant human insights, she has given us tools to live better, more enlightened, more conscious lives.”  Woo was a professor of woman’s studies at San Jose University.  No surprise that she “usually used Marilyn’s poetry and essays in my classes.”  Other apologists for the murderer Buck include California attorney Robert Bloom (“loving kind person”), retired math professor Elana Levy (Buck’s “caring for others also continually reminds me of how to live in a compassionate manner.”) and Zaveeni Khan-Marcus , the director of the University of California Santa Barbara multicultural center (“I welcome the creativity and intellect she will bring to our community.”)

Students of history often wonder how civilized countries can devolve into murderous nightmares.  These letters provide a homegrown American example of sophisticates excusing murderous behavior because they agree with the murderer’s political philosophy.  Simply, they are chilling.

Also chilling is that the militant and destructive ideas that fueled Buck’s murderous campaigns have gained creeping acceptability in American institutions.  Teachers, professors, politicians and lawyers all clamored for Buck’s release.  This acceptance is no simple oddity.  It is a harbinger of danger.

When Dwayne Whitney started his trucking business decades ago he had only one truck. Today he has eighteen and 20 employees. But that’s about to change.

“The State of California says my trucks are killing people,” says Whitney. “What do you say to that?”

In a few years, new air quality regulations approved by the California Air Resources Board will render Whitney’s entire fleet illegal.

“New CARB rules are putting me out of business,” he says.

CARB claims that diesel particulates, a type of pollution emitted from buses and trucks, contributes to 2,000 premature deaths in California each year. But UCLA epidemiologist Dr. James Enstrom says the number should be closer to zero.

In 2005 Enstrom authored an extensive study that found no relationship between diesel particulates and premature deaths. He says his study, as well as other evidence that agrees with it, have been ignored by an agency bent on passing ever more stringent regulations regardless of their effect on California’s economy.

Enstrom blew the whistle on CARB for, among other things, failing to publicize that the lead author of the study that was used to justify the new regulations falsified his education history (he purchased his PhD from an online diploma mill).

But UCLA didn’t come to Enstrom’s defense. In fact, officials informed him that, after 34 years at the university, he was out of a job.

“The environmental regulation machine in powerful in California,” says Adam Kissel of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is defending Enstrom in the fight to keep his job. “When Dr. Enstrom went up against that machine he was retaliated against.”

A hearing that begins on April 4 will determine whether Dr. Enstrom keeps his job, and the final decision rests with UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

Says Kissel, “If Dr. Enstrom loses his job because he exercised his academic freedom, then it’s a message to other researchers that you’d better not rock the boat because you might be next.”

Approximately 9 minutes.

“The Green Regulation Machine” is written and produced by Ted Balaker. Field Producer: Paul Detrick; Camera: Alex Manning, Hawk Jensen, Josh Swain, Austin Bragg.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

The short answer to why faculty at impressive academic institutions are so left leaning is: they can’t help it.  As Mansfield says, they are so insular – always in their own world – the prime example of an echo chamber.

One of the first casualties of the liberal stranglehold on the academy is a healthy emphasis on Western Civilization.  As liberals rose in prominence in American universities, starting in the late 1960s, Western Civilization classes came under fire.  Great books classes, Mansfield argues, introduce students to timeless problems and questions.  Thinking through concepts like “what is the Good Life?” or “is it a good thing to be ambitious?” or “what is the relationship between philosophy and theology?” is essential to developing one’s ability to identify truth and virtue.  With liberals in charge, these classes were labeled as “narrow minded” and were replaced by anti-Western courses that sought to apologize for the power and prominence of Western Civilization.

For more on that and other topics, like rampant grade inflation and the soft despotism of sensitivity, watch the full episode below:

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The Telegraph offers an eye-catching sub-head: ” Britain will have to stop building airports, switch to electric cars and shut down coal-fired power stations as part of a ‘planned recession’ to avoid dangerous climate change.”

This should only surprise you if you have relied upon claims by the global warming industry — itself a consortium of activists inside and outside of government, Big Science, Big Academia, and other rent-seeking industry crafting schemes to profit in the near-term from the wealth-transfers — or the Obama administration, desperate to walk-back the president’s admission that his plan of cap-and-trade will “bankrupt” all sorts of facilities and cause your energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket.”

Obama’s own Treasury Department has been providing him memos noting that even his “first step” would shave a full percentage off of our Gross Domestic Product and cause manufacturing to flee to saner shores. These claims were found in their pitiful response to my Freedom of Information Act request. In fact, their response made clear they are plainly hiding more, and surely more damaging, documents.

As the Senate faces the prospect of taking this “first step”, this week we sent Treasury our Notice of Intent to Sue if they do not come into compliance with the law, and provide us responsive documents responsive to our request. At which point, we are confident, we will find that even in these strained times the U.S. and UK’s “special relationship” has one more thing in common.