Barack Obama, College Administrator

Victor Davis Hanson: Our Commander-In-Chief Seems To Think He's President Of The University Of America

(National Review Online)  Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a contributor to the National Review.>

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If you are confused by the first nine months of the Obama administration, take solace that there is at least a pattern. The president, you see, thinks America is a university and that he is our campus president. Keep that in mind, and almost everything else makes sense.

Obama went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard without much of a break, taught at the University of Chicago, and then surrounded himself with academics, first in his stint at community organizing and then when he went into politics. It shows. In his limited experience, those who went to Yale or Harvard are special people, and the Ivy League environment has been replicated in the culture of the White House.

Note how baffled the administration is by sinking polls, tea parties, town halls, and, in general, "them" - the vast middle class, which, as we learned during the campaign, clings to guns and Bibles, and which has now been written off as blinkered, racist, and xenophobic. The earlier characterization of rural Pennsylvania has been expanded to include all of Middle America.

For many in the academic community who have not worked with their hands, run businesses, or ventured far off campus, Middle America is an exotic place inhabited by aborigines who bowl, don't eat arugula, and need to be reminded to inflate their tires. They are an emotional lot, of some value on campus for their ability to "fix" broken things like pipes and windows, but otherwise wisely ignored. Professor Chu, Obama's energy secretary, summed up the sense of academic disdain that permeates this administration with his recent sniffing about the childish polloi: "The American people . . . just like your teenage kids, aren't acting in a way that they should act." Earlier, remember, Dr. Chu had scoffed from his perch that California farms were environmentally unsound and would soon disappear altogether, "We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California."

It is the role of the university, from a proper distance, to help them, by making sophisticated, selfless decisions on health care and the environment that the unwashed cannot grasp are really in their own interest - deluded as they are by Wal-Mart consumerism, Elmer Gantry evangelicalism, and Sarah Palin momism. The tragic burden of an academic is to help the oppressed, but blind, majority.

In the world of the university, a Van Jones - fake name, fake accent, fake underclass pedigree, fake almost everything - is a dime a dozen. Ward Churchill fabricated everything from his degree to his ancestry, and was given tenure, high pay, and awards for his beads, buckskin, and Native American-like locks. The "authentic" outbursts of Van Jones about white polluters and white mass-murderers are standard campus fare. In universities, such over-the-top rhetoric and pseudo-Marxist histrionics are simply career moves, used to scare timid academics and win release time, faculty-adjudicated grants, or exemption from normal tenure scrutiny. Skip Gates's fussy little theatrical fit at a Middle American was not his first and will not be his last.

Obama did not vet Jones before hiring him because he saw nothing unusual (much less offensive) about him, in the way that Bill Ayers likewise was typical, not an aberration, on a campus. Just as there are few conservatives, so too there are felt to be few who should be considered radicals in universities. Instead everyone is considered properly left, and even fringe expressions are considered normal calibrations within a shared spectrum. The proper question is not "Why are there so many extremists in the administration?" but rather "What's so extreme?"

Some people are surprised that the administration is hardly transparent and, in fact, downright intolerant of dissent. Critics are slurred as racists and Nazis - usually without the fingerprints of those who orchestrated the smear campaign from higher up. The NEA seems to want to dish out federal money to "artists" on the basis of liberal obsequiousness. The president tells the nation that his wonderful programs are met with distortion and right-wing lies, and that the time for talking is over - no more partisan, divisive bickering in endless debate.

That reluctance to engage in truly diverse argumentation again reveals the influence of the academic world on Team Obama. We can have an Eric Holder-type "conversation" (a good campusese word), but only if held on the basis of the attorney general's one-way notion of racial redress.

On most campuses, referenda in the academic senate ("votes of conscience") on gay marriage or the war in Iraq are as lopsided as Saddam's old plebiscites. Speech codes curb free expression. Groupthink is the norm. Dissent on tenure decisions, questioning of diversity, or skepticism about the devolution in the definition of sexual harassment - all that can be met with defamation. The wolf cry of "racist" is a standard careerist gambit. Given the exalted liberal ends, why quibble over the means?

Some wonder where Obama got the idea that constant exposure results in persuasion. But that too comes from the talk-is-everything mindset of a university president. Faculties are swamped with memos from deans, provosts, and presidents, reiterating their own "commitment to diversity," reminding how they would not "tolerate hate speech," and in general blathering about the "campus community." University administrators instruct faculty on everything from getting a flu shot, to covering up when coughing, to how to make a syllabus and avoid incorrect words.

Usually the frequency of such communiqués spikes when administrators are looking for a job elsewhere and want to establish a fresh paper trail so that their potential new employers can be reminded of their ongoing progressive credentials.

Obama has simply emulated the worldview and style of a college administrator. So he thinks that reframing the same old empty banalities with new rhetorical flourishes and signs of fresh commitment and empathy will automatically result in new faculty converts. There is no there there in health-care reform, but opponents can be either bullied, shamed, or mesmerized into thinking there is.

Czars are a university favorite. Among the frequent topics of the daily university executive communiqués are the formulaic "My team now includes . . . ," "I have just appointed . . . ," "Under my direction . . . " (that first-person overload is, of course, another Obama characteristic), followed by announcement of a new "special" appointment: "special assistant to the president for diversity," "acting assistant provost for community affairs and external relations," "associate dean for curriculum enhancement and development."

Most of these tasks are either unnecessary or amply covered by existing faculty, department chairs, and deans. Czars, however, proliferated on campuses for fairly obvious reasons. First, they are spotlights illuminating the university administration's commitment to a particular fashionable cause by the showy creation of a high-profile, highly remunerative new job. When loud protests meet the university's inability to create a new department or fund a trendy but costly special program, administrators often take their loudest critics and make them czars - satisfying the "base" without substantial policy changes.

Second, czars are a way to circumvent the usual workings of the university, especially faculty committees in which there is an outside chance of some marginalized conservative voting against putting "Race, Class, and Gender in the Latina Cinema" into the general-education curriculum.

Special assistants for and associates of something or other are not vetted. Czars create an alternative university administration that can create special billets, hire adjuncts (with de facto security), and obtain budgeting without faculty oversight. The special assistant or associate rarely is hired through a normal search process open to the campus community, but rather is simply selected and promoted by administrative fiat.

One of the most disturbing characteristics of the new administration is a particular sort of whining or petulance. Dissatisfaction arises over even favorable press coverage - as we saw last weekend, when Obama serially trashed the obsequious media that he had hogged all day.

Feelings of being underappreciated by the public for all one's self-sacrificial efforts are common university traits. We've seen in the past a certain love/hate relationship of Professor Obama with wealthy people - at first a Tony Rezko, but now refined and evolved much higher to those on Wall Street that the administration in schizophrenic fashion both damns and worships.

Michelle Obama during the campaign summed up best her husband's wounded-fawn sense of sacrifice when she said, "Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics."

Academic culture also promotes this idea that highly educated professionals deigned to give up their best years for arduous academic work and chose to be above the messy rat race. Although supposedly far better educated, smarter (or rather the "smartest"), and more morally sound than lawyers, CEOs, and doctors, academics gripe that they, unfairly, are far worse paid. And they lack the status that should accrue to those who teach the nation's youth, correct their papers, and labor over lesson plans. Obama reminded us ad nauseam of all the lucre he passed up on Wall Street in order to return to the noble pursuit of organizing and teaching in Chicago.

In short, campus people have had the bar raised on themselves at every avenue. Suggest to an academic that university pay is not bad for ninth months' work, often consisting of an actual six to nine hours a week in class, and you will be considered guilty of heresy if not defamation.

University administrators worship private money, and then among themselves scoff at the capitalism that created it. Campus elites, looking at a benefactor, are fascinated how someone - no brighter than they are - made so much money, even as they are repelled by a system that allows those other than themselves to have pulled it off. No wonder that Obama seems enchanted by a Warren Buffett, even as he trashes the very landscape that created Berkshire Hathaway's riches. No president has raised more money from Wall Street or has given it more protection from accountability - while at the same time demagoguing it as selfish and greedy.

Many of the former Professor Obama's problems so far hinge on his administration's inability to judge public opinion, its own self-righteous sense of self, its non-stop sermonizing, and its suspicion of sincere dissent. In other words, the United States is now a campus, we are the students, and Obama is our university president.

[psoupy]

As a talker and liar Obama is quite at home, but when it comes to making the right and correct decisions he's a cornpone.

[missyFL]

Victor Davis Hanson, excellent analysis. Some of the personally directed comments seem to reflect recognition of an uncomfortable truth. Contempt directed to taxpayers by politicians has colored us unAmerican when we question or disagree. What happened to the party of hope and change? The pretty words were easy to believe. Last year.

[smoknmirrors]

Anti-intellectualism is alive and well in America. We did not elect Barack Obama to fix the pipes or clean the drains or replace a broken pane of glass. We elected Barack Obama to bring intelligence and attention to bear on very substantial problems in our society, problems that require intellect, discernment, reflection, analysis and more than a little cooperative creative thinking among individuals with conflicting agendas. He agreed to attempt that daunting task and he deserves our help, not our nitpicking, asinine, sarcastic name-calling and shouts from the dark recesses harboring cowards who fear the light and scrutiny of their ideas. Some people hope Obama fails. They will be disappointed.

[kikomanson]

Neo cons fail to realize , the Repugs lost the election, They speak of Obama losing the support of the masses and they are afraid now that the rule of law has been readmitted to the US.
They will try to blame President Obama when the war in Afghanistan fails, That Idiot Bush,is responsible, for forgetting the real war on terror and focusing on his war for oil. Which will also fail!

It is sad that the U.S. the neo con refer to as the only super power in the world, can not win a war, period !

Now Obama is in a position that ,if we pull out of Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalist will topple Pakistan and gain access to the bomb and delivery systems.

Neo cons can thank Bush for that!

[debeug]

Name calling, spitefulness, and anger does not fix anything. Why is it the people who hated Bush are still so angry now that a Democrat is in the office? Are Bush haters so hard to please?

[suzyku]

Another typical piece of trash! The polls are holding steady for our President--OVER 51%, that's NOT sinking! You right wingNUTS apparently believe your own stupidity and hype. Our President at least has the intelligence to lead this country unlike the former President who lacked everything necessary to lead anything anywhere but yet your fools believed in and followed while he destroyed the middle class of this country, while he ran up trillion dollar debts on "his" unnecessary war, while he took a vacation every two weeks, while he "stumbled" and "bumbled" his way through supposedly leading this country, he led this country into a ditch! And you foolish, stupid sheep followed him and continue to do so, what a pathetic bunch of GeeOhPee you are!!!!

[BuddyBeanbags]

How is it that the freaks on the right wing fringe are all of a sudden assuming that they're representative of the middle class? Only about 20-25% of the population will even admit to being a republican let alone admit to being one of those loud, pea brained zomBecks who have so effectively assailed our senses lately. The right wing noise machine never rests.

They think they can influence moderates and independents to condone this craziness, but moderates and independents are way saner than the partisan hacks think... that's why we're moderates and independents... we've crawled out of the darkness into the light. They're not dragging us back down there with them... be gone Devil!

[debeug]

I've been a registered Democrat for nearly 40 years and I've never seen anything as bad as this president. So I think you are wrong, we've all fallen into the darkness. I don't know if this country will ever recover from this presidency.

[esq777]

"For many in the academic community who have not worked with their hands, run businesses, or ventured far off campus ..." Um, you mean like YOU Mr. Hanson, who has a Ph.D. in "classics" from Stanford, who works at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford campus, and who Wikipedia describes as a "military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor." With a Ph. D. in "classics" and working in a "think tank," exactly what "work with your hands" (other than typing) have you done? What businesses have you run? Indeed, have you EVER left the Stanford campus? It's clear that you're really in touch with the pulse of middle America! What a joke. The hypocrisy of conservatives is breathtaking.

[steeepe]

Stupid commentary. First of all, he speaks more like a professor than an administrator. It's great to have an intellectual in the White House for a change, someone who doesn't sound like he's always talking to 8th graders like Bush did. The middle class is pretty educated, so they are presumably used to university life. It's ignorant people and ideologues who scorn Obama. Of course, smart rational people can disagree with Obama, but the hatred arises from the dumb. Hanson seems to think that the country needs more uneducated and ignorant people instead of smarter people who can think critically and reason. I wonder where he'd be happy? And why does he put down the intelligence of the middle class? Most university professors would probably describe themselves as middle class.

[noloyalisti]

After the new health care plan passes, Obama will win re-election in another landslide.

[Ms_enza]

"Obama went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard without much of a break, taught at the University of Chicago"

Victor Davis Hanson went to UC -- Santa Cruz, the American School of Classical Studies and Stanford University.

Ah HA! He suffers campus envy. Hanson is 5th generation wealth from California who was born with a silver spoon in both hands and not one clue.

[jimmyc1955]

Oh - so you rate people by where the acquire their degrees from? Columbia is better than UC - Santa Cruz and Harvard better than Stanford?

So the Bush family must rest very, very high in your assessment - since they are multi-generational Yale graduates. And Jimmy Carter came from the lowly Naval Academy.

[Ms_enza]

Victor Davis Hanson

Have you even attended a university? Walk on a campus? Is Beck a friend of yours?

How did you become such a colossal idiot?

[legacyabq]

Interesting premise but the writer really failed to convince me of his thesis.

It sounds like whining..

Oh well, he had a deadline to meet, no doubt.

This is a tired re-cast of the "he thinks he's superior to you" campaign rhetoric..

*** YAWN ***

[maakahill]

Mr Hanson. Kudos on a great article. Most CBS readers won't understand most of your comments, unless they watch Cable News. You've given Obama too much credit, College Presidents are at least honest and usually have the best of intention for their students.

[noloyalisti]

Just like the NRO that is just so far extreme right they have no more credibility, it is the same with cable "news". I suspect you are talking about Faux News which has been proven to keep you stupid. Just like the announcers.

You must still think that the corporate Bush Crime Family did ANYTHING good for the people.

[noloyalisti]

The only problem with Obama is that he is way too smart for Americans and especially right wingers. He thinks that you can reason with these animals in the CONS party.

He need to get rid of any hope of bi-partisanship with people who hate him for being (half) black and smart. We the People want him to take down the real enemy, the top 2% that own the extreme right wing big corporations. They have had too much power for way too long.

Obama could be the most popular President of ALL TIME, if he really stood up to these greedy, heartless people.

[jimmyc1955]

I grew up in a family of university academics, and frankly this describes the academic atmosphere perfectly. I have never met a career academic who didn't feel that their superior education, wisdom and intelligence left them above others. This is why I never met an academic that won't pontificate on ANY subject at the drop of a hat.

Obama has all the hallmarks of just such and academic.

He talks in vague generalities because he knows his sophisticated reasoning would be beyond the grasp of the great unwashed mass of Americans. He also constantly changes his story, makes no apologies for when caught misleading, or outright lying, to the public simply because he believes we will not remember it long enough to count.

It is with the smiling disdain and dismissive empty stare of all academics who are forced to converse with their underlings that the President adresses the American People.

I didn't like it when my parents did it - and I like it less when my President does it.

[jimmyc1955]

Do you know where Obama's biggest contributors came from? Wall Street. Those same people who created the mess that nearly ruined this country and by many people's assessment personify greed were the ones to ensure Obama's campaign didn't lack in funds.

Funny how they got all kinds of our tax dollars, and didn't have those massive bonuses questioned, when they had problems.

But I am sure Obama wouldn't pay back political debts with our tax dollars. I am sure an UAW will tell you that, as they decide what to do with the car company Obama gave them - illegally.

[jimmyc1955]

Well - unfortunately the American people don't seem to agree with you. His popularity is lower after 7 months than any president in their first 7 months.

I don't think most people are bedazzled by his ability to turn his head from teleprompter to teleprompter with a rhythmic regularity usually reserved for a metronome. Or by his capacity to speak in etherial, vague and wispy ways. They are now more interested in what he did, does and will do. And so far that doing part is where Mr. Obama seems to be having problems. Talking about it he is good at.

[cs4466]

Poor bitter neocon Hanson. He doesn't like it that President Obama is Democrat. He doesn't like it that President Obama is black. He doesn't like President Obama, no, he doesn't like him at all. Poor bitter neocon Hanson. Lack of change you can believe in.

[jimmyc1955]

Funny - I thought it was because the Presidents promises are hollow, his policies ineffective, his leadership listless and his openness and transparency is opaque.

Or maybe it was because Obama has trippled the national debt in less than 1 year, abandoned allies for no reason other than he could, has not prevented unemployment from rising to 10% despite spending 1 trillion dollars in wasteful ways, having a foreign policy that is as clear as mud and as useful as a left handed baseball bat.

Nope, couldn't be any of those reasons. It can only be because Hanson is a racist, angry, ignorant neocon.

CS4466 - it must be nice when you can squeeze multifaceted people and events into your square holes allowing you to dismiss any concept your not willing to consider. Its a simple life for the simple.

[quatermass2]

Poor Hanson. How's life on the raisin farm, you phoney? This is the biggest collection of straw men, over-generalization, and down-right anti-intellectual poofery you've put out in months. Kinds stinks when your neocon pals are out of office, doesn't it? Tough spit. Hey, maybe you could get a job at one of those awful, AWFUL universities you gripe about so much and straighten them out! Awwww, but that would mean you'd have to have some actual FACTS at your command, you clown. Pointing fingers at egg-headed people living in ivory towers is one thing. Coming up with counter-proposals is simply too much like work, and besides, then the other side gets to critique YOUR plan.

[drputt45]

Truth hurts. It is difficult when someone points our your shortcomings and lack of common sense. Get over yourselfs, Obama is a great speech maker, he has proven that, he just ain't all that good when it comes to leading our country.

[Snitchie]

Ummmm, Hanson rather hammered the nail right on the head, in case you didn't notice.