Obama: the smart president?

Several commentators, including Tyler Cowen and Matthew Yglesias, are encouraged by this recent interview with Barack Obama. It is indeed pleasing. Cowen says he doesn’t always agree with Obama but that Obama “understands economic policy better than do most professional economists, whether Democrats, Republicans, etc.” Yglesias also doesn’t always agree with Obama but gushes, “it is worth reading if only to take a moment to savor the fact that we have a president who can speak intelligently about a range of policy issues.”

I, too, am easily pleased by intelligence in a leader, regardless of policy position. For example, despite numerous disagreements, I’ve always been fond of Paul Wolfowitz, noted architect of the Iraq War, just because I find him intellectually worthy. This is a sad state of affairs, because there are many people who can speak intelligently and do so all the time. Our standards for the highest offices are just so low.

In any case, Obama being very intelligent has at least one interesting consequence for TV media, which is that his media opponents have less substantive criticisms.

On another topic but still speaking of low standards…