Is Obama too smart to be president?

Is Barack ObamaBarack Obama too intelligent to be president?

Before you read any further, you need to know this isn't going to be a piece denigrating the intelligence of the American people, the Republican Party or anyone else.

It's just about Obama.

No one other than the real wackos doubts that Obama is an intelligent man. Sure, there are those who see some great conspiracy in the fact that can't see his third-grade report card, but it's pretty clear to most of us that the man has some serious brainpower.

But that's only part of being president, and it might not even be the most important part. An effective president also needs to be able to communicate with the American people and even inspire and empathize with them.

It was pretty clear that Bill ClintonBill Clinton wrapped up the 1992 presidential election in the second debate, when GeorgeGeorge H.W. BushBush glanced annoyedly at his watch and Clinton himself used his famous line, "I feel your pain."

For all the ridicule he later took for that line, "I feel your pain" was where Clinton really made his connection.

For all his intellect -- and remember Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar -- people saw him as a regular guy who understood their problems. It's the same reason Poppy Bush didn't connect and Dubya Bush did. It's why Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan was so successful and Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter wasn't.

Nobody doubts that Obama understands the issues, and of course the "regular guy" thing can be overdone (see Bush, Dubya), but so far at least, the president seems to have plenty of brains but too little heart.

I think he made a huge mistake on health care reform, possibly because he learned the wrong lessons from Clinton's problems with the issue in 1993. Rather than send a proposal to Congress and then push for it, he sent some basic guidelines and then told Congress to write the bill.

That might be an interesting proposal intellectually, but it seems to put Obama in the position of not really having an emotional investment in what passes.

It's similar with Afghanistan. I certainly don' think Obama is "dithering," but I think it might have helped him with the country to actually go there and talk with the troops.

It might be cheap and theatrical, but good presidents understand that there's a certain amount of theater in the Oval Office.

To succeed these days, you not only have to be the president, you have to play one as well.

I'm not sure that's a badthing.