Ithaca,
I don't know that Obama is considered a great intellect.
I do know a lot of people (Obama supporters and non supporters) consider him to be a great orator, because of the manner he speaks with deliberate pauses and tonal influxes.
Now, due to this article you have given a link to, we know he is not even a good orator even with a teleprompter.
As evident with this incident, that he does not know what he will be reading on the teleprompter and inturn, making a bonehead move and reading the wrong part on the teleprompter.
And one more item that I take issue with in this article, is when Obama made the comment that if his ancestry was traced we would find Irish blood in his heritage.
I have never seen a President that finds it so necessary to equate himself to any/every group of people he is dealing with at that particular moment.