You can separate your opinion of his policies and his intelligence can't you?

I most certainly can. If you are a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan, you will understand what I mean when I say that Barack Hussein Obama is very must like Zaphod Beeblebrox in the story.

Just in case you are not familiar with The Hitchhikers Guide, here is one memorable exchange between Trillian and Zaphod (who is the president of the galaxy):

Trillian: You idiot! You signed the order to destroy Earth!
Zaphod: I did?
Arthur: He did?
Trillian: Love and kisses Zaphod? You didn't even read it, did you?
Zaphod: Well, I'm president, I don't have a lot of time for reading.
Trillian: My whole planet destroyed because you thought someone wanted your autograph!

And this one is by far one of the most famous and most quoted and, IMHO, describes Obama to a tee:

Hate is, of course, an almost entirely terrible thing. There is not, say many people, enough love or understanding in the universe. Though the first of these may continue to be a problem, it is in the interests of increasing the general level of understanding that the following facts will now be revealed:

Zaphod Beeblebrox’s full title was President of the Imperial Galactic Government. The term Imperial is kept, though it is now an anachronism. The hereditary emperor is now nearly dead - and has been for many centuries. This is because in his last dying moments he was - much to his imperial irritation - locked in a perpetual stasis field. All his heirs are now, of course, long dead and the upshot of all this is that without any drastic upheaval political power has simply and effectively moved a rung or two down the ladder, and is now seemed to be vested in an elected governmental assembly, headed by a president elected by that assembly. In fact, it vests in no such place - that would be too easy.

The president’s job - and if someone sufficiently vain and stupid is picked he won’t realise this - is not to wield power, but to draw attention away from it.

Zaphod Beeblebrox, the only man in history to have made presidential telecasts from the bath, from Eccentrica Gallumbits bedroom, from the maximum-security wing of the Betelgeuse State Prison, or from where ever else he happened to be at the time, was supremely good at this job.