TDS and Countdown , heard this plenty now
I understand the desire after 8 years of incurious, incompetent
unaccountable Bush, but..
1) there are an infinite types of intelligence
2) the worldly , world travelled, bookish, intellectual, multiple
language speaking type of intelligence Jon is talking about doesn't
always apply so easily
We had a guy like that here, Pierre Trudeau, and he was a disaster who
was supremely educated and world travelled and multilingual, but wrong/
naive on so many large issues (yeah yeah, no one cares about Canada
right ? zzzzzzzzz, but....check it out sometime if curious)
Carter was smart, yet was largely a disaster as President
Reagan was incurious, but one of the great Presidents on foreign and
defence policy, in helping to accelerate the collapse of the Soviet
Union. (ok, the Pope and Lech Walesa had huge roles too). He was
morally certain that communism needed to be defeated, not just
contained.
Clinton was/is incredibly "smart" and curious, but he was also
undisciplined mentally and constantly indecisive (he was ok, but
largely lucky as a President, riding a great economy, globalization
and technological innovation, productivity) He also had poor judgment
by the way he tried to reform health care without any broad
consultation , before a more doable welfare reform. Both would have
perhaps passed in better form if the order and methods had been
reversed.
If only it were that simple. I agree you want a "smarter" than average
person President, but what kind of intelligence are we talking about ?
I think character, judgment, and accountability, combined with the
right type of intelligence needed for each unique situation is
perhaps the ideal
Of course, that also entails the question of whether there exists any
type of objective intelligence when different policy outcomes are
desired by different people (the greatest good for the greatest number
i suppose)
I'm not sure Bush's problem is stupidity, but rather other traits,
such as stubbornness, and mostly not listening to the right people
(Powell and State Department on Iraqi occupation)
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Man, I wish i could sleep. The suburbs are really isolating btw.
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