Reason and Radical

The Emperor Has No Clothes

And no brain either, says Matt Yglesias: "Intelligence matters. The job of the president of the United States is not to love his wife; it’s to manage a wide range of complicated issues. That requires character, yes, but not the kind of character measured by private virtues like fidelity to spouse and frequency of quotations from Scripture. Yet it also requires intelligence. It requires intellectual curiosity, an ability to familiarize oneself with a broad range of views, the capacity -- yes -- to grasp nuances, to foresee the potential ramifications of one’s decisions, and, simply, to think things through. Four years ago, these were not considered necessary pieces of presidential equipment. Today, they have to be."

Digby agrees: "He is not smart enough for the job of president and he has been incompetent because of it, over and over again. The man isn't up to the task intellectually and doesn't have the temperament to privately trust someone else (like his father perhaps) to be the arbiter of disagreements among his advisors when he doesn't understand the issues. Neither did he have the experience or instinct to effectively manage people to create consensus on their own."

Couldn't agree more.

posted by Leimodnu @ 3:47 PM