Quote of the Day

Palin actually sounds as if everything she's learned came from a book called "A Child's Introduction To Politics."

I believe it's simpler. I believe she's really not very bright.

What's truly idiotic about these sorts of comments (see above) is the idea that anyone can derive an accurate picture of someone's "intelligence" by how well they perform on TV. Sarah Palin is photogenic, and since she's a woman that's going to be played up, and to a much greater extent than it would if she were a man. But she's a lousy speaker, because, as Kevin has written many times, she appears to only be capable of skating over the surface of the issues of the day. That speaks to motivation and work ethic, not to intelligence.

George W. Bush committed the quintessential American sin: he looked bad on TV. But the man was, and is, whip-smart in a lot of ways. A lot of the credit that went to Karl Rove for his political acumen properly belonged with W. A great deal of the "intelligence" that we all so wished the man had been able to apply to the issues that faced him as president was either buried under ideology or applied to other things, like interpersonal skills. Read the anecdotes from his younger days. The guy was damned smart, in his own way.

Jon Stewart got George W. Bush's speaking style dead on too. You can find it on YouTube if you look, but Stewart described the ex-pres as "Like an 8-year-old giving a book report who hasn't read the book." Perfect.

I think she's morphed from a pol to a celeb. She gets her celebritiness from being like she is, not from displaying wonkishness. So if a cute girl/woman says something no so smart, but in a cute childlike way, we react by thinking it is cute. So she has created for herself quite a career as a celeb. In some ways that is pretty impressive.

Now there are a lot of different kinds of skills. Careful rational analysis is only one of them. Even the capability for high end rationality doesn't mean that the brains owner will be disciplined enough to use it. Read an interesting psych paper a few weeks back about this very subject. Interestingly they claims GWB's IQ was 120 (not genious, but well above average). It just wasn't applied towards rational analysis, and learning about the world. It was applied to a sort of political career advancement desire, and he got pretty far on that basis.

I think we would be well served not to conflate smartness (or IQ), with dedication to careful thinking, and careful vetting of information inputs. We put too much emphasis on the former, whereas it is the latter that can help us avoid clever, but disastrous errors.

There are lots of ways to be intelligent, as many of the posters above have said. The problem with Palin is that it doesn't appear she's intelligent in any of the ways one ought to be in order to competently lead the country. Worse, she appears devoid of any type of morality, empathy or desire to effect beneficial change to the general population. She appeals to a group of people who want to elect people no smarter or better than themselves so they don't have to feel inferior to anyone.

I think "Dobbs/Prejean for America" has a nice ring to it, doncha think?

It's her utter lack of intellectual curiosity that gets me. I think she knows she doesn't know anything, and I think she's ok with that.

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is on top of this issue. Read Kruger and Dunning of Cornell:

www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own
Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"

Palin was wise to leave politics. She has no patience for either administrative or legislative governance. She thrives on celebrity and adulation. She is an avatar of Aimeee Semple McPherson

What I see in all the video and interviews with Palin is someone who chose early on in life to pursue the "beauty queen" stereotype for herself, which means that her skill set is built on creating a façade and the ability to charm others.

Vacuous, vain, and ruthless to anyone she sees as an obstruction to her ambition of the week. And if achieving the ambition (as in state governor) turns out to actually involve having to do anything useful on a regular basis, just bail on it. Smile and everybody will forgive the beauty queen.

It's getting to the point where I'm beginning to shudder with loathing every time her image or name or voice comes up.