I disagree fundamentally. I don’t know when it was that conservatives started thinking that having a higher education was somehow a negative thing. This concept that we have “disdain for ivory tower intellectuals” is antithetical to the brilliance of our founding fathers – the first intellectuals in our country. This is a nation based on brilliance, in a plethora of areas and we need the best and the brightest at the top if we are going to maintain our edge over China and India.
Too many conservatives like Palin because she is “just like us” and “she’s plain spoken”. That sort of thinking sends chills up my spine; I don’t want our President and VP to be like me – I want them to be much smarter. Which is why the concept of her being the leading nominee in 4 years means 4 more years of democratic rule. The “plain spoken” hockey mom with the limited IQ doesn’t make it in the 21st century…we need a candidate with the intellectual brilliance of Jefferson and the moral center of Lincoln. Aren’t we ENTITLED to greatness at the top?
We don’t disdain higher education. We just like people who have common sense, some kind of strong moral ethic, and good life experience too (military service, business owner, etc.).
Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some have greatness thrust upon them.
Jefferson was a slave owner.
And just how do you know WHAT her IQ happens to be?
I don't disdain folks with a higher education. I'm a college graduate, and my hubby has a PhD in Statistics; not too shabby. However, we don't automatically treat people who DON'T have degrees from college as though we're BETTER, or any smarter than they are. They'd have to PROVE their stupidity to merit that treatment.
A lot of the elites in the media and politics consider 'below' them, those who lack a higher education. Usually those elites happen to be liberal, but we've seen with their treatment of Sarah Palin, that some conservatives and moderates also have that attitude.
Greatness doesn’t come with intelligence, it comes with wisdom. Which starts with the humility to know ones limitations.
The hubris of modern intellectuals make them all fools.
If you're talking about pure intellectual smarts, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the two presidents who would be at the top of that list (Carter and Clinton) made the worst presidents. Conversely, the president who was probably propping up the IQ chart (Reagan) was the best president.
Ergo, intellectual genius is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a great leader.
The POTUS doesn't need to solve for x, nor find the y intercept. You hire guys to do that. What is needed is a clear vision, a set of principles and sound judgment.
But how do you measure greatness? How do you recognize wisdom?
Classical scholar and military historian Victor Davis Hanson recently opined brilliantly (in an article entitled "Palin and Obama—What Really is Wisdom?"):
I have seen no difference in intelligence levels between those who inhabit the world of the physical and those who cultivate the life of the mind. That is, the most brilliant Greek philologists seemed no more impressive in their aptitude than the fellow who could take apart the transmission of an old Italian Oliver tractor, fix it, and put it back together—without a manual. And I knew three or four who could. The inept mechanic seemed no more dull than the showy graduate student who could not distinguish an articular infinitive from an accusative of respect....
A Ronald Reagan knew more about human nature, and thus what drives the Soviet Union than did all the Ivy-League Soviet specialists that surrounded Jimmy Carter-much less the Sally Quins and Maureen Dowds of that age. We in America, unlike the Europeans, know this intuitively, grasp that a Harry Truman figured out the Russian communists far better than did the Harvard-educated aristocrat FDR.
Like Joe Biden?
Today’s “intellectuals” are anything but.
The most dangerous humans walking the face of the earth are Ivy leaguers with degrees in the soft sciences, I include the Bushes in this assessment.
Ronald Reagan was the last true intellectual to inhabit the White House, a man who spent his time reading and writing, he left a paper trail 10 miles long on the issues, read “Reagan, In his own hand”.
I would take Palin and 535 people out of the phone book from anywhere but an American City any day over the clowns we have now.
I trust Palin to make the proper decisions more than any intellectual. As long as they’re on the right side of the issues, I don’t need an “intellectual”.
From your posts, such as parroting anti-Palin hoaxes, I'd say that sentiment doesn't eliminate much of the American electorate.