Really? I can’t imaging Cain being smarter than a 5th grader. Look at what he has said..my masters in the universe means nothing. He can’t explain how the fed. reserve works..YET, HE SAT ON THE BOARD. He has very little knowledge of foreign policy...he’s a fun guy...just move on.
He’s actually a smart,educated man. He has a BS in Math, and a Masters in Computer Science. But being intelligent doesn’t mean being informed. You have to work to be informed.
It takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. But it only takes a couple hundred hours to become well-read about something that interests you.
I don’t know everything about foreign policy. But I bet if I was hauled aside right now and grilled for 10 hours on foreign policy, I’d get the policy pretty much spot-on, even though I wouldn’t know who most of the leaders were (actually, I could probably identify which country a lot of the names were, if I was given the names).
If I needed to take a test on the subject, I’m pretty sure I could learn enough to get an A. I always could before. Cain clearly could in his day, and I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t do so now.
I would have to attribute his lack of knowledge at this point as more of a willful ignorance. If I were to speculate, I’d say that if he worked at it, but not hard, he’d be better, but not good enough — and it’s easier for him to be lousy at it, and be openly derisive about the idea of having to learn, than to actually WORK at it and still come up short.
But maybe he simply has so many things to learn that he hasn’t had time to get around to foreign policy yet. That’s the problem with picking a political neophyte and pretending they could be President.
Well, "imaging" Cain requires some thought - I'll have to get back to you on that one. But a 5th grader can't get a Navy rocket to it's target in the unstable environs of oceanic warfare. Herman Cain can. I'd say he's way smarter than any give 5th grader and probably smarter than most FReepers. I know from Navy rocket scientists. I have two uncles who did that sort of thing and both men were bona fide geniuses. One of their children, (my cousin, for the Rio Linda lurkers), does advanced space travel propulsion systems. You can't get work like that unless you're in the top 1% or better analytical intellects.
BTW, my dad and his other brother (four guys total) were both brilliant as professional educators. My dad had pauses in his speech, some longer than Cain's, that would drive the rest of us crazy. While I recognize the political value in coming off as a slick, packaged persona in our entertainment-oriented culture, it means absolutely nothing in terms of competence or intellect.
In fact, bottom line, my dad's long pauses usually produced remarkable accuracy in the thing stated, accuracy that would have the stamina to survive close scrutiny and produce useful information with a shelf life well beyond the immediate conversation.
So if you want a slick empty suit that doesn't ever think so deeply they can't "get back to you" right away, there are plenty of potential candidates in both parties who meet that criteria. But if you want someone with the proven thinking skills to solve extraordinarily complex problems with stunning elegance, I can't think of anybody better qualified that a Navy rocket scientist. But then, as you can see, I do have a bias. Go Navy.
Now, back to this problem of “imaging" Cain ….