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Lately, I've been getting this feeling that for one reason or another, many FReepers have a distrust of intelligence. I don't get it.
When I was growing up, everyone wanted their children to be smart, and it was a bragging right if your child was intelligent. Now, I'm getting these visions in my head of people saying things like, "Thank God Johnny isn't one of those smart kids. I just couldn't live with myself if we had intelligent offspring." It's confusing

I have noticed that here as well that intelligence is still derided.
Governor Palin needs to do quite a bit for me to prove she is ready for prime time and can handle the media and run a well organized operation to actually win an election.

Its been one side show after the other with her since she was announced as VP candidate

Much of it undoubtedly traces to the fact that our opponents in journalism and in the Democratic Party are sophists. Sophists live or die by projecting the impression that they are wise, and opposition to them is stupid. Which is why you have heard fatuous claims for the "brilliance" of Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, &c - and corresponding denigration of the intelligence of Dan Quayle but also of Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, and George W. Bush.
The correct response to the sophist is not to get into a "he said she said" over relative intelligence. It is to adopt the posture of the philosopher, trying to keep the discussion focussed on facts and logic instead of on the irrelevant personal claims at which the sophist excels.
Another way of looking at it is to note that phi beta kappas are a dime a dozen compared to presidents of the US. We-the-people do not concede to Harvard University the prerogative of winnowing the field of candidates we will consider for POTUS. Similarly, people who have been awarded the Silver Star for valor are a dime a dozen compared to presidents of the US. Which is why John Kerry's running on his short tour in Vietnam as some kind of credential for POTUS would have been bogus even if every medal he ever had had been unambiguously merited. How hard would it have been for Bush to have named a true military hero for his VP candidate in 2004?