Since the old one has devolved into a debate over the merits of Reagan’s term in office…
As Thomas Boswell said in reference to Woodrow Wilson and Gene Mauch, brains make a great servant but a terrible master. A politician is a leader and a doer more so than a thinker. Not that brains are unimportant – certainly not. But the social skills to stir people to action are arguably more important. Brainy people sometimes (often?) lack these, and may come off as arrogant.
I will use myself as an example. Here in the Midwest we tend to take the ACT rather than the SAT. I scored a 34, which puts me in the 98th / 99th percentile. Nice. It means I can see the answer to a problem faster and clearer than many of my coworkers, and I can get impatient waiting for them to catch up, or frustrated when they never do. It’s something I’m working on – I don’t want to be an arrogant prig, honest I don’t! But I have seen many, many people of lesser intelligence succeed in administrative and management roles because they have the gift of gab, of cajoling people into doing their best, of having a vision (limited though it may sometimes be) and having the wherewithal to bring it to fruition.
I don’t begrudge them their success (except when they step on MY toes) – I envy their abilities. And those are the abilities a good President needs to get anything done. The smartest guy in the world is useless as a leader if he can’t get anyone to follow him.
Potatoe. The way I heard it, Danny-boy was judging a school spelling bee. He was reading from a list of words (supplied by the teacher? supplied by an educational publisher? the memory fades…). The word was spelled incorrectly ON THE LIST! Points off for Dan not catching the mistake, but clearly he is not the proximal cause of the error!
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Isn’t that exactly the problem with Quayle, though? His supporters will say that he’s not dumb, he just has lousy public speaking skills. It seems to me that public speaking skills are an aspect of social skills, and one that would be rather important to a national leader. In other words, it may not matter that much if a President or Vice President is dumb, but he shouldn’t look dumb.
I’m still waiting to hear an explanation of his Mars quote, by the way.
A thousand apologies, and color me red! :0 In my heart, I was responding to an existing thread. Unfortunately, my brain never weighed in on the matter. (Maybe that ACT score was a fluke…)
Mjollnir –
Please. I started this thread to get AWAY from partisan politics. Which, being faith-based, really belong in Great Debates. Or maybe the pit. Which is the appropriate forum for any response to your “formula.”
Chronos –
Mayors Daley I and II both mangle the language so badly that they make Dan sound downright erudite. Yet both are / were masters at rallying the troops and getting the job done. (Of course, having the press as your lap dog helps.) Good speaking is a social skill, up to a point. Speak too well, however, and folks will think you’re putting on airs. The occassional flub, and you come across as “one of the boys.”
Though I will admit, W. and Dan (and Ritchie I and II) have had far more than “occasional” flubs…
Oh, fiddlesticks. It’s kinda hard to get the partisanity out of politics, as long as there are par-ties. And I did not mean the formula as a statement of personal belief, but an observation of the “independent” analysis of others, as I typically tend to vote for the dunces, myself.
NONE were kind towards his intelligence. Now it could be that they all were mistaken, but a better explanation would be that Dubya is indeed a man of limited intelligence.
samclem - FWIW, that’s also what I read about the Quayle “potatoe” incident. Mr. Quayle was using cards at the spelling bee to verify the contestants’ spelling and the spelling was incorrect on the card.
Beruang - not to worry. I just thought I would spice up my standard spiel.
I agree that the most intelligent people do not necessarily make the best administrators. Nonetheless an administrator needs to have a good grasp of the subject at hand when trying to make decisions on a particular issue or speaking extemporaneously to other administrators, the media, or the general public.
The office of President of the USA is important enought that I think it would be worthwhile to choose a person who shows a high degree of IQ and EQ (where EQ would be the “emotional” or “social” intelligence).
Isn’t that exactly the problem with Quayle, though? His supporters will say that he’s not dumb, he just has lousy public speaking skills. It seems to me that public speaking skills are an aspect of social skills, and one that would be rather important to a national leader. In other words, it may not matter that much if a President or Vice President is dumb, but he shouldn’t look dumb.**
I think this is the exact problem with Dubya. It’s not that he’s any more or less intelligent that the rest of the population but his skills for the office he’s occupying are woe-fully inadequate. He doesn’t do anything to counter-act this image. He keeps up the down-home southern, just-plain-folk, gentleman routine.
As President, he is our leader, but he doesn’t seem to be able to lead. His public speaking skills really need polishing. A good leader will surround himself with good advisors, but he need to at least act like he’s waving the baton and leading. I don’t see this in Dubya at all.
I’m not that big an admirer of Quayle, but I saw the VP debate in 1992. Quayle handled himself very well (better than Bush Senior IMHO). I would say that speaking skill is one of his strengths.