Intelligence

Not the CIA kind, either.

Matthew Yglesias has an excellent piece in the American Prospect on George W. Bush and intelligence. He takes Bush to task for, basically, not being bright enough to be president. This issue surfaced in 2000 (as Yglesias notes), but, through some clever campaigning and media indifference, the consensus view became "intelligence doesn't matter."

Well, it does.

Go read Yglesias' article here.

I'll excerpt just a little bit:

Intelligence matters. The job of the president of the United States is not to love his wife; it’s to manage a wide range of complicated issues. That requires character, yes, but not the kind of character measured by private virtues like fidelity to spouse and frequency of quotations from Scripture. Yet it also requires intelligence. It requires intellectual curiosity, an ability to familiarize oneself with a broad range of views, the capacity -- yes -- to grasp nuances, to foresee the potential ramifications of one’s decisions, and, simply, to think things through. Four years ago, these were not considered necessary pieces of presidential equipment. Today, they have to be.

Hooah. But, hey--would you rather have a dim bulb, or some smart guy who looks French?

You might not go broke appealing to the lowest common denominator, but the country sure will.