Intelligence may not guarantee that one will be a good President, but it certainly is a pre-requisite (necessary but not sufficient attribute).

I would even agree with you that wisdom is more important than smarts (or intelligence as measured by an IQ test). However, a reasonable IQ is required for one to gain wisdom. Wisdom is the product of knowledge and experience.

Sarah Palin has demonstrated over and over again that she does not have much knowledge, and worse than that, she does not value knowledge. She thinks that winking while delivering one-liners written by someone else is a substitute for understanding and thoughtful consideration of the issues.

The right wing of the Republican Party likes her because she is an ideologue, a true believer. She shares their narrow worldview wherein many important facts do not matter. More than any public figure I have ever known, her approach can be described a blissful ignorance. She has no idea how rediculous she appears to most of the people in the world.

She would be a disaster as a President for the same reason that George W. Bush was a disaster. She has demonstrated no ability to apply logic and reason to her personal beliefs or behavior. In short, she has no wisdom.

She may be a standard bearer for the radical right wing of the Republican Party, but she will never be elected to national office, because the American people, on balance, do have the wisdom not to elect her.

I’m also wondering where people are getting this idea that he’s ill-tempered. I didn’t see him explode once on TV, but I may have missed it.

DrWilson, you harp too much on intelligence when it is both subjective and, at times, irrelevant. Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer, and yet he was one of the worst presidents this country, helping to create both the energy and financial crises that we have now. And for all of Bush’s proclaimed stupidity, he beat two Ivy Leaguers in both of his elections.

“Don’t know about you, but I would like a President who is smarter than I am.” I think everyone is in agreement with you on this one. :P

Though I’ll take wisdom over smarts any day.

She cannot answer general knowledge questions that can be correctly answered by college-bound high school students. (Not kidding here, I asked a dozen or so questions that she could not answer to college bound high school students myself and got the right answers every time.) She apparently does not believe that knowledge is important because her school-age children are not even in school.

While she may not be stupid, she is at least ignorant. If someone is 44 years old and doesn’t know that Africa is a continent and not a country, or what countries are in North America, then sorry, they are ignorant. Don’t know about you, but I would like a President who is smarter than I am.

If we want America to continue on the the path to idiocracy, along which the Bush Administation has made so much progress in the last 8 years, then Palin might well be the best we have.

It is interesting to me that Palin gets widespread media coverage on what appear to be minor gaffes while the Omessiah doesn’t even know how many states are in the union. Seems to me that should be on page one but “he just misspoke because he was tired”, or the Biden list of both gaffes and corruption but no coverage. Hmmm

I didn’t know that Obama winked at the audience… regardless, I remember hearing something along these lines during both Bush election campaigns, and we know how both turned out.

“Electability” is a nice word for popularity. It is the reason why Democrats lost the last two presidential races, and why the Republicans lost this one. Instead of focusing on someone who represents something, they went with guys who could get elected. Gore on his popularity, Kerry because the other Democratic candidates were less electable, and McCain because he was the farthest thing from the party during a time when the party was doing miserably. If you want to win, you have to be inspirational, not popular. Popularity can come later.

Just picture Palin debating Obama. Well reasoned, fact-based arguments made against endlessly repeated memorized (but barely understood)talking points and winks at the audience.

Again, facts matter. The Democrats have found themselves a smart, even tempered and articulate standerd bearer who can get out the vote. Conservatives better do the same. Sarah Palin is a lot of things. Smart, even tempered and articulate she is not.