A most dangerous would-be leader: a man who doesn't seem to know how much he doesn't know.

[BurtWorm]

Kevin Drum, quoting Fred Kaplan:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_06/011534.php


COMMANDER IN CHIEF....Fred Kaplan on Rudy Giuliani:

The fact is, Giuliani has no idea what he's talking about. On the campaign trail he says that the terrorist threat "is something I understand better than anyone else running for president." As the mayor of New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, he may have lived more intimately with the consequences of terrorism, but this has no bearing on his inexperience or his scant insight in the realm of foreign policy. He is, in fact, that most dangerous would-be world leader: a man who doesn't seem to know how much he doesn't know.

Hmmm. That reminds me of somebody. But who? Push? Tush? Schmush? Something like that.....

POSTSCRIPT: By the way, the academic name for this is the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Impress your friends by knowing this! Dunning and Kruger, in a famous series of tests, found that "Incompetent individuals, compared with their more competent peers, will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria." Also: "They will be less able than their more competent peers to recognize competence when they see it — be it their own or anyone else's."

In other words, the halfwits of the world all think they're geniuses. But you knew that already, didn't you?

[Joe Fields]

1. lol

[frogcycle]

2. One of my Dad's favorite proverbs

“He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple - teach him.
He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him.
He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.”

of course, the OP is referring to the first (and most populous) category

[madokie]

4. I'll be trying to remember that

your Father, a wise man

[frogcycle]

10. indeed

I only wish I had understood that as a kid.

I will, however, be eternally grateful for having overruled other family members and moved him from South Carolina to live near me when my mother died. We had a good six years.

I think this story:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/frogcycle/58

may have something to do with why I feel compelled to maintain my website tribute to those being killed today for someone else's poor planning and hubris. I cannot imagine what Dad would say now. He, his father, grandfather, and no doubt more before that back to the time of Lincoln, were died-in-the-wool republicans. I think he'd still be a republican, but insist this crowd were an invader species.

[Nite Owl]

3. If 9-11 had happened on a

dem watch all they would be talking about for years is how incompetent they were to let this happen instead of making heroes out of the likes of * and Ghouli.

[Phredicles]

5. Recommended - I want to check out Dunning and Kruger's work,

which I hadn't heard of before this - thanks!

[BurtWorm]

7. There's a link to their article here:

http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf

[gatorboy]

6. Boom!

[Raven]

8. I always worry the most about people who don't know what

they don't know.

[GeorgeGist]

9. I think that's true ...

of all the Republican candidates.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. Excellent, but the best part was the 'comments' section, which included some

excellent diatribes by one Norman Rogers, who appeared to be satirizing, quite cleverly, the Master of the Universe mindset

highly recommended:

"I speak of a gentle man who defended his city. A man who stepped aside for Michael Bloomberg and graciously handed over the keys. A man who sits in the stands during a New York Yankees ballgame and shifts uncomfortably in his seat because he doesn't want the cameras to focus on him--he wants the cameras to focus on his old friend Joe Torre or on the action packed game on the field. A man who gives speeches people actually want to hear. A man who's public persona and private life are always in perfect concert with each other. Yes, Rudy has had troubles. We have all had troubles.

Just yesterday, I found out one of my old friends, Paula Zahn, had left her husband. I wanted to reach out to her and say, "Bunny, you go girl." (Bunny was my pet name for her. I bought her a rabbit, but she lived in a building at that time that wouldn't allow it, so we let the rabbit loose in Central Park. I think it ended up being hit by a bus.)

Rudy made New York a city where you could live in once again. (Rabbit carcasses, notwithstanding.) I remember working on Wall Street in 1987, and I had to go to work with a security guard named Henley and I had to keep a .357 magnum in my waistband to fend off muggers. I was once knocked down by three toughs and the gun clattered into the gutter, falling down a drain. I had to use my briefcase to fend them off and I had to run into a peepshow to get help. THAT'S the New York that existed in the days of David Dinkins. Crack addicts everywhere, stealing whatever they could, even your shoes, in order to get money.

And Rudy saw this, and put it right. It was never about him--it was about the city."

[Hamlette]

14. omg the comments are the best! I love this one!

Am I alone in this? Every damn time Julie-Annie openth hith mouth, I hear Sylvesther the Cat. Kinda like I always wanted someone to ask Boris Yeltsin to say "Moose & Squrrel" I want some intrepid reporter to ask Rudy to say "Thufferin' Thuccotash!" I mean, they aren't doing any real reporting, they might as well amuse me.

[WinkyDink]

12. I taught high school. I didn't know the name, but I am acutely familiar with the phenomenon.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing", after all.
(Pope)

[BurtWorm]

13. kick