Picking a president shouldn't be like picking a golf buddy

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/25/131166/commentary-picking-a-president.html

Commentary: Picking a president shouldn't be like picking a golf buddy

By Leonard Pitts Jr. | The Miami Herald

snip//

That has become a disturbingly common thing in recent years. Sarah Palin considered “What do you read?” a gotcha question. Michele Bachmann thinks HPV vaccinations cause brain damage.

Now comes Cain mangling a basic question about foreign policy. He has claimed he simply paused to gather his thoughts, but anyone who has seen the video knows better. In his painful hemming, hawing and false starts, Cain comes across like a fifth grader called up to the blackboard and wishing he had studied the night before. This is the same Cain who asked how to say delicious “in Cuban” while at a restaurant in Miami, the same Cain who spoke of the need to keep China from developing nuclear capability — which China did 47 years ago.

A presidential campaign constitutes the world’s longest and toughest job interview. While it’s fine to vet candidates on likeability, credibility and, yes, experience, it might not hurt to require that they also show evidence of having thought deeply and with an informed mind about the world and America’s place in it. We are, after all, choosing a president — not a golf buddy.

One sometimes wonders if some of us know the difference. That Cain stumbled so badly on a routine question does not speak well of his intellectual firepower.

That he is a leading candidate for the presidency does not speak well of ours.

[baldguy]

1. He's missing the fact that being smart is a detriment in GOP politics.

Being dumb as a rock - and showing it - is an asset.

[SkyDaddy7]

2. EXACTLY! Not only that but...

When it comes to the general election Americans are suckers for stupidity in the form of a Right Wing Authoritarian voice. SCARY!

[CakeGrrl]

3. With a huge assist from the MSM, who slobbered over GWB's 'folksiness'.

The MSM has done much work to dumb down voters' expectations.

They made it acceptable and amusing to want to vote for "the guy you want to have a beer with", and are more than happy to aid and abet the GOP when they tell their uneducated constituents that knowledge and smarts aren't a positive.