When ignorance is bliss...

Reiterates why McCain is unfit for office -- cynicism on the level he exhibited is breathtaking.

I wonder, though, whether Palin might not, in fact, trust her health or her family's to a faith healer. Someone should ask her.

"a muscular foreign policy". Sounds like Bill Kristol talking.

Dr. Walt makes an interesting point that may have become irrelevant in the context of electoral politics.

Truthfully, none of the three leading Democratic Presidential candidates knew very much about how to be President other than what Dr. Walt or some of his readers know now. They got a lot of briefings, maybe did some reading. One was First Lady, which for very good reasons was never considered relevant preparation for being President before. The list of accomplishments in government that could be attributed to Obama, Clinton, and Edwards in the spring of 2008 was pretty short. No one familiar with the record of all these Democratic candidates would seriously argue that any of them -- or all of them put together -- knew as much or had done as much in government as the second-tier candidates who barely made it out of single digits in any poll during the campaign.

The point is that all three of the leading candidates attained that status because they knew a lot, and had done a lot, in an entirely different professional world. They knew a lot about becoming President. So did George W. Bush. Sarah Palin doesn't know as much; in my judgement he doesn't know enough to be a candidate for national office again. She knows enough, though, to understand how to appeal to Americans who are themselves unfamiliar enough with what it takes to be a effective President that they are prone to undervalue experience and genuine expertise in favor of qualities closer to those they appreciate in their daily lives.

I happen not to value those qualities highly in a candidate for national office. Dr. Walt may not either. The problem for most Americans who do not follow public affairs all the time is that candidates for office do not have a system of professional credentialing to assure voters that they can do the job they are campaigning for. Doctors, to use Walt's analogy, do have such a system; it isn't that their patients insist that doctors know what they are doing, but that they assume properly credentialed doctors will. As it happens, the credentialing system used by the medical profession has some direct relation to whether doctors know how to treat their patients. The business of the permanent campaign is less closely related to the skills required to succeed in government, perhaps because it measures success by whether elections are won, not by what comes after that.

This reminds me of someone talking about Palin's appeal as "someone who is just like us!" While I suppose there might be something comforting in that being true, I'd personally rather elect someone better than myself to represent me in government.

I guess that makes me an elitist. I wonder what we should call those who want to elect people who lack the understanding, capabilities, and temperament* to govern effectively? I'm voting for "idiots"...

*I don't put knowledge in the category of essential traits for an elected official, simply because it is impossible to know what is necessary about every area of policy. Furthermore, knowledge does not entail judgment.

Just to admit she has a chance makes me rethink about democracy. I mean, I am not liberal nor a conservative, but this lady is a joke. Is like a character from "Naked Gun". Is would be hillarious, though.

And I'm generally inclined to go along with you here. And Palin's level of knowledge and intellectual curiosity and rigor were below the minimum necessary to hold the job. But do we really ask for expertise in everything? Does she need to have an economics degree to hold the job? A background in the environment? Infrastructure and transportation planning? How much *specialized* knowledge do we expect and desire our leaders to possess? Palin's an easy target. But this raises serious issues. How much knowledge is enough, and how much is not enough, across how many issue areas, and which ones?

A former student

and I quote from a recent poster on your "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" entry

Barack Hussein Obama is an inexperienced legislator with no experience at all in military matters of any kind. He never served in the military, he served only a couple years in the legislature and had more "present" votes by percentage than any legislator in history to come to the White House. He is a very young man, and his experience is entirely in dealing with perpetual poverty minded people who believe they are entitled to be given everything, social outcasts of the Chicago urban blight.

The point being that we can go round and round with these 'unfit to govern' accustaions.

I for one would pick someone that could attend Harvard and be editor of the Law Review while coming from modest means as by far more capable of governing then someone who needs to dumb herself down (please God let that be what she's really doing) in order to get elected.

Nov 17, 2009
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is considered Israel's most corrupt minister, according to the results of a survey conducted Tuesday at the Israel-Sderot Conference on Social Issues.
According to the poll, taken among over 550 people, Interior Minister Eli Yishai is believed to be the second most corrupt, followed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz.
__________________________________________________________

The Presidency of the European Union expressed grave concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza on Tuesday 17 November.
The European Union remains gravely concerned by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Calls for urgent measures have not been sufficiently answered.
The European Union continues to urge that prompt and concrete measures be taken to solve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to allow for reconstruction and economic recovery.
The European Union notes with concern that the situation on the ground has not improved since January 2009. The continued policy of closure, which has been in place since 2007, has devastated the private sector economy and further damaged the natural environment.
The poor water quality is particularly worrying. The essential reconstruction of homes, schools and health facilities to which the international community, including the European Union committed itself at the Donors Conference in Sharm el Sheikh, is still prevented. While extremists stand to gain from the current situation, the plight becomes worse for the civilian population, half of which are children.
The European Union reiterates its calls for an immediate and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza. The Agreement of Movement and Access of 2005 should be implemented. The EU urges Israel to facilitate the transfer of material and financial resources into Gaza for the implementation of the UN Pilot Projects. The EU calls for the full implementation of UNSCR 1860.

After all - he's got no game whatsoever in FoPoLand

Although Mr. Walt decries Saara Palin's and her supporters lack of experience "...seem to think you don't need to know anything to be good at running foreign policy."

Mr. Walt who holds himself out as an expert in Foreign Policy is an example of the arrogance those who think they are in the know. Anyone who follows Mr. Walt's blog here can see that for all his supposed expertise, he really isn't that much better educated on so many parts of the world he pontificates upon. Policies based on his 'expertise' would be a disaster.

Every one should fear the Sara Palins but the Walts on the other hand are scarier. It was these educated experts or 'elites' the US has been churning out for the last 4 decades that brought on the current banking and economic crisis.

The problem with these experts is that they are less likely to change course caught up in the belief of their own infallibility. Does anyone really believe that the Banks and industry will behave differently particularly over the long term as things 'normalise'? Does anyone think that the new crop of graduates from Harvard et al are learning to do things differently?

Don't be sure that the anti-intellect movement may be so enduring, if memory serves the Economist reported in its post-presidential cleanup that at least 25% of the U.S had college degrees, something that I doubt will decrease in the future. This may not mean that people running on ignorance platforms will stop appearing, but they will at least have less of a group to tap into.
More to the point, in my amateur analysis for a class I concluded that Mrs. Palin had never been picked for any experience or knowledge. She didn't have special job experience outside of being a governor. I know of no evidence that she was especially informed of Russian politics or culture. She didn't even perform the historic task of a vice-president and bring a key state to the candidate. She was chosen because she was female, sufficiently conservative, and energetic. In essence, I believe Mrs. Palin had been picked to get Mr. McCain the conservative vote and temper Mr. Obama's appeal. I'll admit this is not a nice conclusion, it is not a kind one. Regardless, I reject criticism based on the fact that it is not kind because I feel that my statements are still the truth.

In the closing weeks of last year's presidential campaign, the more experienced and hopefully, "seasoned" Big Thinker McCain sat down to tell some reporter he approved of "good" wars in the future. He gave as examples of good wars Panama and Grenada. Quite apart from the morality of either event, both had this characteristic: neither was, in fact, a war.

Nothing Governor Palin said was any more naive than that.

'I think Kakutani is right, but I wonder why so many people -- including Senator McCain, Ms. Palin herself, and the other folks who supported her -- seem to think you don't need to know anything to be good at running foreign policy.'

This description could just as easily be applied to Obama (and it has showed in his first year's series of disasters), so it's really meaningless except as further evidence that where you end up usually depends on the perspective from which you begin.

Agreed, but expertise should be a necessary-but-insufficient condition. You might have read Philip Tetlock's recent study on expert political judgment, where he provided strong evidence for the poor track record of "the experts" and linked that to overconfidence that comes from thinking they have the answers. So we don't just need someone with knowledge, but with proper decision-making skills, too.

Here are just two examples of government corruption that provide plenty of fuel for the Palin fire. These example are most likely a symptom of a deeper problem of a disconnect of the government from the people. These examples can happen because the people are not able to hold the government accountable. So, alienated people throughout history do things like follow Jerry Falwell or Sara Palin

http://solari.com/blog/?p=5116
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-chapman/obama-small-business-foru_b_361568.html

Bob Spencer

Does anyone seriously consider the possibility of electing Sarah Palin as president of the United States!!!!.This is an appalling concept giving that she abused what little power she had while governor of Alaska,and the fact that she is an idiot and in all honesty she probably would have attacked the Iranians because their values are 'un-american'.I hope that Americans would NEVER consider giving such a person that power again(George W Bush, did you not learn your lesson the last time).

Does she know who John Gault is?

Better get used to her on the national scene folks. Gov Palin represents an overdue resurging conservative populist movement that has existed in the US since at least the Andrew Jackson era. The heartland increasingly sees the "inside the Beltway" and Wall Street crowds as problems to be fixed, and the conservatives & populists are tapping into that.

Tea baggers are populist in the narrowest sense of the word.

I think that Sara Palin is a wonderful lady but I also think that she actually cost McCain the office. I also believe that he did not choose her based on any knowledge at all. I believe that he chose her because she is a woman.

As a person or President it is impossible to know everything about every subject. Any average Joe can be president. In order to be a good President you just need to put the best people in the right positions.

Palin's ignorance is a virtue with many American voters. It is even more attractive to the "foreign policy experts" associated with the highly organised Jewish lobby who can fill her (extremely) empty head with all sorts of propaganda. "Foreign policy expertise" has become synonymous with repeating pro-Israeli talking points. The true foreign policy thinkers and experts are never heard in the United States. It would be too traumatic for the American public. Palin is the future. Ignorance is bliss.,