Yes, presidential IQ matters

Former Bush Treasury official Bruce Bartlett (speaking live on CNN): "Rick Perry’s an idiot." Yowzer. The emerging consensus among pundits (left and right) is that Mr. Perry is not the brightest color in the crayon box. That of course is obvious from even a perfunctory scan of his past statements and actions. Sadly, the Texan governor is not unique. State governments and Congress are filled with the dimmer pastels of the Crayola spectrum.

The question, Steve Benen posits, is whether Perry's IQ matters, "either practically or electorally." Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no. "Perry doesn’t need to convince the electorate he’s an intellectually curious, creative thinker, capable to examining complex issues in a sophisticated way; he needs to convince them he’s likeable and relatable," writes Benen. The trouble starts Inauguration-Day Plus 1. The phone rings. It's 3 a.m. Israel is about to nuke Iran. OMG! What should we do, Mr. President? Consider this soliloquy:

"I listen to one side and they seem right; and then--God!--I talk to the other side and they seem just as right, and here I am where I started. I know somewhere there is a book that will give me the truth, but hell! I couldn't read the book."

No, this wasn't George W. Bush (and I made up the Israel-Iran scenario). The quote is by President Warren G. Harding, another low-watt bulb who gained fame as one of our worst presidents. Governing, it turns out, requires brains. As Harding (and Duyba) demonstrated, surrounding a "C student" with the Ivy League's "best and brightest" is useless if a president is too dim to decipher labyrinthine issues and policies, or "pick the wisest course among many complex options." The inability to do so can have tragic results: See LBJ (Vietnam) and Bush (Iraq/Abu Ghraib/Recession/Etc).

What makes me Mad as a Hatter is the fact we're nonchalantly talking about electing rank idiots to the presidency as if this were normal or acceptable. Political fools have always been a dime a dozen. I worry more about the fools that elect them. I mean, how on earth did we get here? Daniel Walker Howe, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "What Hath God Wrought," observed that Americans have always cherished their ability to "make something of themselves." It stems from our "pursuit of happiness" writ. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Americans ― "rural as well as urban, poor as well as middle-class" ― wholly embraced the ethos of intellectual "improvement." Howe noted that the Founders as well as young Abe Lincoln, who "read his book by the firelight," exemplified this outlook. How, then, did we go from a nation of purposeful knowledge seekers to slack-jawed naifs who cheer leaders who tout ignorance as a virtue? I'm certain the Founders (along with Lincoln, Wilson, TR, FDR, Ike and JFK) would collectively faint or suffer coronaries if they were forced to listen to Bachmann-Perry-Palin pontificate on, well, anything.

How far we seem to have fallen from the ledge of American idealism. That said, I suspect the "improvement" gene is still there, though it is clearly dormant in many folks, particularly on the right. The question is how to reactivate it both for their sake and America's. Any thoughts, Mr. Obama? Methinks this would make a fine bully pulpit topic.