I can't imagine why any serious person, no matter their position on the political spectrum, would read the Huffington Post.

I would! But then, I'm always looking for comedy.

This sort of Republican is the reason I have recently changed my voter registration to Anarchist. They are Socialists turned inside- out. They are like cafeteria- catholics, or children playing dress-up with daddy's wing-tips. They are weary and cynical, they are posers. The Republican brand should be dead to any thinking American. I blame GWB as much as anyone.

Remember, these people aren't new, they supported Bush 1 over RR in 1980. They thought the world would end with Ronnie's nomination. They prefer to play the part of the loyal opposition. It doesn't interfere with golf lessons.

Sarah Palin is peddling anti-intellectualism masquerading as populism. Everything Sarah Palin has done demonstrates that she is not only ignorant, but *proudly* ignorant.

I know that our President does not have to be a biochemist, a legal scholar, an engineer, a historian, and a mathematician rolled into one to be an effective leader, but our President should *value* biochemists, legal scholars, engineers, historians and mathematicians.

One of the most tragic features of the Bush era has been the sneering contempt of "elites" Republicans have encouraged. Sarah Palin is the natural product of that strategy: an incurious Miss. Congeniality that thinks winking at the camera and sprinkling her speech with "you betcha's" makes her qualified to lead the most powerful nation in the world.

Doc, over and over I hear people read from that same Obama talking points cue card that Palin is "incurious." (Amazing that so many of you independently started using that fairly obscure word at the same time, isn't it?)

What's your evidence? The fact is you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. To the extent that you make statements about Palin as though you knew them to be true, you are a liar. Someone with nothing to add and an inability keep quiet about things you know nothing about. (Wonderful P.J. O'Rourke quote: "I don't know. I'm not a liberal so I'm not an expert on stuff know nothing about.")

Sorry doc, but I'm tired of the BS.

Tim

Incurious: showing absence of intellectual inquisitiveness or natural curiosity.

What is my evidence that Sarah Palin lacks intellectual inquisitiveness? Good god, man...have you heard the woman speak? Have you heard her try and answer the most basic questions about the world around her? It's like watching a not terribly bright high school sophomore who thought she could wing it through her book report on Dickens.

She couldn't name a *single* Supreme Court case with which she disagreed (until she was given a list by her handlers), she couldn't name a *single* newspaper or magazine she reads (because she doesn't), and when she tried to talk about Alaska's proximity to Russia as a foreign policy credential, her answer required no modification to become parody. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to a bad night, but the fact that her handlers have sequestered her after only her second interview certainly suggests that the problem is not with an isolated interview, but with Sarah Palin.

Tim, I will put the question to you: what in Sarah Palin's tenure as a candidate for Vice President of the United States has led you to believe that she has anything approaching an above average intelligence?

You betcha!

Boys, boys- I was sneering at elites long before the Bush administration. That's what anarchists do.

And read some American history, children. Elite sneering is a national pastime older than baseball. Cut and paste character assassination is new, however. Enjoy your superiority, and your government cheese. Surely Obama will pat your head as he rides by. Such good boys, noble boys, progressive boys, intelligent boys.

dr kill

There is a world of difference between sneering at the aristocracy and sneering at anyone who values intellectualism.

The former should be encouraged, while the latter has been turned into basic Republican strategy.

Young Buckley?
While he may be the Younger, in relation to his deceased father, Young Buckley is 56 years old.

Anonymous - Palin put the oil construction contract out to bid and negotiated the deal with the Canadian government. The people with high intelligence forgot to do that. Do not confuse cultural cues with intelligence.

I think all four of the candidates are about 1SD above average this election, which is a good deal lower than Bush, Kerry, Gore, and (Hillary) Clinton, who go in at an estimated 126, 125, 132, and 140. Palin's a quick study, that should count for something. She has been doing local and state issues for years, functioning as a manager, and is suddenly put into an arena among people who assume that what goes on in Washington is of surpassing importance.

Naming SCOTUS cases is not as important as the general principles behind the discussion. It was not accidental that the question was about names of cases than about principles. It is not just a set-up slyness on the part of journalists, it reflects their belief that being a news junky is one of the qualifications for working in DC. But that belief is erroneous.

Barack Obama is likely to forget that Syria and Venezuela are more enemy than friend. I don't think Palin would forget that. I use that because I think Bush's greatest error was in overestimating Putin's reasonableness, and this strongly influenced what he thought the US could accomplish internationally. (For comparison, imagine the lead up to the UN Resolutions and the Iraq confrontation if Russia had indeed been a consistent ally. That overestimation cost us.)

Incidentally, I was the president of the Prometheus Society 20 years ago, an international IQ group with a cutoff of 164. I know these high-IQ, curious, seeking, intellectual types pretty well. Some are great, and should be president. Some are just friggin' nuts, and arrogant to boot. They are surpassingly dangerous people to give any sort of power to. Intelligence is overrated. Adaptability is more important.

Dr. Nobel Dynamite. As an ex-socialist, I can assure you that the sneering by elites starts much earlier - middle-school perhaps - than the sneering back. It is a gradual dawning on the doers of life that these elites don't actually know that much. So the doers get irritated.

Signed, Former Elite