By that logic, most presidents in the 20th century (both Republican and Democrat) wouldn’t have been elected. Maybe that’s your point.

Or was this just a gratuitous Palin slam?

(I found Bill Clinton’s interview with Larry King fascinating, as he was defending her and drawing parallels to himself.)

Good points, E. Enough humility to listen to additional information, change one’s position when appropriate, and admit to mistaken thinking would be a helpful quality, and is maybe one way in which our apparent appetite for certitude in our leaders is costly. (Of course, I want this attitude in my politicians; I’m not so sure I want to learn how to listen to other people’s perspectives and admit to my own idiocy myself.)

What!? Where are you living now, and why didn’t I help you move, like a real friend? [hangs head in shame]

One other important quality that most leaders overlook when they govern is the ability to listen to and then to change course when other people tell you (credibly) that even though you’re now the President of the Free World (do people even use that term anymore?) you’re just plain wrong. You’ll always be able to find people to agree with you, but it takes humilty and empathy to listen to the people who don’t.

Hey, when are we getting together again? I’m in the next town over from you now.

It’s abundantly clear that licensing exams for psychologists, for example, do NOT by any means succeed in ridding the profession of quacks (and clinical psychology is a comparable field in the sense that a lot of what’s important in a good therapist would not show up on a scantron sheet). Do they serve any purpose other than allowing current practitioners to hold onto their power? I have no hard data, but I’d like to think they at least screen out some of the lower levels–people who just aren’t serious about it at all. Similarly, with politicians, I can’t imagine that whole gaggles of quacks wouldn’t nevertheless push through the screen, into our TV sets, and onto Capitol Hill–not to mention brilliant political students who would nevertheless be ineffective at governing. But perhaps it would filter out the least serious candidates. If these candidates were unable to pass such an exam but would nevertheless make ideal leaders on the basis of their shrewdness and negotiating skills, my question is, what would prevent them, brimming with ambition the way they are, from stepping into a library and learning a little about the world so they could pass the test?

So maybe a better way of phrasing my question would be like this: (a) does sheer information and an ability to manipulate that information play any role whatever in the formation “good” or “successful” politicians (and bear in mind I’m thinking about relevant areas of expertise–a brilliant quantum mechanics professor would surely not thereby be equipped to run the country!); and, if so, (b) would the cost in assessing familiarity with such information (both literal cost in assembling a board of examiners to write, administer, and grade an exam as well as cost to our concept of democracy) be commensurate with the significance of the role such information would play?

Here’s how I look at it:

We as voters have better access to certain facets of our candidates’ qualifications than others: we can easily assess their race, age, sex, and, especially, how good-looking (and magnetic) they are, and we seem to treat these readily accessible characteristics as if they were of paramount importance. Jessawhy mentioned above that looks play a significant role in elections, a point that Neil Postman harps on in Amusing Ourselves to Death (the book’s tone verges on hysterical but some of his arguments are cogent nevertheless). Abraham Lincoln, gawky in build, saturnine in temperament and widely considered strikingly ugly, would almost certainly not be elected in an era of television; nor would a 300-pound William Howard Taft or FDR in his wheelchair. So we’re already eliminating entire swaths of potential candidates that might be shrewd, brilliant, and veteran poker players, simply because (it would seem) straight teeth, clear skin, and winning smiles are essential criteria.

Other aspects are less readily accessible but exponentially more important: their proposed policies and their practical plans for implementation, for example. And yet other qualities are important but still more difficult to assess: are they shrewd? Do they weigh costs and benefits appropriately?

Expertise doesn’t trump every other quality by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it can be assessed reasonably well (and acquired by anyone of decent intelligence assiduous enough to put forth effort). If you’re going to run the country you (presumably) will have to be briefed on the intricacies of all sorts of situations; why not get a little of that “briefing” in advance, as a good-faith demonstration of your commitment?

Would a stellar performance on a licensing exam be enough to assure us that a candidate was an appropriate choice for office? Certainly no more than advanced degrees in law and political science are enough right now, in the absence of such an exam. It would merely be one piece of information in a whole suite of data that we as responsible voters should take into account when choosing a candidate. But maybe having access to that information would help tip the balance a little further from superficialities and a little more toward more substantive immaterials. The danger is, it would perhaps receive undue weight, and that’s a genuine concern. But on the other hand, right now it seems that race, sex, and religious background are receiving enormously undue weight (I tend to think almost any weight of such attributes is undue), and it seems unlikely we’ll stop contemplating our candidates’ TV personas long enough to become genuinely fixated on their levels of expertise, with or without an exam.

(Wow, that was a monograph, even for me! I need help! The good thing about long comments, though, is that no one will bother reading them, so I needn’t worry about rebuttals. )

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/why_isnt_our_politicianz_eduka.php

Our history over the past hundred years shows that government by egghead doesn’t work very well. Probably our two smartest presidents were Wilson and Hoover, and one of them got us into WWI while the other one got us into the depression. Every miserable place in the world with 500% inflation has a finance minister with a PhD in Econ from Oxford. Conversely, three of our most successful presidents were FDR, Truman, and Reagan. None of those three will ever be mistaken for a member of Mensa, and each was derided by detractors as being incompetent and unprepared. FDR didn’t know his Malta from his Yalta, but he led our country successfully through some pretty dark days. The smart people behind Dewey excoriated Truman as a hick and shirt salesman from Missouri and mocked his bourgeois-ness right up until the day he handed them their heads on a platter. Clark Clifford, white shoe lawyer, ambassador and cabinet member for 40 years described Reagan as an amiable dunce, and elicited knowing chuckles from the clever set. And yet, while RR was busy winning the Cold War, CC was busy corrupting BCCI and running American Bancshares into the ground.

If the need is for additional brainpower, brainpower can be acquired by the boxcar lot. It seems to me that the necessary skills for successful work in governing can be enumerated as follows:

1. A certain shrewdness that allows the individual to size up a person or situation quickly.
2. The ability to correctly assess risks and potential benefits.
3. The ability to enlist cooperation and build coalitions.
4. The ability to modify one’s approach as changes warrant.

The nimbleness of mind that book-learning seeks to instill can help with all those points, but it isn’t a sure thing. It could be argued that the poker table is a more reliable venue for preparation than the library.

There is another sense in which I think government by an enlightened elite could be harmful to us. It would further erode our idea of self-government, and it would inflict damage on our sense of inter-connectedness. When the president speaks to us on TV from the oval office, he solemnly addresses us as “My fellow Americans”. (Aside: my first memory of any kind of political awareness was when I watched the grainy, black and white image of Lyndon B. Johnson say that phrase. It was memorable because, from his mouth, it sounded like “Ma feller Amurkins.”) A conscious move to make governing something ordinary people don’t do might cause further disconnect between the governing and the governed.