Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan have something in common: they don't seem smart enough to please the soi-disant smart people.
That luminary of the Intellectual Left, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, writes today that the GOP nominee for vice presidenet "knows very little about national and international policy and isn't very curious." This is apparently because she prefers summary briefing materials instead of wonkish three-inch binders.
Memo to Mr. Dionne: She's not applying for a fellowship at the Brookings Institution.
Leaders deal with a phenomenal array of thorny issues. They cannot become truly expert in any of them -- so, they have staff members, who are experts in the wide range of fields that inform a leadership decision.
A leader must be something of a generalist -- someone who can understand the economic impact of a decision, the implications for foreigh policy, the politics of Congress, how the decision will effect working families and small businesses and the states and cities and much, much more. Someone who can see the connections between what Expert A knows and the theories of Expert B and how what Adviser C knows settles the question.
To do that job well, you need to learn a lot from a lot of people, quickly, every day and all the time.
Don't get me wrong: I like detail. When I prosecute a criminal, I must know the tiniest details of the case. I live with three-inch binders. My job, unlike the president, is very specific and very focused.
But a presidential candidate who loves that level of detail doesn't understand the job of leadership, and isn't qualified for it.
Reagan was criticized for not studying detail. But he was responsible for the death of communism, reforming the tax code and strengthening the economy. Our most wonkish president was Jimmy Carter. Can you name his signature achievement as president?
The media elites love the fictional president of old TV show, The West Wing. President Bartlett knows more than all his advisers combined, cuts to the chase, is wise and benevolent. If such a candidate ever existed, I would vote for her regardless of party.
But that's impossible. The world is an incredibly complex place, and the necessary knowledge about it is an ocean. Even if one could hold that ocean to her lips, she could not drink it. A president is the leader of a team, not a stand-alone stand-in for an omniscient God.
Sarah Palin may prove to have more in common with Ronald Reagan than a preference for snappy, to-the-point briefing materials. Like Reagan, she may have the right set of skills to be a great leader -- as vice president, or maybe someday, president.
