I don't know, but maybe a more appropriate question would be..."Who's smarter Barak Obama or John McCain?" For those of you that "threw the first stone" and actually think that Biden is a better choice than Palin (or worse; those that insult Palin without regard to your own VP Candidate) - it might be better to first take a look in the mirror.
Let's see...... Columbia BA Harvard JD, Magna c*m Laude, Harvard Law Review President U. Chicago Law School Professor (not full tenured) vs. US Naval Academy, BA(BS?), graduated 894 out of 899. Yeah that's a tough one! I'm looking in the mirror. I have a graduate degree and a professional degree. Both of these are from real schools, schools with real reputations - in other words, schools that were markedly more challenging, both to be admitted to, and to matriculate at, than: Hawaii Pacific University North Idaho College (Juco) Matanuska-Susitna College (Juco) Idaho University these are the four schools that Palin had to go to just to get a BA - in journo/comm. So what's the issue again?
University of Harvard Ph. D. in mathematics from University of Michigan (geometric function theroy) assistant Professor UCAL Berkeley at 25 years old. guess who? so you're right, whats the issue again?
Wow, you went to the University of Harvard? Indeed, that is probably a more prestigious place than U of Yale or even Stanford State U. However I digress, the point, is that our dear friend asked me to compare the academic resume of Obama vs. McCain. I did it. So....yeah. I mean that's like asking which guy served in the Navy for longer or who can pander to the right wing while repudiating his beliefs more quickly..........the answer is obvious. Now what's your issue? Or is that elitist to ask?
I don't know if Palin is smart or not. She seems to be pretty uninformed on national and world affairs. She has a woeful lack of experience to be president. That is the problem. Dubya for instance is smart enough to be president. We are just paying a price for his lack of knowledge and simplistic conservative, anti-government regulation ideology. Palin seems to suffer from the same defects. I agree you can't judge someone's intelligence by the college they went to.
^I agree, though I think more experience for Palin would turn off a lot of her recent supporters should her dogmatic and brazenly ignorant style shine through with a long term track record.
A lot like one of my favorite U of H sayings: "you know, those Rice kids are book smart, but not life/street smart..."
This thread is tantamount to people saying that because they have a degree in theology, and Jesus had no formal education at a university, they know more about God than he does. The logic is flawed. It's like saying because they majored in history, with a specialization in the WWII era, they know more about the time than FDR, because he didn't go to school for it. Most people don't realize that quite a large number of the greatest minds in the modern era did not have all the letters behind their names, or the "formal" education that some would have you believe make you "smart." A doofus with an education is still a doofus. Only probably more dangerous.
I agree too - but in Palin's case we have literally nothing else to judge her by and she's not volunteering any information either as she won't appear in public off the script - what else are we to assume? But that said - we're talking about qualifying her for a job that only 42 other human beings have ever held, that is the most difficult, incredibly awesome job on earth - at an incredibly challenging time in our nation's history. I have no qualms about ruling out people who struggled to get through JUCO for this job as being otherwise capable of doing it. None whatsoever. Getting a college degree in the 1980's or 90's was not that rare or difficult. Much less difficult than in say, the era of Lincoln or Washington. Granted, I could be wrong in assuming that ALL people with a similar record couldn't hack it, but in 99.99999 percent of cases of people with credentials similar to Palin, I probably wouldn't be. I doubt I'm wrong with her either. I like my odds.
ALL YOUR MAILBOX ARE BELONG TO US Do I win a prize? That one counterexample is such a piss poor method of argumentation. Better educations typically better prepare people for challenging mental activity. Period. Is that always true? No. Do you want to bet against it in a complicated and ever-more-complicated and technical world? Some say yes, and I say no. I agree with those that say you can't directly equate university with smarts. But, you can't equate high-school basketball performance with college projections, either, but scouting works pretty well. There are some misses, some surprises, but the odds typically work out. I would only add to the "smarts" conversation that we should have about 17 words for smart (like the eskimos and Alaskan secessionists have for snow). Of those 17 mental qualities, I would guess I rate above Sarah Palin in 14 or so. She is wicked clever, quick to grasp a political opportunity, and astute at reading a roomful of people. Her emotional smarts look to be incredible. In terms of book smarts, analytical skills, or the ability to grasp complicated ambiguous situations, we see little evidence of those qualities. This is part of the problem with giving us such very limited access to her, over such an abbreviated period of time.
