It's relatively easy to measure how smart a mathematician is. How do you measure how smart a politician is?
Then there's another problem: in certain organizations, it does not matter if you're very smart because you can't act on it. There's no better career suicide than making your superior look dumb in the corporate world. Your co-workers may feel threatened and conspire against you.
In government, you can't do certain things because the powerful interest groups or public opinion just won't let you. Hence, I ask again: how do you measure the performance or the smarts of a politician?
BTW, Cheney himself said in the early 1990s that going to Baghdad in 1991 would have resulted in a Vietnam-like quagmire. How ironic.
Then there's another problem: in certain organizations, it does not matter if you're very smart because you can't act on it. There's no better career suicide than making your superior look dumb in the corporate world. Your co-workers may feel threatened and conspire against you.
In government, you can't do certain things because the powerful interest groups or public opinion just won't let you. Hence, I ask again: how do you measure the performance or the smarts of a politician?
BTW, Cheney himself said in the early 1990s that going to Baghdad in 1991 would have resulted in a Vietnam-like quagmire. How ironic.