November 19, 2008

How smart is Sarah Palin?

I would assume that Sarah Palin is about as smart as her erstwhile opponent, Vice President-Elect Joe Biden, a man who has gone through life with a giant chip on his shoulder about his IQ. Whether that's smart enough to be President, I'll leave up to you.

On the other hand, I'm sure Biden would beat Palin if they took a current events quiz on foreign affairs.

Why?

The chief answer is obvious, which means that the mainstream discourse is oblivious to it. Governor Palin is a lady. Specifically, she's a mom, a mom with a whole bunch of kids. If you aren't a mom, it's hard to grasp just how much more interesting your family, and the community they live in, is than the Law of the Sea Conference or the Tbilisi pipeline. In contrast, Mr. Biden, who isn't a mom, has time on his hands for paying attention to stuff like that because Mrs. Biden worries about the important things for him.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

110 comments:

Anonymous said...

After the violent death of his first wife and one child, Biden may have spent a lot of time with Mommish concerns, which is why his knowledge of public affairs seems to consist of rote memorization of names and borrowed arguments without much real understanding or conviction. Maybe he is a closet Mom afer all.

Anonymous said...

Even if she would be smart, she's clearly incurious. Like incurious George II, you know, the renowned conqueror of Mesopotamia, infamous bankrupter of the Great American Empire, the man who left its borders undefended.

My mom raised me, my sister, managed a job, took care of my father and her father, but was still quite savvy when it came to politics, economy, worldwiseness, et al. Palin is not like that at all. Hell, Palin can't hold a candle to her. Now, I think my mother had more in her than being a nurse, but president?

No way.

Why should I feel any different about some woman who's clearly less capable than her?

Seriously, Steve, do you think Palin has as much as even one creative idea in her head? ANY form of curiousness into ANY kind of subject? After watching the woman for a while, I could only imagine she was the tragic, most extreme, outcome of affirmative action imaginable. Idiocracy come to life.

Sarah Palin is a smalltown girl. Nothing wrong with that. Some smalltown girls move on and that's great. But this smalltown girl shouldn't go anywhere, she should have never left her small town. Uptown, she is just way out of her league,

Anonymous said...

What a wimpy post.

Biden has demonstrated an IQ of about 120 by being able to pass the bar exam.

Palin was barely smart enough to graduate from college (5 years to graduate with an easy major from an easy school, after attending 4 different schools). She would not have been able to pass the bar exam.

Michael Carr - Veritas Literary said...

I don't know. My wife has four kids and she was appalled by Palin's lack of knowledge. She didn't even seem to have a grasp of the basics that one gets from watching the news or reading a newspaper.

And this is a woman who works as governor, surrounded, presumably, by people who are interested in politics and the like. She never has water cooler discussions with her coworkers about these things, like the rest of us do?

My conclusion is that she just wasn't interested. She tuned it out, just like people tune out automotive talk, or NFL talk, or whatever subject everyone else seems obsessed with, but doesn't interest them.

Anonymous said...

Biden is a "big girl's blouse". Do you use that dismissive in the US?

Shining Wit said...

No, the chief answer is that Biden has been immersed in foreign policy for way longer than Palin has been in public life altogether.

Sebastian Flyte said...

Her verbal IQ is very low. She cannot construct a proper sentence, even when speaking about areas she knows. This is a sign of low IQ.

Anonymous said...

Well, Biden seems to have actually graduated from law school, and passed the bar, which isn't easy. Palin, on the other hand, seems to have struggled through five or six schools, just as an undergraduate, and none of the schools in question seem to have been academically challenging.

If anything, I would think this would normally be Steve's prime example about stupid people out-breeding smart ones, and continuing the stupidity down to the next generation. But I guess if they are white, it doesn't matter if they are also stupid.

John Craig said...

....And if Mr. Biden doesn't know a particular factoid concerning foreign policy, he'll just make it up on the spot, but he'll speak so authoritatively that he'll sound as if he knows what he's talking about, which is good neough for the MSM.

Anonymous said...

But even before she was a Mom, she was never diligent or studious!

She went to four different colleges (2 state schools and 2 community colleges), initially starting out as a business major (an easy major) before switching to journalism (another easy major).

A candidate's academic record is a good indicator of his level of conscienciousness. When has she ever demonstrated the ability to sit down and learn dry material?

This Mom handicap can be overcome if you are the diligent and studious type, which Sarah Palin is not.

This is why I don't understand why people say Sarah Palin will be fine with more preparation, coaching, and "seasoning". How? And now of course, she has the Mom handicap.

Anonymous said...

Steve,

Why are men on the right unable to analyze Sarah Palin objectively and criticize her as they would a man?

For instance, why do you sneer at George W. Bush but not at Sarah Palin (the dumber female Dubya)?

Palin now has a cult following in the Republican Party. Her devotees want her to run for president in 2012. Even if she doesn't win the nomination, she could be a spoiler in the South, as Huckabee was in 2008.

Why don't you devote your talents to exposing exactly how dumb and incompetent she is and so hopefully deflate the Palin bubble?

Anonymous said...

Steve,

Why are men on the right unable to analyze Sarah Palin objectively and criticize her as they would a man? (HalfSigma and Daniel Larison are the notable exceptions).

For instance, why do you sneer at George W. Bush but not at Sarah Palin (the dumber female Dubya)?

Palin now has a cult following in the Republican Party. Her devotees want her to run for president in 2012. Even if she doesn't win the nomination, she could be a spoiler in the South, as Huckabee was in 2008.

Why don't you devote your talents to exposing exactly how dumb and incompetent she is and so hopefully deflate the Palin bubble?

Public intellectuals don't pay any attention to objective measures of intelligence and competence, but you do and would be ideally suited to analyzing Palin if only you could bring yourself to say something non-positive about her.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Is your wife like this too, Steve? You imply that having some reasonable knowledge of the world is mutually exclusive from being interested in your family. It's not. Read a newspaper or surf the web for 30 minutes in a day, and you can be minimally informed.

If she's so interested in her children, how come her daughter's preggo out of wedlock? Obviously not interested enough to advise her daughter to NOT GET PREGNANT.

Look, Sarah Palin is a hot idiot. There is much to be said for someone like that, but being president is not one of those things. Maybe we should hope that Trig Palin grows up to be president. That will be the ultimate achievement for you guys, I think.

Acilius said...

Well, raising children is a lot more interesting than is municipal government in a small town in Alaska, yet I'm sure Sarah Palin knows far more about the latter than does Joseph Biden. Perhaps "the chief answer," which is also obvious, is that Mr. Biden has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for several decades, while Governor Palin has never held a job in that field.

Anonymous said...

I was wondering when Sailer would get around to this, and he basically punts. I myself was worried about her (seeming) lack of ability to think on her feet during the Katie Couric interview. Moreover, the sometimes garbled syntax bodes ill. But, having reviewed some of her preVP candidate interviews, and the interviews immediately before the election -- the long, raw feed of her in Alaska after voting is especially good --my mind is at ease. She is not Obama smart by a long shot, but I'd put her in the 1 to 1.5, maybe even 2 (at a stretch) standevs out.

Assuming I am right important thing for me is that she seems to represent somewhat an exception to main Bell Curve hypothesis. Here is a woman that has not -- as yet or at least pre-campaign-- been captured by the elites.

She is about simplicity -- she simply rebated her 'better deal' that she (or her team) negotiated on the oil/gas revenues, she didn't come up with a ten point spending plan to maximize social utility while incentivizing under achievers to provide more collective goods with less negative externalities.

Now, maybe she came up with her 'give it to the folks' idea after reading Hayek and gaining a deep theoretical understanding of markets and their function in coordinating activity and providing information. But I bet she didn't, and that's a good thing.

I guess what I am saying is that I want a president who is not as bright as me. (But has more social skills, determination, and a way thicker skin).

Tangentially, I wonder if the admittedly strange syntax is a vestige, twice removed, of German/Scandanavian influence in the upper mid-west. Apparently Wasila is somewhat of a linguistic isolate, with a whole Minnesotan town having been relocated there by the Feds in the 1930s (see whats in store for you under Obama, Michiganders!) For example, her habit of ending sentences in ',also' seems very German to me (I've some education and experience with the language).

Anonymous said...

If you aren't a mom, it's hard to grasp just how much more interesting your family, and the community they live in, is than the Law of the Sea Conference or the Tbilisi pipeline.

Interesting enough to take your mind off what you should be worried about as governor and try to get your brother-in-law fired because the nasty man wants some custody of your sister's kids.

It is a good question as to whether devoted mothers make good politicians or should have positions of power outside their families. When they bring their personal issues into government, business or law they sure can make a mess of things.

Anonymous said...

No, I think Palin is concerned with the things her voters are concerned about:

1. Pushing spending decisions back to voters.
2. Rebating taxes.
3. Ending corruption in Oil Leases to maximize #2.
4. Limiting government size and spending.

That's a very bottom-line orientation that has seen her get high ratings from her voters.

Biden does not have to do much of any voter-service because he runs in a safe seat state, with no real opposition. The corruption of incumbent politics is testified by his holding the same seat for 30 years or so.

Anonymous said...

I am appalled that certain elements of the Republican party take this woman seriously and see her as their future.

Her incoherence offers all the arguments the left needs to prove that the white/right is dominated by ignormamuses.

She even manages to makes Michelle Obama look like an intellectual.

non de guerre said...

So Sarah Palin is smarter than Biden because she has a bunch of kids to raise? What kind of convoluted logic is that?

Sailer, I don't know what it is about you with your bizarre preoccupation with women who give birth to litters of kids. How you can conclude that having several children makes a woman happier, morally and even intellectually superior just escapes me.

I have a next door neighbor who is a middle-aged Mormon woman with 4 kids. She is without a doubt the surliest, most miserable neighbor I've ever had (and I've had a lot of neighbors). The woman clearly hates her life, and it is quite obvious the reason is that having all those kids has robbed her of any life outside of the home.

I could go on about countless other examples of women I've known who've mothered large families and the emotional and physical problems it has caused them (you know what giving birth to multiple children does to a woman's bladder? No, of course you wouldn't know.), but I'd be here all day.

Anonymous said...

I am amazed that elements of the Republican party see this woman as their future.

She is all the ammunition the left needs to argue that the white/right is hopelessly ignorant.

She manages to make even Michelle Obama look like an intellectual.

Anonymous said...

One could argue that if you don't find things like public policy interesting, maybe high-level national politics is not your thing and you should probably do something else, like stick to local matters.

Maggie Thatcher, a great lady if there ever was one and a mother, clearly had tremendous interest in the world around her and the world of ideas. That's the kind of person who should be leading a party.

BTW, "general knowledge" is often tested for when determining a person's IQ (and that's what she's mocked for - poor general knowledge)and Palin has done little to convince me that she would score well in this domain.

Please tell me you are not now arguing that IQ tests discriminate against moms.

Anonymous said...

I read about a study several years ago that conlcuded that men are more likely to pay attention to national and geopolitical issues than to local ones, while women pay more attention to local issues than international ones. Women are more likely than men to know who's on the city council and school board; men are more likely to know who's in the US Senate.

And of course that completely ignores the fact that, of course Joe Biden knows more than Palin about international issues - that's his job after all. Palin's job since becoming Mayor of Alaska's meth capital has been local issues.

It's a strange fact (and revealing about how much better Obama's strategists were than McCain's) that at a time when people were tiring of foreign affairs and were more worried about domestic concerns that the media managed to make Palin's strength on domestic issues a weakness.

Ultimately, though, you have to blame only Palin and mcCain. McCain should've been sounding out potential veep picks for at least 6 months, and Palin should've at least been marginaly aware of her value as a female executive and potential veep pick for the GOP. Palin shoud've gotten a foreign affairs mentor, or at least a subscription to Foreign Affairs, long ago. And McCain could've suggested it back in February.

FWIW, I tired of Sarah not after watching too much Tina or watching her Couric interview, but after watching her give the same lame stump speech over and over and over.

Dutch Boy said...

As a governor, Mrs. Palin would be much more concerned with domestic affairs than foreign. As a federal senator, Mr. Biden would have opposite concerns. One could easily extrapolate a good approximation of their IQs from their SAT scores (I don't know if they are available).

Anonymous said...

Here's what Camille Paglia, an athiest radical feminist professor, said about Palin's IQ:
"As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/11/12/palin/index1.html
Mark

Anonymous said...

You've really blown it on this one, Steve. I'm a mom, a stay-at-home one, no less, and yet I find the Ossetian problem more interesting than the local PTA. I guess I'm just not maternal enough to get rid of all my outside interests and curiosities.

Anonymous said...

Compare their educational backgrounds. How long did it take Biden to finish college (if he attended) and what exactly did he study (and where?). Palin doesn't seem to be smarter than Michelle Obama.

James said...

Who's Sarah Palin?

Anonymous said...

The difference is, you know about what you deal with every day. , Every senator is a professional dilettante. They have to vote and speak on so many varied issues, it makes them well suited for the inch deep, mile wide knowledge base necessary for a vice presidential candidacy.

In contrast, the best preparation for the executive dutie of president is service as a general (OK, admiral too but Nimitz never ran for anything) or governor.

The trouble is when a general or governor runs for VP or President, they don't have talking points for everything ready to go. In 2008, Governor Palin looked weak because of this, and it wasn't because of low IQ, the problem was she hadn't served in Congress before. The same thing happened in 2004, General Wes Clark ran an underwhelming presidential campaign because of the same issue. Clark is a high IQ, accomplished guy (Rhodes Scholar, NATO Supreme Commander) but in our political culture, we select dilettantes not leaders.

Its guys like McCain or Biden who can step into a campaign with years worth of talking points hardwired in their skulls who succeed. Of course, McCain's handicap was he reboots every couple of years and starts over with new political positions, it made it hard to keep his talking points straight.

Anonymous said...

I double-dog-dare you to crosspost this on FR.

Anonymous said...

One side claimed Gov Palin is unqualified to be President; the other claimed she is more qualified than Barack Obama, Joseph Biden or John McCain.

The frightening thought is that both sides are right!

On the other hand, do we need a qualified president? A klutz might do less damage. Imagine the Carter years with Ted Kennedy at the helm.

Anonymous said...

I can hear Half Sigma's skull exploding...

Anonymous said...

We have a lot of very smart (smarter than Sarah) women who forsake children and the warmth of family life because they prefer to live the life of a lawyer, doctor, liberal hack politician (Janet Nepolitano and Barbara Mikulski) women's studies professor

DK said...

I would still prefer a VP who understands these less "important" issues. However, I will be sure to take this post under advisement if there is a vote between the two for VP of the PTA.

Anonymous said...

Sarah, the everyday Mom who spends her time making sandwiches, running the kids to the doctor, ironing her husband's shirts and governing Alaska.

I find it hard to believe that her horizons are simply those of a dedicated homebody and housewife.

Matt Parrott said...

I believe that part of the reason why she seemed so incredibly stupid in the Couric interview was that she was immersed for only a few days in McCain's twisted, nefarious, disingenuous, and inconsistent platform.

Try, as an experiment at home, earnestly debating in favor of several things you disagree with in a marathon session. It's hard.

Just ask McCain, pretending to be a real conservative in the primaries damn near killed him!

B322 said...

"One side claimed Gov Palin is unqualified to be President; the other claimed she is more qualified than Barack Obama, Joseph Biden or John McCain.
The frightening thought is that both sides are right!"

Bingo.

Also, Matt Parrott is spot on. Let me stick a camera and lights in your face and ask you questions, with you knowing I'm from a hostile political party (is the MSM a branch of the Democrats, or is it the other way round?) Sure, other politicians were more prepared than Palin, but are you sure that is because of intelligence, or maybe just practice?

Anonymous said...

Reg Caesar said:

"One side claimed Gov Palin is unqualified to be President; the other claimed she is more qualified than Barack Obama, Joseph Biden or John McCain.

The frightening thought is that both sides are right!"

I tend to agree. I don't think Sarah Palin is stupid or mentally unfit for the Presidency. She's simply unseasoned.
Although, the fact that my fellow voters deemed her unworthy but Obama ready for coronation makes my head explode if I think too long about it.

-Vanilla Thunder

B322 said...

"Why are men on the right unable to analyze Sarah Palin objectively and criticize her as they would a man?"

I don't think most would think of her as being on the right, but here's Ilana Mercer on the subject. I'm told another libertarian-leaning woman, Paglia, thinks she is pretty smart.

Antioco Dascalon said...

Here I thought that the reason Biden knows more about foreign relations is that he is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been on the committee since Palin was in grade school.
As for Palin's intelligence, we just don't know. The fact that she graduated from college tells us little.
Finally, exceptional people are, well, exceptions. Perhaps you are right that most moms aren't interested in foreign affairs, but most moms aren't governors either. No, the easier explanation is that governors have always been attacked for lacking foreign experience and senators have always been attacked for lacking executive experience. The media pushed the former narrative but not the latter.

Anonymous said...

You people are liars.

Specifically, you people who said it was proven that "Sarah Palin didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was".

Liars.

I just saw the damn interview. I didn't bother to watch it until now because I believed the lies you tendentious know-it-alls have shoveled.

She got asked an out-of-the-blue question by a hostile journalist. It's like saying "Do you agree with skepticism?" "Do you agree with amphibious warfare?" "Do you agree with subsidiarity?" If anyone asked me those questions I'd probably smile and say, "In what respect?"

I love the way Charlie pretends she didn't answer his question unequivocally - claiming that she interrupted him and that she used a blizard of words in her flatfooted answer in support of preemptive self-defense. "Was that a yes or a no?" Politiicans constantly answer questions in ways much more vague than Palin did in that trashy interview, and no one ever calls them on it - if the politician is an obedient lapdog for the media.

I'm no multi-decade member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but I go to blogs regarding Bush's foreign policy all the time. Never heard the term "the Bush Doctrine" until now. My guess is that it's just another piece of inside-the-beltway argot that is created to make outsiders seem stupid.

Search "Bush Doctrine" on Google. Now search again minus Palin. Hits fall by half.

Busted.

Anonymous said...

I am shocked that Sailer has drunk the Palin kool-aid. He must be one of those guys like Lowry who lets his genitals override his brain. The chick ain't smart. That's pretty damn clear, my guess is lowest IQ of anyone who has ever run for national office. Not goofy like Quayle, I mean seriously dumb. Word in Alaska is that Todd is the power behind the throne. Palin is a barbie doll, she's not even a real hunter.

Giant Attitude said...

"You've really blown it on this one, Steve. I'm a mom, a stay-at-home one, no less, and yet I find the Ossetian problem more interesting than the local PTA. I guess I'm just not maternal enough to get rid of all my outside interests and curiosities."



You know, that really is typically female.

"I'm aware of a specific example -- myself -- who doesn't fit your generalization so your generalization couldn't possibly be true."

Anonymous said...

I'm not certain just how smart Sarah Palin is, but you know for sure that whoever made the decision to put her on the Couric show was a fool. Talk about the worst possible move at the worst possible time. Was it McCain's own idea? Thank heaven his presidential candidate career is over.

Anonymous said...

Re: the Bush Doctrine.

I was finishing college when the Iraq war started, and I wrote an essay for my US history class on the Bush doctrine.

I'm female and quite stereotypically not interested in foreign policy. But for anyone who was following the 2003 debate on whether to go to war in Iraq (and I wasn't following very closely), the Bush Doctrine of preemptive warfare was impossible to miss.

John Craig said...

I far prefer Palin to Biden, but I have to admit, there were times in that Couric interview/ambush where Palin reminded me a little of Miss South Carolina trying to answer a question in that famous youtube video.

Anonymous said...

The more interesting question is this - as for these commentators who keep tying themselves in knots trying to convince themselves and others that Palin is not a complete farce - are they stupid, letting their hormones control their brains or just partisan hacks? And just how little self respect do you have to have before you publicly declare you think Palin just "needs more seasoning" or "was treated unfairly by the media?" I can understand these rants coming from menopausal Hilary Clinton dead enders who just want a vagina in high office before they die. But to hear so called "conservatives" making these arguments is truly depressing.

Anonymous said...

Steve, I just have to say, it seems that a lot of your readers are total jerks.

Truth said...

"But I guess if they are white, it doesn't matter if they are also stupid."

Ring-a-Ding-Ding, someone's at the door, who's gonna' answer?

"Here's what Camille Paglia, an athiest radical feminist professor, said about Palin's IQ:"

Wow, the one time editor of 'Ms.' magazine has a positive comment about a woman's intelligence; WHAT ARE THE ODDS OF THAT?

"Also, Matt Parrott is spot on. Let me stick a camera and lights in your face and ask you questions,"

Well that's not exactly the point, I am not an ex-radio and television newscaster with years of public speaking experience who is familiar with how journalists work (well, technically, that is exactly what 'I' am, but in this case 'I' meaning the general public.)

Palin bombed in those interviews because she is not, by any stretch verbally facile. She is not dumb compared to ordinary people, I would bet a week's paycheck that she is a little smarter than average, she is also tough, determined, somewhat accomplished and has done a fairly effective job in whatever she has set her mind to.

Palin kind of reminded me of Danny Alamonte, the 14 year old who was blowing away 12 year old little leaguers. Alamonte was noteworthy at his level of competition (Wassalia, AK), but you have to bee a fool to give him the ball in the bottom of the 8th with A-Rod, Giambi, and Jeter coming to the plate.

Sriram said...

I'd be shocked if she was 2 SDs above the mean and somewhat suprised if she was above 1 SD; My 95% confidence interval for Palin's IQ is 105 to 115. Her ability to pick up new concepts seems limited and she has difficulty in composing clear sentences or convey sophisticated ideas that are her own. And remember, age is not kind. Intelligence of all kinds is on a downward spiral and this spiral is steeper for those who start out lower. Really smart people have high effective intelligence even later in life. But mediocre folks (e.g., Palin) have fewer options. Without her looks, she would be an absolute nobody.

Truth said...

BTW, strange footnote on the Alamonte story, he is, believe it or not, considered a pro prospect; AS A HITTER!

He attended Western Oklahoma community college last year (he is now 19 years old) and was one of the best hitters in junior college baseball, he hit .497 with 14 home runs last year.

Anonymous said...

Smart enough to get into college without affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

If she were dumb it would've been apparent prior to the liberal media murdering her, not after. Most viewers believed she won the debate with Biden. Her approval rating as governor was sky-high and there were no reports or stories of airheadedness until...

Really, when a woman who makes her living as a commercial fisherman is referred to as a "diva", it should be obvious to all but the people who thought Liberace was straight where that claim originated.

I keep having to explain to people who claim Obama is smart because he went to Harvard that he went there because of affirmative action. Why am I the only person on the planet earth communicating this vital piece of information regarding the President elect? I don't have time to explain this to 7 billion people, can we start a chain mail or something? This is what Obama told the Harvard newspaper:

“I’d also like to add one personal note, in response to the letter from Mr. Jim Chen which was published in the October 26 issue of the RECORD, and which articulated broad objections to the Review’s general affirmative action policy. I respect Mr. Chen’s personal concern over the possible stigmatizing effects of affirmative action, and do not question the depth or sincerity of his feelings. I must say, however, that as someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career, and as someone who may have benefited from the Law Review’s affirmative action policy when I was selected to join the Review last year, I have not personally felt stigmatized either within the broader law school community or as a staff member of the Review.”


-Barack Obama, Harvard Law Record, 1990.

http://media.www.hlrecord.org/media/storage/paper609/news/2008/10/30/Election2008/Record.Retrospective.Obama.On.Affirmative.Action-3515294.shtml

Anonymous said...

What a bunch of elists you all are. All this talk about college degrees and verbal IQ. So she had a rough time with Couric, big deal. She has accomplished more than almost anyone on the national scene. Small business owner, city council, Mayor, Ethics commission member, Governor, took on the AK old boys network and beat them, and raised a big family. There is more to a person than his or her college credentials and regional speaking style.

Anonymous said...

I tired of Sarah... after watching her give the same lame stump speech over and over and over. -Capt Jack Aubrey

Capt Aubrey must have hated Ronald Reagan.

Anonymous said...

Steve,
I think this is a very good post. As a woman and mother I think you hit it right on the head (as does Testing when he points out she is interested in what her constituents are interested in). As a believer in the patriarchy, I appreciate the obvious point that women at Palin's stage in life have no business at that high a level of government (vice-presidency). She does an outstanding job as governor of Alaska, but her family has suffered from a maternal lack of supervision.

The vast majority of women are not interested in foreign affairs. It's a sex difference and does not indicate low I.Q. I love politics and can discuss most anything except for war and foreign affairs; I relate to Scarlett O'Hara on this and research shows I'm far, far from being alone. In fact, my eyes glaze over during discussions of war much as they did when reading Steve during the Olympics. Especially, the 100 meter dash.

Judging by this thread, Steve is also right on his other hypothesis that states that much of the reaction Palin provokes has to do with her fertility. The other day on another thread, I wish I could remember who said it, but some liberal said something along these lines:
Palin represents the fundamentalist wing which is on the losing side and is dragging down the Republican party. Now if the GOP were to nominate or have as its standard bearer Mitt Romney, that would be great. He would bring intelligence, fiscal conservatism, and moderation on social issues.

To this person, Romney, the Mormon father of five (and who'll probably have more grandchildren than Palin as his sons are quite virile and religious; they're average for Mormons while Palin is not an average Evangelical) who once begged a woman not to have an abortion in his capacity as a bishop is wildly different from Sarah Palin... As a fan of Romney, I won't argue with it, but it gives me a good laugh.

Anonymous said...

Sarah Palin and her family are tattooed IQ-90 trailer trash of the first water. If she is slightly less of an empty suit than Admiral Amnesty, Obongo, Plagiarism Joe, or the Hildabeast, that isn't exactly a tall bar to step over.

And I will echo the comments others have made. If Sarah Palin were all that interested in her family, her teenage daughter wouldn't be popping out bastard children one after the other. At least, I suppose, the country has been spared four years of the Palin family cooking crystal meth in the Rose Garden, to say nothing of the pop-eyed Governess's Quaylesque talent for tongue-tied malapropisms.

Is it so difficult to find someone qualified for the office? I could actually have gotten enthusiastic about a Fred Thompson-Pat Buchanan ticket. Against an empty suit from the infamously corrupt Chicago machine, one with a lifetime of political statements and associations making it obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention that his politics are somewhere between Robert Mugabe and the planet Neptune, the race was McCain and Palin's to win or lose. They lost.

The Republican Party is going to have to realize that this is a conservative country. If they run a faux Democrat against a real Democrat, I and tens of millions of others are going to stay home on Election Day, cleaning our guns. They cannot win on a national level without candidates the party's base can become excited about. RINOs and redneck feminists make my gorge rise.

Anonymous said...

Biden has demonstrated an IQ of about 120 by being able to pass the bar exam.

Ridiculous.

It may take something close to 120 to pass the bar NOW, but not 35-40 years ago. Back then, if you studied hard, you could probably pass with an IQ of 105.

Anonymous said...

One side claimed Gov Palin is unqualified to be President; the other claimed she is more qualified than Barack Obama, Joseph Biden or John McCain.

The frightening thought is that both sides are right


Hear, hear!

Anonymous said...

It wouldn't matter if we had the cream of early twentieth century German professors or the Kids of Widney High filling the executive branch, we'd still be creeping along right where we are today - that's what an omnipotent media, shadowy Federal Reserve System, international currency trading, and a debased populace do for you.

Biden? Palin? Goethe? That guy from the Real World? Who cares?

James Kabala said...

Anonymous who wrote on Romney: Actually, wouldn't that prove that dislike of Palin is not just knee-jerk dislike of fertiility? Unless you mean that they object to a fertile woman but not to a fertile man.

I suspect that Palin's intelligence is probably average to slightly above average. Talk about "a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes" is mumbo-jumbo and further evidence as to why I find Camille Paglia unreadable, but on the other hand, I see no evidence that her occasional gaffes show deep stupidity.

As for the four different schools, I get the impression that deep, "Be True to Your School" loyalty to one's alma mater is less strong in the West than in the Northeast, South, or Midwest. I suspect Palin had a utilitarian attitude toward education and moved around when she felt her needs were not being met at her first few schools. I see no evidence that she flunked out.

Anonymous said...

"Specifically, you people who said it was proven that "Sarah Palin didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was".

Liars.

I just saw the damn interview. I didn't bother to watch it until now because I believed the lies you tendentious know-it-alls have shoveled."

Yeah, I was wondering about that. I didn't listen to many interviews of any of these sorry candidates, but intuitively I thought Palin was smart--not intellectual, but smart about the things she HAD to know. The campaign issues were not HER issues.
In any case, the Obamabots are still out and about. The sort of auto-pilot put-downs of Palin are one of their trademarks. She's such an easy target they don't have to think as hard.

Anonymous said...

"I can understand these rants coming from menopausal Hilary Clinton dead enders who just want a vagina in high office before they die. But to hear so called "conservatives" making these arguments is truly depressing.

B.O. was very dismissivie of vaginas, (aka Hilary), or so his detractors claimed. Misogyny they called it--indicative of fascist tendencies btw.
Most men are suffering from considerable hormonal changes too, around the age presidential candidacy is most likely. Nobody rages and sulks like a 50somthing man.
Despite your misleading handle, you sound like the Obama Campaign. B.O. certainly has a certain class of people botting for for him...

Keyser Söze said...

Well, well, an appearance by "Half Sigma" (couldn't manage a whole one, eh?), the self-indulgent snob who's so clever that he "can determine the IQ of other people that [he's] never met on the basis of [his] own biases and no substantive evidence."

The comment here is of the same vacuity as his own post on the subject.

Anyway, the reason he's so down on Sarah Palin is that he once pretended to be a girl and is jealous of her for being prettier than he is.

Anonymous said...

This, on a blog whose author recently admitted he would rather play golf than read Adam Smith, and asked his readers for Cliff Notes versions of important economics text.

You all deserve to be ruled by the Chinese but you probably won't be so lucky.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Sarah Palin is an idiot. She seems like a nice lady - a good deal of ambition certainly (she is after all, a state govenor), but none-the-less, a decent person.

My problem with her is that she is a pretty doctrinaire republican. Exhibit A: She agreed to be John McCain's running mate. If she ran for President in 2012, she would likely run on the same old tired platform. We don't need the Republican party anymore - we need a truly, explicity, from the ground up conservative party.

My prediction is that she will run in 2012, but drop out of the primaries early for lack of support. She is the Republican Geraldine Ferraro.

Anonymous said...

Why are men on the right unable to analyze Sarah Palin objectively and criticize her as they would a man?

I have long been one of those people who bemoaned the fact that female voters are prone to voting for the taller, better-looking candidate that sets their hearts aflutter.

Apparently, my sense of superiority was misplaced. The reason male voters have seemed so objective by comparison is because we have not had any national female politicians with real charisma & sexual appeal, so men have not had the opportunity to act the way women do with charismatic, alpha male politicians.

Apparently, voting for and stubbornly supporting a candidate in defiance of all common sense and one's previous standards because one is strongly attracted to their looks, persona, and other fuzzy BS is a universal condition.

Anonymous said...

"One side claimed Gov Palin is unqualified to be President; the other claimed she is more qualified than Barack Obama, Joseph Biden or John McCain.

The frightening thought is that both sides are right!"

Unfortunately, that strikes me as accurate.

My own guess is she's about average intelligence, i.e., about as smart as Biden and McCain. Obama's of unknown natural intelligence in my book, but unfortunately he's clearly been 'educated stupid.' (cue Mark Twain)

The thing with Palin is she hadn't been either running for President for however many years, nor spent decades in the talk-shop that is known as D.C. Speaking as a foreign policy/defense professional, Biden's not an expert either, he's simply been immersed in it long enough to present himself as an authority on the topics. He's also gotten away with basically bluffing some whoppers.

Four years from now Palin wouldn't have been a genius either, but she would have seemed more comfortable repeating both parties' more or less rote talking point on foreign policy. Trust me, 99% of these guys on the hill, even if their on committees, can think for themselves on their feet, or come up with any real original analysis. There are exceptions (i.e., the Nixons), but they're shockingly rare. The majority are just talking heads.

Anonymous said...

"Trust me, 99% of these guys on the hill, even if THERE on committees, CAN'T think for themselves on their feet, or come up with any real original analysis."

Sorry, relatively long weeks nowadays in my line of work, as you can imagine.

Anonymous said...

For instance, why do you sneer at George W. Bush but not at Sarah Palin (the dumber female Dubya)?

Palin bombed in those interviews because she is not, by any stretch verbally facile. She is not dumb compared to ordinary people, I would bet a week's paycheck that she is a little smarter than average, she is also tough, determined, somewhat accomplished and has done a fairly effective job in whatever she has set her mind to.

We saw during the Bush Administration that verbal facility matters - the ability to look in the camera and explain your piece to the American people in a manner they find convincing is crucial to getting the public behind you. Sarah Palin couldn't do that. She kept giving the same speech on the stump that she gave at the convention ("I stahpped that bridge tew nooowhairrr...").

I liked Sarah Palin at first. I still think I might could like her 4 years from now, after she's been governor 6 years instead of just 2. But I have no sense that she has a vision of what she thinks America could be, of what she thinks the people want America to be. John McCain didn't have that vision. Bob Dole didn't have that vision. The Bush Dynasty didn't have that vision. They all had talking points and poll results. Ronald Reagan was the last Republican leader to have that vision - he traveled around the country talking about it for years - and people adored him.

I'm constantly hearing people talk about leaving the Republican Party. Frequently it's people who never really were Republicans. It's a tiresome schtick we hear year after year.

Well I've been a Republican booster since my booster seat days and I seriously am about to give up on the party. The GOP's had 3 of the dumbest candidates in a row: ex-alcholic George Bush, 894th ranked John McCain, and Sarah Palin (if she wins in 2012) all in a row shows a party with a serious problem. We had a candidate in 2008 with one of the best resumes ever: Mitt Romney, a successful business consultant, investment banker, Olympics CEO and governor - and the GOP turned him down. A preaching Arkansas hillbilly did better than Romney, and polls show support for Palin-Huckabee-Romney at 65-12-11.

Anonymous said...

*they're

crap, I give up.

Sorry Steve.

Anonymous said...

Sarah Palin has become a point of absolute obsession for liberals. It's a kind of addiction.

Deep down the typical liberal hates and obsesses on Palin more than they actually like Obama.

It's no surprise that this post already has 70 + comments. The woman is just irresistible to so many people.

Romney rightfully should be the star of the Republicans, but he's not and there you go.

Anonymous said...

*they're - crap, I give up. - Sorry Steve.

Their, there, they're - it'll all be ok. Just go two bed and yule wake up too a brand knew day.

Anonymous said...

They're probably both around 115 - similar to Kennedy. Biden's bar school pass was highly marginal - on his 2nd attempt after being caught plagiarising the first time round, according to the seers at wikipedia.

michael farris said...

Steve's desire for real human beings to fit socio-biological stereotypes is showing again.

Yeah, on the whole parents (especially mothers) find their children to be more interesting that abstract policy wonk discussions. That explains broad tendencies not individual cases. Remember individuals don't evolve, populations do.

What's interesting about Palin is that she's a politician at all.
Her husband clearly doesn't have political ambitions but supports hers. I bet thirty of forty years her only outlet to satisfy her ambitions would have been to convince her husband to run and content herself with being the power behind the throne (from some things I've read Ronald Reagan's political career seemed at least in part to be an extension of his wife's ambitions).

Now I disagree with the great majority of Palin's stands on particular issues and I don't want her in national office, but she doesn't strike me as stupid. Paglia overhypes her (as usual) but I'd she's closer to the truth than those who think she's stupid because she was blindsided by her own side and prepped adequately for a hostile interview.

Basically she was the victim of Grandpa Simpson's apparent lack of foresight and organization.
Had I locked up the nomination in February I and my team would have created a shortlist of about a half a dozen candidates and seen to it that those on the list were vetted and prepped on my platform and talking points and that they all understood and agreed that the actual choice would be based on what it seemed the campaign would need just before the convention.

Instead like the crazy old man he is he seemed to pick her out of thin air and tossed her to the media wolves with no thought of strategy or his own or her longterm political prospects.

The VP selection said a lot about both campaigns.
Obama: vague, optimistic, rorscharch rhetoric leading up to a banal, conventional pick (like most of his cabinet picks so far).

McCain: profound misunderstanding of the difference between 'maverick' and 'not taking his medications'. McCain is the first (I hope last) candidate for national office that seriously reminds me of crazy homeless people who go around muttering to themselves.

Anonymous said...

Indra Maghavan said, "Steve, I just have to say, it seems that a lot of your readers are total jerks."

This from a guy who runs a blog called "Why Blacks Suck".

Anonymous said...

Obviously, Palin's stupidity can be traced to her Scotch-Irish heritage. It has been established here at isteve.com that the Scotch-Irish have an average IQ of about 90.

In other words, the Scotch-Irish are laggards on the level of your average Ecuadorean or Moroccan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_American

Forget the long list of US Presidents with Scotch-Irish heritage. And forget the capitalists, adventurers and inventors. The important thing to understand is that the Scotch-Irish are essentially morons.

And they are stupid mostly because they seem to be genetically opposed to liberalism in all of its forms. Rednecks!

For example, let's look at Andrew Jackson. He was violently opposed to the central bankers and denied their dominance of the United States economy for decades. Meaning the central bankers of the Federal Reserve such as Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke were mostly foiled in 19th century America.

Looking back now isn't it obvious that Greenspan and Bernanke are really smart people and Jackson was a dumb hillbilly?

Isn't it obvious that great civilizations are founded on the likes of Greenspan and Bernanke and not the likes of Andrew Jackson?

Isn't it obvious?

Scotch-Irish have an average IQ of 90. Repeat that "five times in the mirror every morning"...

Anonymous said...

Of course she's a dolt.

McCain's advisers foresaw the economy making its last few spins around the porcelain,and he decided he'd rather not be the one to oversee/be responsible for and forever associated with the global financial collapse.

Picking Palin was McCain's way of trying to throw the race "honorably." (Not unlike Sarah tried to do with baby Trig by flying from Texas to Alaska after her water broke.)

Truth said...

"Scotch-Irish have an average IQ of 90. Repeat that "five times in the mirror every morning"..."

So we get to pick and choose which parts of "The Bell Curve" are relevant?

Ron Guhname said...

An important unknown fact is that Sarah has obsessively read newspapers since she was in elementary school. I don't know any kid that age who does that.

http://www.halfsigma.com/2008/08/whats-sarah-palins-iq.html

This is not the only source I've run across. Her father said the same thing in an interview I saw.

Ron Guhname said...

Another relevant point: Palin has been myopic and had to wear glasses since childhood. The condition is positively correlated with g.

Anonymous said...

It's fine not to be intelectually curious about the world. But is that is the case, maybe you shouldn't run for the second most powerful office in Earth.

Anonymous said...

oh, i dunno. call me suspicious, but i'd bet big bucks that most of the apolitical, non-aligned folks here who're denigrating palin's IQ *have never*; *would never*; and *will never* apply that same standard to a democrat female.

why did hillary end up doing law in gawdawful arkansas? well, one reason MIGHT be that....she flunked the DC (i believe it was DC) the DC bar exam. what a stupid woman! right?

no? hillary's *not* stupid, even when judged on the same scale that pompously intones that palin IS? how very odd.

next time, we'll talk about how graduating way down low in his class and a tendency towards verbal gaffes made dan quayle stupid. but joe biden, who graduated lower, and makes MUCH stupider gaffes, *isn't* for some reason.

Anonymous said...

We had a candidate in 2008 with one of the best resumes ever: Mitt Romney, a successful business consultant, investment banker, Olympics CEO and governor - and the GOP turned him down.

Romney would have done no better than McCain, perhaps worse.

Anonymous said...

Not sure why we are talking about how dumb the running mate of John "Fundamentally Sound" McCain is...seems a bit backward, don't it? I await Half Sigma's 90-part series into the long list of gaffes, lunacies, and blunders that McCain, Hillary, and Biden have made in public over the last decade.

Anonymous said...

She seems to me like a nice person. You can't say that about the average politician. She's not overly interested in politics, but MOST WOMEN AREN'T INTERESTED IN POLITICS AT ALL. Evolution has wired women to be interested and competent in the home-and-family area of life. It has wired men to be interested and competent in the affairs outside the home, including politics. There's nothing wrong with that. Women aren't handicapped by this natural division of labor and interests any more than men are. We're meant to compliment, not to compete with each other.

I wouldn't be shocked if she was able to beat Biden on an IQ test. Women and men of the same ethnic group always score almost the same on average. In every single ethnic group known to have existed women were less interested in politics than men were. The Amazons were a myth. If she knows less about politics than Biden does, that doesn't mean her score would be lower.

Neither she nor Biden went to very selective colleges. How does Half Sigma know what her performance on a bar exam would have been if she studied law and took a bar exam?

Final point: of course she's not as smart as Hillary Clinton. But neither is Biden. And would you really have preferred Hillary to her? IQ is very important in a leader, but it's not everything. Unfortunately, most bright people in our society have been brainwashed to believe in leftist ideas. Mrs. Palin seems to have been slightly less affected by this than the average person in politics. To me that's a plus.

Anonymous said...

So she had a rough time with Couric, big deal. She has accomplished more than almost anyone on the national scene. Small business owner, city council, Mayor, Ethics commission member, Governor, took on the AK old boys network and beat them, and raised a big family. There is more to a person than his or her college credentials and regional speaking style.

True. Of course, this is what we're supposed to believe is "white trash."

Anonymous said...

"Unless you mean that they object to a fertile woman but not to a fertile man."

Exactly. I don't quite understand the thinking behind this, but as a woman of five myself, I have noticed and been mystified by this. My husband doesn't provoke the same reaction I do. Male celebrities, whether their children are all with one woman (Mel Gibson) or all over the place (rock stars) do not raise anyone's ire or respect. For example, I was shocked to find out the other day that Roger Daltry of The Who has 8 children, five of whom are illegitimate. This fact is completely unremarkable to his fans or those interested in rock music. This absolutely would not be the case if it were a woman. I'm not complaining at all about this, mind you.

A woman's children are central to her identity in a way that they aren't with men.

Anonymous said...

A correction to my earlier post. There is a small amongst men on how comment worthy his children are. Men of many children with one wife do get more attention for that fact than the man with children everywhere.
Everyone who is familiar with Mia Farrow or Marie Osmond knows they have large families. Some people know Mel Gibson has a large family. By contrast, Wikipedia doesn't even mention all of Daltrey's kids or allude to the ones who showed up in recent years in any way whatsoever. Jagger has seven, and again, completely unremarkable.

Anonymous said...

My mom raised me, my sister, managed a job, took care of my father and her father, but was still quite savvy when it came to politics, economy, worldwiseness, et al. Palin is not like that at all. Hell, Palin can't hold a candle to her. Now, I think my mother had more in her than being a nurse, but president?

Filial piety is to be respected, but sorry, did your mother ever sit on an major oil and gas board. Did she pull off one of the greatest coupes in history ... okay, that's hyperbolic ... but did she strike at the right time, and with force, taking advantage of a party machine's weakness to propel herself to governor of our largest (geographically) state.

I think not!

Palin kicks ass.

Anonymous said...

The trouble is when a general or governor runs for VP or President, they don't have talking points for everything ready to go. [...] The same thing happened in 2004, General Wes Clark ran an underwhelming presidential campaign because of the same issue.

Another case that comes to mind is Vice Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate in 1992. Read the sorry tale here. It's not that career politicians are particularly smart or admirable, but they have a set of skills which shouldn't be underestimated.

Anonymous said...

Romney would have done no better than McCain, perhaps worse.

Maybe, maybe not. But he would've had a lot more cred on the fiscal crisis. He probably would've kept more secular conservatives in the party. He would've been at least a little bit more enticing to the folks who think the GOP is "anti-intellectual." He might've even won Michigan.

And at the end of the day, even if he lost, we could've pointed to him as proof that we ran a smart, competent candidate, not the 894th out of 899, 4 plane crash Grandpa Simpson.

As I've said earlier though, McCain may have done him a favor by keeping him away from the nomination in a bad year for the GOP.

Anonymous said...

"Scotch-Irish have an average IQ of 90. Repeat that "five times in the mirror every morning"..."

So we get to pick and choose which parts of "The Bell Curve" are relevant?

Leave it to Troof to completely miss the joke.

Anonymous said...

"why did hillary end up doing law in gawdawful arkansas? well, one reason MIGHT be that....she flunked the DC (i believe it was DC) the DC bar exam. what a stupid woman! right?"

I don't care much for Bill's worse half, but you have to give the Devil her due. She was a merit scholar, which means she performed in the top 1% of PSAT (which is basically an IQ test) takers, which is a much more select group than the general American population.

Having taken (and passed) two States' bar exams, my observation on the bar exam is that stupid people cannot pass the bar (because they lack analytic ability and generally also lack good memories), but smart people can fail it if they're not focused. (BTW, according to Prof. Sander's study, only 45% of blacks who enter law school pass the bar on their first attempt as opposed to over 78% of whites. Even after multiple tries, only 57% of blacks succeed.) A friend of mine from the same law school (a top tier law school with a median LSAT in the high 160s) sat for the same two bar exams that I did. She is not stupid by any stretch of the imagination, but she was unfocused and failed one of them. (She did, however, pass it on the second try.) An even more noteworthy example of this is Stanford dean, Kathleen Sullivan, who failed the CA bar because she assumed that as a law prof. she didn't have to cram for it. In truth, no matter how smart you are, bar exams demand that you memorize a large amount of info about a whole lot of areas of law (usually state specific). Then you have to be able to issue spot and apply what you've memorized to your analysis of the given facts. If you don't put in a whole grunt work memorizing the rules, it doesn't really matter how good your analytical ability is.

"She even manages to makes Michelle Obama look like an intellectual."

Let's not get carried away here people. I doubt Michelle LaVaughn "I have a little problem with [highly g-loaded] tests but I still deserve to be here you gotta problem with that honkey? and I'd like to rip out Bill Clinton's eyes because he said my husband, Stinky's, plan to pull out of Iraq was a fairy tale" Robinson Obama" is any smarter than Sarah Palin.

Anonymous said...

OK. The animosity towards Palin is obviously way out of proportion to any potential harm she can cause. I'd like to take this opportunity to delve into the causes of the hostility that has been focused on a woman whose grasp may have overreached her reach or reach, grasp - whatever.

The truth is only a minority of our politicians from congress to executive, elected to appointed are smarter than average. I think most here would agree that the truly gifted (with the exception of those altruistic Pisces types) are too rational to endure the loss of privacy and possibly lower salary required to hold public office. That leaves us with people too dumb to weigh the consequences and sociopaths who've been training for a life of crime since infancy, i.e. they know how to lie effectively and cover their tracks.

I think Palin would've shown better judgment by waiting another 4 years before entering national politics. Blinded by ambition, she hitched her wagon to McCain's falling star and paid dearly for it. That being said, I really don't care for higher IQ politicians who do nothing but seek their own selfish interests while in office. And those who would choose a candidate based on IQ alone without taking into account integrity or underlying belief system are naive if not dumber than they think they are.

Also, what's the churlishness about Romney. There won't be another election for 4 years so I suggest you stop nurturing hostility towards those you blame for McCain's nomination. If you seep your organs in anger, you will end up with stress related illnesses that bring on early death. You can also stop blaming me synechdochically as a member of the supposed subculture that cost Romey the nomination as I was as upset as a Mormon when Romney's campaign ended. Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule here. Nevertheless, it ain't me so aim elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

"Scotch-Irish have an average IQ of 90. Repeat that "five times in the mirror every morning"..."

I doubt this was meant to be serious. But my guess is that Scots-Irish and people of Celtic ancestry do have slightly lower average IQ than most other European groups. I say this based on the lower educational achievements of those who claim Irish descent vs. those who claim Central or Eastern European ancestry.

At the very least Anglo-Celtics have the high rates of alcoholism and addiction and may be more susceptable to psychological problems than other Euros. In fact I'd blame my susceptability to drugs and alcohol on having a substantial percentage of Anglo-Celtic ancestry. I would guess also that social liberalism (sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll) has been worse for Anglo-Celtics than other Europeans; in contrast, Ashkenazi Jews and East Asians seem almost immune to social liberalism/libertine-ism. This would certainly help to explain why heavily Anglo-Celtic middle Americans are so socially right-wing, while Jews and East Asians are so leftist. The lingering old-world values of Asian immigrants, as opposed to the more SWPL-type values of American-born Asians, may also explain why Asians are moving leftward.

Anonymous said...

Based on my observations of the two I strongly believe that Sarah Palin had a higher SAT score than Barack Obama.

Does anyone agree with me?

Anonymous said...

Sarah Palin's IQ is probably around 100, though I'd say 95% confidence interval it's between 95 and 110. Regardless of where it is in this range, I do not think she is fit for higher office. A person with an IQ of 110 is not that smart, though such an individual may *seem* smart if s/he is very studious and/or savvy. Sarah Palin does not seem to be either of the above.

As for Michelle Obama, I'd say her IQ is probably between 110 and 120, but she expects to be treated like it's 20 points higher.

This may be sour grapes from a politically obsessed male who likes really beautiful females, but there seems to be a lot of very attractive females with 110-130 IQs who are pretty vacuous unless their @$$ is on the line (eg, they need to know something to succeed in school or work, like studying Calculus or OChem to get into medicine). Michelle Obama may suffer from this syndrome as well.

I think many high-IQ non-Euros in general, and maybe even Eastern Euros are susceptable to the syndrome of "I don't care about any abstract topics unless there's a tangible payoff." I think this intellectual apathy may be a lot of the reason both Eastern/Southern Europe and East Asia have had a hard time escaping from corruption, oligarchy, and dictatorship. Of course power worship, which I have definitely become more guilty of myself over the last few years*, could play a role here too.

*My increasing power worship is why I have adopted the handle "O'Brien" after the villain from 1984.

Truth said...

"I think many high-IQ non-Euros in general, and maybe even Eastern Euros are susceptable to the syndrome of "I don't care about any abstract topics unless there's a tangible payoff."

Sounds like you've dated a few black chicks! You just described half of Atlanta.

Anonymous said...

Why do I get the feeling that if Sarah Palin were a frumpy liberal Democrat, Steve would be going on and on about what a dummy she is?

Anonymous said...

He probably would've kept more secular conservatives in the party.

Perhaps. But Romney would have probably lost Georgia and almost certainly Missouri. I guarantee you Romney will never win the Republican nomination. It just ain't going to happen.

James Kabala said...

Is Palin even Scotch-Irish? Her maiden name is Heath, which is English. (Possibly some Scots have the surname, which does have a vaguely Scottish sound, but the ones listed on Wikipedia are all English, unless American or Canadian.)

Her mother's maiden name was Sheeran, which sounds Celtic, but probably southern Irish (Sarah was baptized Catholic although raised Protestant) rather than Scotch-Irish. Several posts above may be devoted to a red herrring.

Anonymous said...

As for Michelle Obama, I'd say her IQ is probably between 110 and 120, but she expects to be treated like it's 20 points higher.

I find it hard to believe Michelle is punching in that weight class.

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer has a fixation on "proving" that dumb or incurious Republicans are not any dumber than their Democrat competitors. We saw it last election and now this one.

Like the childhood refrain, "I know you are but what am I!"

He just can't man up and admit that recent high-profile Republicans are just not up to the task. Instead he sets out to attack the other side as "not that great, either."

The tactic is intellectually passive-aggressive.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many points gets shaved off of a white politician's verbal IQ because he or she cannot say the correct and obvious answer to a question but has to use goo goo speak instead. It is almost like someone who has to speak two languages.

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer has a fixation on "proving" that dumb or incurious Republicans are not any dumber than their Democrat competitors. We saw it last election and now this one...He just can't man up and admit that recent high-profile Republicans are just not up to the task.

Did any candidate this year in either party have more more smarts, success, or demonstrated competence than Mitt Romney?

The problem is not the Republicans don't have smart candidates - the problem is that they end up picking someone else.

Anonymous said...

"I was shocked to find out the other day that Roger Daltry of The Who has 8 children, five of whom are illegitimate. This fact is completely unremarkable to his fans or those interested in rock music."

Rock stars and promiscuous men in general are likely to have illegitimate children all over the place. I'm sure "8" is a low-ball figure. Some of the groupies he was with have probably forgotten enough they couldn't nail him.

"Children are more central to a mothers' identity."

In general. However, I've known mothers who claimed they didn't feel "more of woman" because of having kids. I've know even more who think the same even if they don't say it.
Pregnancy and childbirth are more involved activities than the sex act, but the long-term process of raising children, i.e. "motheringhooding," may or may not be more involved than "fatherhooding." Usually it is, normally it is, but not necessarily.
Still, it is true that people in general connect a woman's identity with her offspring more than they connect a man's.

Truth said...

"Did any candidate this year in either party have more more smarts, success, or demonstrated competence than Mitt Romney?"

No.

But Romney was cursed by one overwhelming factor that will probably prevent him, or anyone like him, from being president for a long, long time...He's a northeasterner, and the country at large no longer trusts this type of person. It's really the only thing that Romney, Hillary Clinton, Dukaukis, Bill Bradley, Guiliani, Howard Dean, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy (among others) have in common.

When Al Gore lost the presidency,the SWPL crowd got out their pitchforks and torches over the supposed unfair result, but 4 years later there was no great pain over John Kerry undergoing the same fate, the chorus from where I sat seemed to be; "well Kerry got hosed, but he's kind of a prick anyway, who cares."

At this point in our history, we tend to vote for politicians who come across as warm and folksy rather than necessarily competent. I think this may also be the reason that Obama was anointed rather than Deval Patrick who seems a much more worthy candidate for president.

Anonymous said...

He just can't man up and admit that recent high-profile Republicans are just not up to the task.

I think Sailer has been quite up front about the inadequacies of the recent Republican loser at the top of the ticket, and the one in office.

As for Sarah, you guys gotta see the famous Turkey Video (altavista it!). She does a great, if wordy, interview with local Alaska newsmedia , in front of Turkey's being bled out. It's driving the libs apesh*t, I love it.

It sums up why I love Palin, she is real. Liberals, and I suspect a lot of establishment conservatives, want the turkey on the table but don't want to think about how it got there. Our Sarah is right out there where they are being killed, and doesn't care who knows it.

BTW, she seems to have put policies in place to ensure Alaska against a drop in oil prices. Nothing fancy like hedging, but merely saving some surplus revenue. What a f-in moron, eh?

Anonymous said...

By the way, what is there that is "conservative" about Palin? Consider the basic fact that she is female. In a conservative world, women would not even be voting, let alone running for office. The very fact that this woman has a political career is proof of liberalism's total victory.

This whole society has absorbed and internalized the liberal worldview, so that we think in liberal terms even as we call ourselves conservatives.

The culture war ended long ago. The conservatives lost.

Anonymous said...

The American right may as well throw in the towel right now, bow out with a bit of grace, if they're going to pin their hopes on Sarah Palin. Christ Almighty, Palin! I can't believe she's even under consideration. Words can't describe how insane it is. Just forget it. America is 100% toast.

Anonymous said...

Is Palin even Scotch-Irish? Her maiden name is Heath, which is English.

In my experience, Heath is invariably a Jewish name, both in the Ivy League and in Texas, but the sample size is very small.