Another Conservative Reacts

Conservative David Frum, National Review Online, on Sarah Palin's qualifications:

I don't think academic credentials matter at all in the presidency. (Unlike eg the Supreme Court or the Federal Reserve.) I even believe that there is rapidly diminishing marginal utility for IQ. Clinton was surely smarter than FDR, Nixon smarter than Reagan, Adams smarter than Washington. We are talking about a particular set of decision-making skills - and there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that Palin possesses them. Worse, from my point of view, is the assumption that because she is a conservative Christian that she therefore has intelligent conservative views on every other subject, from what to do with Fannie Mae to what to do about Iran. That's a greater leap of faith than I can make.

I am not denying that Sarah Palin may have great skills. She may well. I am insisting that neither you, nor I, nor John McCain has any valid reason to believe that she does. This is not an argument about the attributes she lacks. It's an argument about the information we lack. I am pleading with my fellow conservatives: Please demand more and better knowledge before you commit yourselves to a political leader. That's all.

editor's note: All emphatic caps are Frum's.