Well, I'll weigh in. We just have data insufficiency here. Is Rice a good NSA? I have no idea, and doubt that 99 44/100th of those commenting have no idea either. It is just very, very hard to peer into complex organizations and understand who's good, and who isn't, ad 'goodness' takes the forms of managerial skills, cooperation, conensus building, analytical excellence, and making the trains run on time. Kaplan has no clue if she's good, as his article demonstrates (assess an NSA on the basis of her public testimony in a partisan spin-fest -- that makes sense).
I think it's safe to say that she's not a moron (IQ=50 to 69) and her academic resume speaks for itself. She was probably a very good chief executive at Stanford (though I've really no idea). From the bits of her testimony that I caught, though, I'll say this: she's a terrible liar. With that many gives, a garden-variety moron could clean her clock at poker.
Hilarious. Dilettantes and amateurs with no real idea of what's going on, exactly, are passing judgement on Condi's intelligence. What a perfect example of the inadequacy of most bloggers as utterers of the Final Word.
Then again, it's your credibility that's at stake here, not yours. Good luck.
Ogged, I'm willing to go with 'moron' myself. You clearly don't mean to be talking primarily about scholarly or academic intelligence. (Hence it was a bad idea to make your remark right after quoting that silly book review (which shows nothing about anything except academic pettiness).) You're clearly talking about her moral intelligence, not her book-learnin'. And after hearing her 9/11-commission testimony, I think it's very arguable that her moral-I.Q. is well within the moronic range.
Thanks, Ted. I'm not sure I can get off so easily, because I did mean more than just moral moronicness, but you're absolutely right that I"m not referring to scholarly or academic intelligence. Certainly she seems to me to be of low moral IQ, but also to "not get it" in important ways about what it means to be National Security Advisor--particularly re responsibility and initiative.
Her "not getting" what her job entails is exactly what I had in mind by low moral-I.Q. It isn't that she literally doesn't know. Rather, she knows but then deceives herself that what she knows doesn't entail that she isn't doing a good job. Such self-deception is a form of moral stupidity.
Ok, I get it: it's the (self) deception that makes it a moral failing. Hmm. Is weak character a moral failing? Or is it something that causes moral failings?
Well, I'll weigh in. We just have data insufficiency here. Is Rice a good NSA? I have no idea, and doubt that 99 44/100th of those commenting have no idea either. It is just very, very hard to peer into complex organizations and understand who's good, and who isn't, ad 'goodness' takes the forms of managerial skills, cooperation, conensus building, analytical excellence, and making the trains run on time. Kaplan has no clue if she's good, as his article demonstrates (assess an NSA on the basis of her public testimony in a partisan spin-fest -- that makes sense).
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 04- 9-04 7:20 AM
I think it's safe to say that she's not a moron (IQ=50 to 69) and her academic resume speaks for itself. She was probably a very good chief executive at Stanford (though I've really no idea). From the bits of her testimony that I caught, though, I'll say this: she's a terrible liar. With that many gives, a garden-variety moron could clean her clock at poker.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 9-04 10:21 AM
Hilarious. Dilettantes and amateurs with no real idea of what's going on, exactly, are passing judgement on Condi's intelligence. What a perfect example of the inadequacy of most bloggers as utterers of the Final Word.
Then again, it's your credibility that's at stake here, not yours. Good luck.
Posted by Uncle Mikey | Link to this comment | 04- 9-04 12:39 PM
Er, make that last yours a hers. Oops
Maybe it's MY credibility . . . .
Posted by Uncle Mikey | Link to this comment | 04- 9-04 12:40 PM
Just between us folks here, "moron" might have been a bit over the top, but "incompetent" I will stand by forever.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04- 9-04 1:55 PM
Ogged, I'm willing to go with 'moron' myself. You clearly don't mean to be talking primarily about scholarly or academic intelligence. (Hence it was a bad idea to make your remark right after quoting that silly book review (which shows nothing about anything except academic pettiness).) You're clearly talking about her moral intelligence, not her book-learnin'. And after hearing her 9/11-commission testimony, I think it's very arguable that her moral-I.Q. is well within the moronic range.
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 04-10-04 12:54 PM
Thanks, Ted. I'm not sure I can get off so easily, because I did mean more than just moral moronicness, but you're absolutely right that I"m not referring to scholarly or academic intelligence. Certainly she seems to me to be of low moral IQ, but also to "not get it" in important ways about what it means to be National Security Advisor--particularly re responsibility and initiative.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-11-04 1:38 PM
Her "not getting" what her job entails is exactly what I had in mind by low moral-I.Q. It isn't that she literally doesn't know. Rather, she knows but then deceives herself that what she knows doesn't entail that she isn't doing a good job. Such self-deception is a form of moral stupidity.
Posted by Ted H. | Link to this comment | 04-11-04 3:36 PM
Ok, I get it: it's the (self) deception that makes it a moral failing. Hmm. Is weak character a moral failing? Or is it something that causes moral failings?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 04-12-04 2:53 PM