Why do Americans prefer dumb, mediocre presidents but demand intelligence in business?

Can you imagine a Microsoft choosing someone as lightweight and mediocre as Palin to work in even an entry-level corporate job? Or any other big name corporation or management consulting firm for that matter? Does anyone think Palin would make first cut at a McKinsey or a Big 4 accounting firm? As a partner in a consulting group at a big 4 firm, I can tell you that her educational background (5 mediocre colleges in 6 years) would send her resume immediately into the trash with no further consideration whatsoever.

So why do we think that mediocre, intellectually incurious, irresponsible, poorly performing doofuses deserve to be leaders of the most powerful nation on earth??? Why do we think beer-drinking and hunting and being from a small town are the most important criteria for the presidency?!?!?!?

Have Americans just become the stupidest people in the industrialized world?!?!?

Haw! No, just kidding.

Keep in mind, there are MILLIONS of Americans who didn't vote for Bush. They just live in the wrong states.

Some of the people in the third world are pretty smart and imaginative in doing more with less.

1) They might hire her in some sort of PR capacity, but not to run any division.
2) Same for other companies. I've worked at some small companies and if someone came in with that experieince outside Sales it would raise an eyebrow.
3) No, I don't. She wouldn't make the cut.
4) American's, in general, don't think. They follow their gut just like McCain. They don't like smart people. They like real people. They think smart people are trying to pull one over them, and think they're SOOOO great because they're SOOOO smart. Many American's never mature past the age of 17, and elections are just like Student Body President, in that they are popularity contests.
5) Because a good number of american's are beer-drinking hunters, who come from small towns, and of those that don't, the ones in the exurbs and suburbs have a false image of that being better than their percieved notion of urban blight. They see a small town beer drinking hunter as a real american, and an urban non-hunter as an efeet intellectual who is snobby and looks down on them.
6) No. They've been that for a while now.

the best-educated, hardest-working, highest achievers as "elitists", and turn instead to cultural symbols and myths and legends. That's why the GOP keeps winning elections--it has nothing to do with reality, it's image and symbolism and narrative designed to appeal to what we want to believe about ourselves. We apparently want to have a war hero and a Jesus-loving small town frontierswoman lead us, because that speaks to the image of what makes America speshul in our minds. People either do not understand, or they just don't care, about the connection between the hard realities of their lives and our national leadership. What happens in terms of the Presidency is like a movie to them--they want a feel-good story, they don't care about capable governance.

In the upper circles of business, it certainly isn't - it's about who's your uncle and your cousin. Remember, that's how bush got started.

It's a huge mistake the Americans often make to assume successful business people get that way because they're geniuses. Rich does not equal smart.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac... Just to name two examples that leap immediately to mind. If I looked in yesterday's paper I could probably find more good examples.

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In fact, what I've heard is that there are quite a few of them there. How else could you possibly explain Windows Vista? Microsoft Bob? The insane dashboard of tools and options that takes up half the screen in Microsoft Word? The cryptic file formats that make most documents created by Microsoft programs impenetrable by any other software? The highly compressed and ugly .wmv video format, which dominates most Internet video postings? The confusion and inaccessibility of Microsoft's own web site, which Bill Gates himself famously derided in a widely-distributed e-mail rant? And the infamous Blue Screen of Death, which was prominently featured as a backdrop at last week's RNC? Yes, I can imagine a lot of lightweight, mediocre Palin types working at Microsoft. In fact, if this whole Veep thing doesn't work out, I could see them hiring her as a spokesmodel in their next infomercial.

They don't use it for their wars, and they don't put in on their tickets.

They don't know what the president does, and many think he's nothing more than a national spokesperson.