The real trouble comes when someone tries to assert that being an intellectual is a GOOD trait in a President, when that's not necessarily true. Not to say being anti-intellectual is good either, but the President's main responsibility is to *decide and act* when necessary. Someone who was a profound intellectual, but who couldn't come to a decision on what to do and what not to - would make a poor President.

"Someone who was a profound intellectual, but who couldn't come to a decision on what to do and what not to - would make a poor President." Undoubtedly.

But is being an intellectual and being a "person of action" mutually exclusive?

LBJ was a dynamo of action, who--according to John Connelly, never read a book in his adult life. Dubya is undoubtedly a man of action, but spent the years when he might have been developing intellectual capital for the task ahead boozing it up and snorting coke.

Moreover, I think your definition of the job is wrong. You say, "the President's main responsibility it is to decide and act when necessary." That definition makes the office holder a reactionary--only acting when necessary. The best of our presidents were guided in their actions by intellectual anticipation of the need the country that reached way beyond the immediate necessities.

Lincoln could have put-off the conflict over slavery indefinitely by simply accepting succession or the various plans that would have brought the South back into the Union with assurance that Slavery would be respected. Washington was a virtual engine of anticipating future needs--conducting his performance in office as continuing sequence of precidents for future guidance. Teddy Roosevelt's injection of the federal power into the dominant Herbert Spenser economics of the time was founded in his intellectualism as was his environmentalism.

FDR, the supposedly second-class mind, spent the WWI years observing first-hand policy being made at the highest level and tried in his role as the day-to-day operator of the Navy. He then spent the years between the wars thinking about the lessons taught by the WWI experience. It was his intellectual preparation that paid premiums during WWII, not his gut.

Nearly every sure-footed step that Truman seemed to take on an ad hoc basis was rooted in decades of serious intellectual reading. He was the most historically informed participant in every policy decision made by his administration. All of these presidents seriously prepared their intellects for leadership. All of them acted within horizons broadened by their own intellectualism.

Sure a impotent nerd would suck as a president, but so do primitives who come to the office relying on revealed wisdom from God, self-important vanity or faith in their untrained intuition. Being intellectual should be a condition precedent to holding that office. Nobody should see it as a disqualifier.

Millions of Americans are currently suffering from delusion. They believe that we can pick our leaders by the Excalibur method: some unwashed primitive can come out of the ignorant wilderness to grab the sword of office through an electoral victory and rule us as the wise chosen- of -God. It is a mythology that has cost and will cost this nation dearly if we keep embracing it.

I think if we smell anti-intellectualism on any candidate, we should immediately cast them aside. Leadership takes preparation and intellectual preparation at that.

The definition of intellectual on this thread was:

Surely "intellectual," in everyday speech, simply describes a person with a passionate devotion to ideas--- someone who values them for their own sake and puts them at the center of his or her life.

This does NOT apply to Washington anticipating future needs, unless farmers and people who buy health insurance are also intellectuals by definition.

Lincoln had to ACT. Either TO support slavery or NOT to support it. He didn't have to mull it over on an abstract basis or appreciate the potential for slavery in a theoretical abstract utopia. I don't see how his action makes him any more of an intellectual than Bush's invasion of Iraq makes him an intellectual.

FDR tried to practically apply prior experience! Again, this is NOT intellectual by definition, as it is NOT "ideas for ideas' sake", is it? It's trying to apply prior knowledge towards a tangible goal.

Truman, your intellectual is the first and only President to use nuclear weapons on a sovereign nation. History might end up being more kind to Bush than Truman, and in any event, if that's the best intellectual you can come up with, it kind of proves my point. His intellectualism led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

You then say:

Being intellectual should be a condition precedent to holding that office. Nobody should see it as a disqualifier.

I never said it was a disqualifier, and don't believe that. I also do not believe it's an ESSENTIAL quality in a President, and you have yet to prove it is. As an example, say a Pentagon official rushes into the oval office and says they've detected missles coming towards the U.S. from China. Would you want the President to DO something - communications have failed, shouldn't he at least make a decision to respond or not? Or would you rather have him say, "Chinese missiles, huh? Why don't you look up what type of fuel they are using, and compare it to our rocket fuel to see which is more cost effective that would be interesting.

Nope, I'm actually leaning against it a bit now. if your main focus in life is ideas for ideas' sake, you probably aren't going to make a great President.

Well crap!

"passionate devotion to ideas-- someone who values them for their own sake and puts them at the center of his or her life."

I'm sorry, I missed that definition as the only one we were allowed to use. By that EXTREME definition, no intellectual--nobody who is passionately devoted to ideas, nobody who puts ideas at the CENTER of his or her life has ever been, ever will be or ever should be president.

In fact, that definition would rule out Isaac Newton, who in addition to his intellectual pursuits put religion at the center of his life and held public offices for long period of time--forcing his intellectual (as you define it) activities in the background. Not only would Washington not be an intellectual, nor would Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Voltaire, John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman--all men who cannot be said to have put ideas at the center of their lives.

Yet, every one of those men (except perhaps Washington who failed to pander to the prejudice of academic historian who insist writing is a necessary proof of intellectual depth) would be regarded as an intellectual by nearly all informed observers--both men of action and intellectuals. One test of a definition is to see how it applies to examples in nature--or history in the case of human endeavors.

I made an argument based on a less restrictive definition--let me formulate if for you: an intellectual is a person who tries to use his or her intelligence and analytical thinking either in their profession or for the benefit of personal pursuits.

Lincoln posed as an backwoods hick, but his writing reveals him to be a widely and deeply studied man. Hell, he studied Euclid for fun. By your definition and the blinders it imposes on your viewpoint, any success Lincoln had was not a result of judgment based on intellectual preparation but by......what? Luck? God's guidance? Untrained intuition? Gut feeling? Raw unfounded judgment?

It that the stuff of presidential virtue?

By your definition, all of the examples I gave in the above post are not intellectuals because acting is mutually exclusive to intellectualizing. I suggest that when action is framed in sensibilities developed by intellectual application they might be a further expression of that application rather than a denial of it.

I also suggest that a failure to make that application will tell in the actions taken. When a president is devoid of intellectual capital or even interest (as was the case with LBJ and foreign policy) then and only then it is indeed necessary for a president to resort to research before acting, unless he's cocksure enough to act on mere unsupported hunches.

I agree with you and go further to say that nobody whose main focus is ideas for ideas sake should get anywhere near public power. Where we apparently differ is on the role of intellectualism in the preparation of leaders. I hold it indispensable. When we've elected leaders who are not thoughtful and studied, their judgment has been shallow and destructive.

Would you like a short list of recent examples?

Can you name one successful leader who didn't intellectually prepare him or herself for the role?

Nice, you know what you are talking about.

I like to put it this way: "Just because I am more educated than you doesn't necessarily mean I am not as smart as you; in fact some might argue the very opposite."