For the last decade most Americans have known you don't need much intelligence to become President of the United States. That's an unfortunate fact. George W. Bush proved it beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Now fellow Texas Governor Rick Perry wants Americans to think all you should need to become President are a set of unshakable notions, no matter how disconnected from reality they may be.
Rick Perry: Presidential Campaign's 'Not an IQ Test'
"Running for the presidency's not an IQ test. It is a test of an individual's resolve. It's a test of an individual's philosophy. It's a test of an individual's life's experiences," Perry said in an interview at the Governor's Mansion, which he's leaving as his term ends. "And I think Americans are really ready for a leader that will give them a great hope about the future."
So Perry thinks some vague happy talk about "a great hope about the future" should be all you need to become America's President. Having a President who's knowledgeable and capable of critical thinking under pressure shouldn't matter for the person entrusted to become the powerful leader on the globe, making momentous decisions that will affect billions of people for decades or even centuries to come.
Perry said he probably has less "margin for error" after he famously couldn't remember one of the federal agencies he said he'd ax during a November 2011 Republican debate. But "I think, over the course of the last two years, people realize that what they saw in 2011 is certainly not the person they're looking at at 2013, 2014, 2015," he said.
Rick Perry will need far more than some notions he believes strongly in, some happy talk, and a makeover with some new glasses before he's even remotely qualified to become President of the United States.
"Our Founding Fathers never meant for Washington, D.C. to be the fount of all wisdom. As a matter of fact, they were very much afraid of that because they'd just had this experience with this far-away government that had centralized thought-process and planning and what you have you. And then it was actually the reason that we fought the [American] Revolution in the 16th century — was to get away from that kind of onerous crown, if you will." ~Rick Perry
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