Your cynicism is understandable, but consider that every President surrounds him(her)self with a wealth of smart people who are domain knowledge experts and have spent a lifetime acquiring the facts and data needed to become expert in a wide range of fields. No President could ever hope to “know everything” or even to be able to temporarily store enough mush in their own brain to satisfy your, or anyone elses, expectations.
A President is a Chief Executive. Execution requires courage, conviction, willpower, tenacity, and clarity of vision as to the goal. Sarah Palin has these qualities in the same abundance that Barack Obama lacks them. I probably can never convince you and others who share your point of view, but I would suggest the qualities that we admire in our greatest Presidents like Ronald Reagan are shared by Sarah Palin. Reagan wasn’t elected because he was a genius, but because he could create a bond with the People, and they saw in him the kind of man they wanted at the helm. Otherwise elections may as well be based on IQ test scores, and we saw how well that would work in 2008.
Gosh, and with what kind of "experts" will the GOP surround Sarah Palin? That is exactly my concern.
Reagan spent YEARS studying everything from conservative philosophy to manufacturing. Hence, he not only was not easy to snow, he had met people he could trust. Palin had that opportunity and has shown little interest in making the investment.
A President is a Chief Executive.
Spare me your high school civics lecture.
This bears repeating. Abraham Lincoln knew virtually nothing about warfare and had little, if any military experience. Yet once he surrounded himself with the right generals (it did take a while), he exhibited the necessary leadership to win the Civil War and preserve the Union.
Ditto for chief executives in the business world. Steve Jobs probably couldn't fix a computer to save his life but his will, tenacity and clarity of vision has brought Apple from being six weeks from bankruptcy in 1997 to the largest technology company in the world, growing annual revenues from about $7b in 1997 to over $65b in 2010. This is because Jobs brought on the best people and incessantly drove them to be the best that they could be.
Intelligence (as measured by IQ) does not make a good leader. Albert Einstein, as intelligent as he was, was famously absent-minded and lacking in common sense. Do we need somebody like that leading our nation? No! Instead, we give him the leadership he needs (and tie his shoes for him) so that he can focus on coming up with the theory of relativity.
Sarah Palin is imbued with the leadership qualities that this nation needs. Once elected, she will gather the necessary people around her and will inspire them to get this nation turned in the right direction. That is exactly what other great leaders have done in the past, such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill.