An Egghead for President

I love Eugene Robinson's editorial in todays Washington Post. He writes that the next President of the United States needs to be a brilliant person and I agree completely.

Actually, I want a president smart enough to know a good deal about science. He or she doesn't have to be able to do the math, but I want a president who knows that the great theories underpinning our understanding of the universe -- general relativity and quantum mechanics -- have stood for nearly a century and proved stunningly accurate, even though they describe a world that is more shimmer than substance. I want him or her to know that there's a lot we still don't know.

I want the next president to be intellectually curious -- and also intellectually honest. I want him or her to understand the details, not just the big picture. I won't complain if the next president occasionally uses a word I have to look up.

A President that can reason. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Democrats have some good candidates running for President and I could support a number of them. But you know what? I'm one of those that think Al Gore should be our next President. He has already shown he could win a Presidential election and his political stock has since risen. Don't give me that crap about being "stiff and wooden". I could care less. We need someone with more than half a brain in the White House. The current president has proven that.

Al Gore can do exactly what "Tricky Dick" Nixon did back in 1968. Rolling Stone online describes exactly why Al would make a great candidate for President.

If the Democrats were going to sit down and construct the perfect candidate for 2008, they'd be hard-pressed to improve on Gore. Unlike Hillary Clinton, he has no controversial vote on Iraq to defend. Unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, he has extensive experience in both the Senate and the White House. He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration's most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he's also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time.

"He's perceived very differently now than he was six years ago," says Frank Luntz, the Republican consultant who advised George W. Bush to dispute global warming during the 2000 and 2004 elections. "He's an icon. Imagine that: Al Gore, Mr. Straight and Narrow, Mr. Dull on Wheels -- now he's culturally cool."