Among the most repetitious criticisms of W. is that he is “stupid.” I like to point out that he’s a Harvard Business School educated politician who has never lost an election and is a two term President; not quite “stupid” material, but it usually goes in one ear and out the other.  These days, we hear much the same criticism when it comes to Sarah Palin.  Victor Davis Hanson has been giving this some thought, here he is at the Corner:

We had a debate between the two Vice Presidential candidates. Biden was superficially the more impressive with his recall of facts, anecdotes (most of them not mysteriously with Biden at the heroic center), and broad assertions.

In contrast, Palin was direct and perhaps repetitive in her focus on lower taxes, less government, and individual responsibility (especially for personal debt) — and I suppose what Brooks would call populist in her vocabulary, tone, and Fargo-mode of expression. But when they were through, Palin proved the more truthful and pragmatic, inasmuch as the glib Biden turned out to have misled in almost everything he professed, from our own Constitution to Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon. Even the folksy reference to his hometown diner was inaccurate. And that raises the age-old Euripidean question, “What is wisdom?”

And on Bush:

In regards to Bush, it is now the standard fare of the times to offer the appropriate put-down, and Brooks paints him with the usual yokel, anti-intellectualism brush. Yet those who once supported the decision to go to Iraq (many like Biden or Fukuyama dating back to the Clinton days), were among our most educated and brightest. But like a chorus of a Greek tragedy, almost all of them not merely abandoned their once zealous support, but (again, like Biden) at periodic intervals prepped their ongoing commentary on (always changing) perceptions about pulse of the battlefield. Bush, to his credit, went with Petraeus and thus Iraq was stabilized — but not by a President’s seeking out the convenient position of the hour, but by supporting the surge and its ancilliary tactics when few others in the Bush coterie did.

In this regard, the eloquent, sensitive philosopher Obama, despite his current protestions about Iraq and an insistence on his principled and long-standing and unflinching opposition to the war, during that brief euphoria over its elections and in his eagerness not to seem out of sync with the then Democratic mainstream, in July 2004 gushed, ““There’s not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush’s position at this stage.”

What then is real wisdom?

Intellectualism vs. Courage, that’s how I see it.

My other favorite defense of W. when engaged in this type of conversation is this, “he makes up in courage what he lacks in articulation.” Bill Clinton was a master politician, able to persuade the American public (much of it, anyway) with his oratorical skills.  Problem is, he had no balls.  In every situation, he did what was popular, not what needed to be done.  W is the opposite, he’s got balls.  He tells you what he thinks plainly, then he does it, often to the detriment of his popular standing.  I’ll take that kind of courage over the intellectualism of Bill Clinton any day of the week.

UPDATE:  If you want more VDH on Wisdom, he did an interview with Hugh Hewitt on the topic last night:  Audio