OK, one on side we have candidates that are described as non-intellectuals. I might say that doesn't mean not really, really smart. Obama wasn't chosen to head the Harvard Law Review because he was a dummy! And even though McCain finished very near the bottom of his class at Annapolis, they don't give degrees from that place just because your father and grandfather wore lots of stars on their shoulder boards. He was smart enough to learn how to pilot a complicated fighter jet and navigate many years in the Congress. I'd say both of our candidates, while maybe not intellectuals, are plenty smart enough to be the next President.

This morning, as I watched our current President address the Army War College, I thought that here is a man that is either no where near a smart as his educational credentials might suggest...or somehow has became an idealogue committed to very narrow and very conservative objectives, at the expense of completely ignoring any effort to provide leadership to our country and the world. It's been on his watch that we've gone a long, long way towards damaging many of the national strengths that existed when he took office.

As I watched our current President's address I thought--wouldn't it have been great if he had conducted his administration in a way to address many of the serious problems facing our nation and not just what he calls the "war on terror". For almost eight years his entire administration has been based on the idealogy of planting a democracy in the middle east, using the war on terror as a cover story. In the meantime domestic issues have gone unaddressed, the economy has been permitted to implode, we've become the biggest debtor nation in history, our dollar has sunk to an unimaginable low value, we have lost almost all the respect from the rest of the world that existed at the beginning of his term, Americans have woefully low confidence in what the future holds for them and their families, and our children's educations are sagging in an increasingly competitive world. Even more maddening are those who call themselves our leaders. Too many of them--way too many--have been proven to be little more than self-agrandizing crooks or idealogues with little interest in the national good.

I'm not worried that either of our candidates aren't intellectual enough. I'm satisfied that they're plenty smart enough for the job. And if we can believe what they are saying while campaigning...a big question, certainly...either will certainly be more effective in addressing a broad array of national problems and may begin to precipitate the changes our country needs. As important, maybe one or the other will begin to repair the flaws in our national character and morality that seems to have overtaken those that still call themselves our leaders--and that includes way too many of the people that head both the executive and legislative branches of our current government.

Our candidates are smart enough, for sure. I can only pray that one or the other can provide the national leadership that has been so sorely lacking for so long.