No, intelligent. And she can think on her feet, which Bush can't. She's more at home in front of an audience than Bush is, and as a trained broadcaster, she at least knows how words should be pronounced. There's more to being a broadcaster than merely reading a telepromter. I've been there. Never used one.

One can be quite intelligent (which impresses people--voters--if you know how to use it, and she does) and still hold some incredibly stupid and nasty ideas. Intelligence is not a safeguard against being an ethical midget. And that, judging from the gap between what she says she's done and what she actually has done is, I think, the case with Ms. Palin.

She knows how to tickle a crowd without having to rely on a telepromter. And this, plus her appeal to Evangelicals, makes her dangerous from my perspective.

Don Firth