Justin Webb's America

The case for brains in politics

• Justin Webb
• 27 Jan 09, 05:19 PM GMT

Many of my colleagues - you know who you are - are not among the leading brains of their age. I am certainly not.

But some of these not-so-bright journalists are nevertheless very able. They are creative and insightful and able to communicate effortlessly.

Others are enormously bright: again some of these folks are successful, some less so.

My point: there are fields of endeavour where being bright is plainly a sine qua non (the higher reaches of academia etc.) but journalism is not one, and nor is politics and government.

Bright people make awful mistakes because they are over-confident or unseeing or because they just do not inhabit the same planet.

The latest reminder of the brightness of the Obama lot came to me in this breathless press release from my alma mater

Reading through Peter Orszag's resume, there is no doubt that he is on top of things in the upstairs department.

He runs as well so we are led to believe he is rounded. (Incidentally for those monitoring British influence on the US, the LSE/Obama nexus is interesting - particularly given Jed Bartlett's LSE doctorate)

Anyway, let's see what the new budget director can do. There is unquestionably a case for brains - made just after the election with great passion here, but there is a case against as well made by an equally fine columnist in the same paper more recently.

Richard Nixon was the brightest of the recent American presidents wasn't he? With Clinton a close second. What does this tell us?

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Prospect of a thaw?

• Justin Webb
• 27 Jan 09, 06:17 AM GMT

This interview is a big deal. The tone is studiously non-belligerent. It will confuse some in the Middle East even further - in particular, perhaps, persuading Iran's most senior leaders that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not perhaps the best man to counter the Obama appeal. Obama will do nothing dramatic for a bit but if Ahmadinejad goes (or is not allowed to stand in the next Iranian election, which seems at least possible) then the prospect of a real thaw seems real. And a quiet acceptance by the US of Iran's domination of Iraq, which is a gloriously unintended consequence...

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