How Smart is Ted Cruz?

Everyone says he’s very smart, his old classmates, his fellow senators, even the media. But the old psychologist needs to step in here and point out that intelligence is not a singular thing. There is no trait called “smartness.”

Without going into annoying detail, I’ll simply note that the standard model in educational and cognitive psychology is that people are smart or not so in a host of domains. There’s logical and mathematical smartness, aesthetic and artistic intelligence, social and interpersonal smartness, sensory and motor intelligence. It is rare for an individual to display similarly high or low functioning in all of these. More commonly we see a mosaic of ups and downs.

When people say that they think Cruz is smart what they are telling you is that they’re looking at a particular domain. In this case it’s the one where the scores on an intelligence test predict, with reasonable accuracy, how well you will do in school. However, in others he’s as thick as a post.

He has apparently little capacity to sift scientific data or to understand the scientific method. His statements on climate change show this, as do similarly shallow remarks on evolution.

He has little “social intelligence” which is built on a capacity for empathic insight into the emotions of others. As an interesting article in Talking Points Memo noted, over the years a pattern has emerged. People meet Cruz, think he’s smart. Later they start becoming annoyed with his antics. Still later they dub him an asshole. And finally, they end up hating him mainly because he is so utterly full of himself that he seems incapable of taking their viewpoints into account.

He also is classically narcissistic (see an earlier blog on how this trait gets manifested in politics) — which, of course, is independent of any cognitive skill.

So, in my mind, he’s not “smart” in any general way. He’s merely capable of wending his way down abstruse logical paths that fit with his rather peculiar social/theological framework.

In short, faux smartness.

It’s kind of like the Newtster whom everyone in DC seems to think is also smart. Krugman put it best here, “Newt sounds like what stupid people think smart people sound like.”

Ditto for Mr. Gee-Am-I-A-Natural-Born-American-When-Obama-Isn’t?

Today's GOP: The Wealthy, the Bought and the Duped

Thom Hartmann used this line the other day. It’s insightful. For the most part, those who vote for Republicans or support their agenda consist of three groups, those with money, those who have been bought by those with money and those who have been duped by them.

Now, if you’re a Republican and not among the wealthy nor among those with sufficient influence that the monied have bothered with you, you might feel somewhat displeased with these categories. No one, of course, wants to believe that they’ve been duped. But they have been and it happens all the time.

Those on the far right have experienced this before when they bought into National Socialism in Germany between the wars. We tend to forget that Hitler was actually elected in a democratic vote. He didn’t get a majority (actually some 44%) but became Chancellor because his party won more seats than any of the others. And, for the first few years, he was wildly popular.

It’s not just the right wing. During Stalin’s era many on the left in Europe and America were taken in by the promise of a Communist Utopia. In fact, these well-meaning but naive folks were often referred to as “Stalin’s dupes” or his “useful idiots” by conservatives.

Similar but less persuasive propaganda emerging from China during Mao’s rule had analogous impact and, again, many on the extreme left were taken in by the illusion of a socialist paradise.

So, if you’re among those currently duped by the Koch brothers, turned into useful idiots by Fox News, seduced by the lunacy of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, emboldened by the incoherent blatherings of the Tea Party, intellectually twisted by the Cato Institute don’t feel bad. You’ve had lots of company over the years.

Thoughts on Carly Fiorina

The latest news in the GOP presidential free-for-all is that Carly Fiorina is (almost, maybe) jumping into the mosh-pit. She’s an interesting character and worth a posting.

First, she’s having fun these days slamming Hillary. Of course, that doesn’t make her special; everybody on the right (and, indeed, quite a few on the left) is slamming Hillary. Carly does make the interesting observation that, as a woman, she can slam Hillary for everything but being a woman. And, as she likes to note, her dissing of Hillary is more effective because it can’t be seen as just anti-woman or anti-feminist rhetoric.

Second, she’s touting her business background, typically having herself introduced as the former CEO of one of America’s great high-tech computer firms. Indeed, this is true. She was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard and before that was a senior executive with Lucent, an AT&T spinoff. What she usually leaves off the rosy picture of being the first woman to head a Fortune 20 company is that she also became the first woman to seriously undermine the financial well-being of a Fortune 20 company.

Her five plus years with HP were, to put it mildly, rocky. She alienated others, earned a reputation for rarely consulting with advisors and pushing aggressively for her positions while undercutting anyone who opposed her

Things came to a head when she maneuvered HP into purchasing Compaq — a deal that proved to be, in a word, terrible. She had to override the vigorous objections of Walter Hewlett, son of the founder, who thought (correctly as it turns out) that this was, indeed, a terrible decision.

Another, equally bad idea, luckily got sidetracked. She pushed HP to acquire the technology component of PricewaterhouseCoopers for $14 billion but the board demurred when Wall Street gurus took a dim view of the deal. They were right; after the dotcom bubble burst, it sold for a mere $4 billion. Had she gotten her way she almost certainly would have bankrupted HP — a $10 billion hit is hard to overcome.

But in the end the board sacked her. The general consensus is that she may have been the first woman to head a company like HP but she didn’t do a very good job. She’s been dubbed the “anti-Steve Jobs” and one of the worst CEO’s to ever run a company of this size. Oh, in case you’re curious, her “golden parachute” for having nearly trashed HP was 20 million coconuts.

But Ms. Fiorina is, if nothing else, persistent. Touting herself, of course, as the first woman to head up a major company she hurled herself into Republican politics. She joined McCain’s campaign in ‘08 and was one of Sarah Palin’s most vigorous defenders. In 2010 she ran for the Senate in California against Barbara Boxer and lost by 10 points which, given her dismal record and total lack of experience, wasn’t bad at all. Though it should be noted that she so screwed up her campaign finances that they ended up several million dollars in the hole. Fiorina apparently covered the debts — piece of cake after that severance gift. It also didn’t help when it was revealed that, before jumping into the race, she had rarely bothered to even vote.

So, what’s behind this woman with the glittering facade, the well-honed public persona and the rather stunning lack of actual accomplishments that would make you think she’s presidential timber and a worthy opponent for Hill?

Good question, glad you asked!

I’ve known quite a few Carlys. They are common in business and, perhaps surprisingly, in academia, particularly university administration. But no matter where they pop up they have a cluster of characteristics that mark them.

They are smart in a generic sort of way, often breathtakingly so. They are usually good looking, athletic and move with grace. They also have strong opinions which they put forward with passion and commitment. They have supreme confidence, are articulate and well-spoken and quick on their feet. The brutal truth is that in order to succeed in domains like academic administration, the upper echelons of the corporate world and high-end politics you must be able to put forward your points of view persuasively, convincingly and unwaveringly.

Now, in some ways this profile sounds like what we’d look for in the ideal leader, the very kind of individual we want to run major corporations, head up Tier I research universities, rise to the top of the military, the government. But there’s another element here, one that causes the crash and burn we saw with Fiorina and what I’ve witnessed all too many times in my career: narcissism.

Effective leaders need to take nuanced stances; they cannot be inflexibly tied to their ideas. Narcissists are. The best leaders are also excellent followers. They know when they’re not the most knowledgeable in some area or on some issue and are willing to accept the input of those who are. Narcissists cannot take this side-step. The effective leaders are strong enough to accept criticism and secure enough to see when their original thoughts or ideas may not be the best way to go. Narcissists find it almost impossible to do this.

Despite all the shiny surfaces, the polished veneer, underneath is insecurity and it is masked by bravado, blustering and inflexibility. When narcissists end up actually running a company, heading a university, chairing a committee they fall back on the standard operating procedures: “kiss my butt or get off my planet.”

In my experience such individuals invariably end up being sacked by the board of the company, the university or assigned to the back bench within their political party.

A story: Back when I was in the CUNY system (CUNY stands for City University of New York, the nation’s largest urban, public university) we had a Chancellor who was a classic narcissist. She came in full of ideas. She was a brilliant speaker, passionate about education, research and outreach to the community. She blew us all away when she arrived and we all, basically, signed on to help her achieve our mutual goals.

But soon cracks began to appear. She bristled when the slightest suggestion was made that some project she had in mind just might not work here in an urban, commuter university. Tales of meetings of the council of college presidents began to circulate and they were not happy ones. Deans and other administrators with long tenure in their posts and strong records of effective leadership suddenly found themselves relieved of their duties. In a surprisingly short period of time she had few supporters and many enemies. The backroom sniping was getting louder and louder.

Eventually the board of trustees stepped in and sacked her — and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Remarkably, she was soon offered the Chancellorship of a major state university system in _____ (I’m leaving this blank to protect the innocent).

CUNY’s Board appointed an interim Chancellor who just happened to be an old friend of mine. I stopped by his office to congratulate him. We were talking about his new job when his administrative assistant stepped in holding a cordless phone. “It’s the University of ____ on the line,” she said. “The chairman of the board wants to know how in hell we dealt with her.” We just laughed and went out to lunch.

Making Sense on Medical Marijuana

A bill was introduced in the Senate yesterday, with bi-partisan sponsorship. It is an eminantly reasonable one. It would allow states to determine the legality of medical marijuana, strip the drug of its current Schedule I status (reserved for drugs such as heroin which have no medical value), free up banks and other lending agencies to fund medical marijuana businesses and, of course, set the stage for ultimate decriminalization.

It is not only sensible it’s a near perfect fit for gathering support from both sides of the aisle. It has a states rights component, a free-enterprise component, an individual choice component, and a pro-banking component. It diminishes the role of the Feds — a favorite meme of the Tea Party.

It also has obvious progressive elements in that it would lower incarceration rates, be a major move toward ending the idiotic “war” on drugs that’s been a sociopolitical albatross since Nixon’s day and be one more step toward eliminating sumptuary crimes.

I’ll just sit here for a time and wait to see how it gets screwed up. Betcha it’ll be the GOP’s krazy kaucus in the House. I so want to be wrong.

How Low Can They Go?

The kluster of keystone kops in the Senate set the bar pretty damn low in ‘09 when they declared that their primary goal was to ensure that Obama was a one-term president. No hint of any concerns about the economy (which was in free-all at the time), the environment (climate change), the infrastructure (crumbling), health care (terrible), wars (still stuck in two) or any other issue that impinged on the lives of Americans. Nope, just make sure the Black Dude doesn’t succeed.

Well, they couldn’t pull it off. Oh, they did manage to undercut almost everything Mr. Dude proposed (except the Stimulus and ACA) but he persevered and won a second term. Their response? Well, since they couldn’t do anything about his continued presence in the White (gasp!) House, they engaged in a scorched earth policy. Oppose everything. Elect crazy right-wingers at every opportunity, gerrymander wherever you can. Block all appointments to Administrative posts, the judiciary, ambassador slots. Defund (or attempt to) government programs, undermine the State Department (Benghazi!!!), the IRS and any other agency that shows any vulnerability.

Well, these tactics haven’t worked either. Obama has managed to persevere, found ways to use Executive authority in begin reforming immigration and taken the initiative in new and critical moves in foreign affairs. Their response? To lower the bar so low that you really have to be a ground-dwelling slug or a blind mole rat to even know where it is!

They set out to systematically undercut the office of the Presidency by having Congress kneecap Obama in his efforts to negotiate a tenuous and tricky set of alliances and treaties in the Middle East. Boehner’s stunt to invite Netanyahu to speak before both houses of Congress without consulting or even informing the President was an unprecedented insult, literally. Never in the nearly 250 years of this country has a Congress ever pulled a stunt this outrageous.

But they weren’t done. The kickback was withering and the GOP found itself on the defensive — as they should have been. You’d think that they’d be perhaps slightly chastened and try a novel approach: do something useful particularly in the dicey area of Middle Eastern politics. Alas, asking this kollation of klowns to act like grownups is futile. Instead they dug a trench in the ground to find a new place for the metaphoric bar. A group of Senators (47 of them or nearly the entire GOP caucus) sent a letter (again, without informing the President) to the leaders of Iran basically warning them not to bother negotiating with the US.

You do not have to be a Constitutional lawyer to be pretty damn sure that this act qualifies as treason. It was so over the top that the New York Daily News (a tabloid with a focused right-wing tilt that has routinely back conservative positions and Republicans for office) blew these idiots out of the water.

They flat-out accused The Forty-Seven of treason and of betraying the Constitution — which is precisely what they’ve done. They have also, pointedly, disrespected, not just Obama the person but the very office itself.

Is there anybody who honestly thinks that they would have made such a series of moves if Obama weren’t Black?