The sign of intelligence, perhaps, is the ability to change your mind. To adapt to new situations. To take new information and consider it thoughtfully, and then act on it. The ability to give up preconceived or ill-conceived notions and admit a mistake.
As Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
I thought about this quote when I read the excerpt from Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, which is in the new issue of Newsweek.
During the last presidential campaign, John Kerry was labeled as a flip-flopper, with the notion that absolute consistency of thought and the inability to change one's mind is something desirable, or noble.
If you've read the Woodward excerpt, you may be wishing that more people in the Bush admnistration had the admirable quality of being capable of flip-flopping.
The direction of this country could use one giant flip-flop, don't you think?
Read the Newsweek excerpt here.
Listen to moronish political advertising here.
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