If all the experts tell you to go right, and you decide to go left, you’re probably stupid. But if you get lucky, and discover a pot of gold along the stupid path, people will call you a leader. You’ll still be stupid, but fewer people will feel the need to point that out.

When you’re in charge, there’s not much payoff in doing what the experts advise. The best you can achieve by taking the experts’ advice is the label “competent.” It’s the faintest of praise. “Joe is competent.” It sounds like just ba-a-a-arely better than incompetent.

Interestingly, life is too complex to know for sure if turning right or turning left will work out best. Even the experts often get it wrong. That guarantees a fair number of stupid people will be judged great leaders. They’ll take the wrong turn and things will turn out right.

President Reagan was either a brilliant visionary who won the Cold War, or a walking cabbage that happened to be in office when the Soviet Union crumbled on its own. Pick one.

The elder and original President Bush followed expert advice more often than not. History will view him as a competent President. President Clinton was about the same – competent.

His son, President Bush, is bucking the experts on almost everything. There is a nonzero chance that global warming turns out to be no big deal, and Iraq turns into a functioning democracy. The odds are tiny, say the experts, but life is inherently unpredictable.

President Bush is stupid by definition, since he ignores experts in many fields. But we won’t know for 50 years whether he’s a great leader.