"I do wonder, however, how people who have judged Quayle and Bush so harshly based on their gaffes are not similarly questioning Obama's intelligence at this
point. "

Quayle and Bush gave no serious impression of being intelligent, thoughtful and articulate between their stupid comments, did they?  Obama is a great speaker with an occasional blunder. Bush blunders, misspeaks and rambles through even his most well-scripted and rehearsed speeches.

That is why Obama's intelligence is not similarly questioned.

"Knut, I think you're reading too much into both the question and the answer. "

Possibly. I was responding to Bill Wiist's comment :  

"Even if he doesn't understand some other things . . . "

That seemed to suggest that the question was somehow stupid. I may have overstated my case, I just saw it as a legitimate question that was painted in an unfortunate light by the comment above.

"Knut, so there's no possibility in your mind that Obama might have just
asked the same uninformed question many other tourists have?"

Sure. Is there no possibility in your mind that the guide was being less than helpful? Saying "It was a movie set" is only a part answer. "There is no access road to the top of the monument, Hitchcock fudged the facts and filmed those scenes on a movie set." is a full answer.

"Knut: Quayle and Bush gave no serious impression of being intelligent,
thoughtful and articulate between their stupid comments, did they?

Of course, they did. Your hatred of them prevents you from seeing it."

I don't hate them. I just think Bush says stupid things, misspeaks and articulates his views, opinions and policies extremely poorly on a consistent basis.  These gaffes are not exceptions. They're the rule.

Do you hate Obama? If you think criticizing someone is the same as hatred, then your criticism of Obama is by necessity hatred, don't you agree?

What a silly remark to make.

Yes I am 100%. Did you notice the word "after"

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) addresses her
supporters after winning the Florida democratic primary election. 
----
You said she wasn't there the day of the primary.

No I didn't.  She was there for private fund raisers and did no campaigning. 

Well, that's not the dumbest thing Obama has said or done either. As a
reporter at ABC recently put it, "He's a gaffe-machine." For instance, take
this gem from last week when he said:

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen
heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our
sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

There  was no gaffe.  It's obvious he believes in full rights for zombies.  He was just courting the undead vote.

The notion that she did no campaigning there is simply laughable.

As a Floridian who watches a lot of news and saw no campaigning, I believe you must be extremely easily amused then.

It's obvious he believes in full rights for zombies.  He was just courting the undead vote.

So, THAT explains it - he was asked the other day about what he hopes to bring to the office of President and he looked into the camera, his jaw moving a tad unhinged and said "braaaaaaainsss...."

At first, I was like - Damn - the guy's tired from too much campaigning... but now?  Now I get it...