I presume by now you have all seen the video of Herman Cain trying, and failing, to answer a simple question about the president’s policy towards Libya. He actually upstaged Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric and Rick Perry’s meltdown at a recent debate. It appeared from the video that Mr. Cain was struggling to remember whether Libya was the country where the United States had intervened to protect civilians and to drive Gaddafi from power. Palin, Perry, and Cain are all examples of candidates who know nothing about the world who think they should run our government.
Thinking about it, I am reminded that Ronald Reagan didn’t choose an ignoramus as a running mate. Even though he didn’t much care for him, he chose George H.W. Bush to be his vice-president. Poppy Bush’s résumé included a stint in the Pacific during the war, a successful business career, two terms in Congress, serving as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and as (essentially) our ambassador to Red China, and directing the Central Intelligence Agency. As vice-president, Bush basically ran Reagan’s National Security Council. When Bush succeeded Reagan in the Oval Office, he was well-prepared to deal with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union. He also knew that Gaddhafi ruled over Libya.
Maybe it was his confidence in his own foreign policy expertise that led him to pick a foolish neophyte as his vice-president. Dan Quayle was a ridiculous pick and totally unprepared to be president if the need had arose. Similarly, President Nixon chose a partisan buffoon, Spiro Agnew, to be his vice-president. Nixon never asked Agnew’s advice about anything. But if Agnew hadn’t been forced to resign over corruption charges arising from his time as the governor of Maryland, he would have been our 38th president. Think about that.
There is a strain of know-nothingness that has run through the Republican Party in the post-war years. We’ve had competent, but flawed, presidents like Eisenhower, Nixon, and Poppy Bush. We muddled through with Reagan, who was able to lean on Bush in many circumstances. But we’ve also flirted with Agnew and Quayle and Palin. And we had the absolute disaster of George W. Bush’s two-term presidency.
And look at the field of candidates the Republicans are providing to us this time around. It’s really an insult that they want us to seriously consider Herman Cain or Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann as potential presidents. They literally know nothing about anything, and what they think they know is wrong. We have Gingrich prattling on about the dangers of Shariah Law. He have Romney wanting to stay in Iraq, double the size of Gitmo, and zero out all our foreign aid commitments. The only candidate in the field who resembles a real presidential candidate is Jon Huntsman, who (campaign rhetoric aside) is at least worldly enough to have some clue how to behave on the international stage.
I know Dennis Kucinich has a quirky idea or two, but you can go back to JFK and not find any Democratic presidential candidates who were one-tenth as unprepared to be president as the majority of the current Republican candidates. I’m not talking about ideology. I’m talking about being able to find foreign countries on a map. You have Michele Bachmann decrying democratic governments in the Arab world and asking us to emulate communist China in our social policies. Nothing like that ever happened on the Democratic side.
I just think it is dangerous that we have one party in our two-party system that puts absolutely no premium on knowledge. These candidates should know better than to run. And the people should know better than to support them.
I just think it is dangerous that we have one party in our two-party system that puts absolutely no premium on knowledge. These candidates should know better than to run. And the people should know better than to support them.
They would, if we had an actual “mainstream” media that did their job. But alas, we don’t.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
—H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
You have to admit that having a complete box of rocks as President is a pretty good way for the Republicans to reinforce their message that the government isn’t capable of doing anything right.
To be fair, the Democratic presidential fields have also had a few people utterly unqualified for the post (c.f. Al Sharpton). The difference is that the Democratic electorate never embraced them.
I forgot about Sharpton. That’s fair. Can you come up with another?
I can’t. Although I don’t remember what particular qualifications Edwards claimed on anything in 04, and he went on to get the VP nod, so I might not know what I’m talking about here.
Jesse Jackson could have been forgiven for running an exclusively nationalistic campaign in the 80s, but he went out of his way to broaden himself to international issues. I think that about sums up the difference between the parties right there.
Mike Gravel.
Gravel was once a somewhat prominent US Senator.
Yeah, but so was Santorum and a lot more recently for that matter. I’m not saying Gravel is as crazy as Santorum (imo) by any stretch, but he was still clearly kind of a nutter. Remember those ridiculous campaign ads?
I bet he knew which country Gaddafi ruled with an iron thumb.
Rick Santorum was not a “prominent” Senator on the level of Mike Gravel. Santorum was swept up in the same way that Rand Paul got elected. Gravel understands policy, was perhaps the most instrumental Senator in ending the Vietnam War, and for that reason was very important in the 1972 elections. I mean, maybe being instrumental in 1972 isn’t exactly a great track record given the smackdown of McGovern…but it’s not Santorum or any level of the Republican field.
So ok, in 2008 his run wasn’t “serious,” but I want him up there for the same reason I want Ron Paul up there at the Republican debates: to push the envelope of what is “accepted” (not in a more right-wing or left-wing manner, but sane versus insane). I hate Ron Paul, and I detest most of his supporters, but he still adds value — most especially on foreign policy, as demonstrated the other night when he detested waterboarding as “un-American”. This isn’t to say that I want Paul at any higher level of government, but if I had to choose between your average Republican and Ron Paul representing Galveston, I’d pick Paul.
Cain, Santorum, Gingrich and Bachmann add nothing of value to any policy discussion but show the American people the real face of the Republicans, what the GOP has truly been about since Nixon. Maybe that’s an important addition after all…
In fairness to Rick Santorum, he did rise to hold the number three position in the Senate. The equivalent today would be Lamar Alexander. Not exactly a huge qualification, but he wasn’t just a backbencher.
Actually, to be more accurate, the equivalent today would be Chuck Schumer.
I take your points about Santorum and Gravel’s respective Senate careers. I frankly know very little about Gravel’s as it was so long ago. So I’ll assume what you say is accurate.
But I watched almost all of those Dem debates in 2007 and 2008, and as I recall Gravel was nothing but a distraction. He had some good points to make about the military-industrial complex, but did so in the manner of a cranky old uncle who’s had a couple beers too many ranting at the television set. Like Kucinich, figures like Gravel actually do a disservice to the supporters of their arguments, as they make it much easier for opponents to dismiss those viewpoints as crazy talk. People need to give some better thought to who they want as their messengers.
Moreover, if you want folks up there onstage with the legitimate contenders in order to provide a broader range of viewpoints, fine. I’m all for that within reason. I’m mildly glad that Ron Paul is allowed to take part in the GOP debates, to the extent that he provides a relatively sane viewpoint on a very small number of issues. I agreed with Dennis Kucinich on a lot of things in 2007, and if I didn’t find him to be a deeply irritating political figure I would’ve been glad he was up there with Barack and Hillary and Edwards, even though he didn’t have a chance in hell.
So as to provide a voice for for Democrats who are far more progressive than the current party platform allows.
But its hard where to know to draw the line. You want a variety of viewpoints. But you don’t want the fringi-er candidates to suck up oxygen that the legit candidates could otherwise use to reveal themselves to the electorate. Gravel was the latter. He presented himself poorly, wasted debate time, and as a result added no value to nomination process.
Those are all good points. And I agree with them. And it could be that Mike Gravel was a little old needed to tighten some screws. But he knew where Libya was and who ran it. He didn’t want to emulate Communist China’s social policies. He could tell you which newspapers he reads or which departments of government he wanted to reform, and why.
Fair, and I agree. In fact, I’d say Gravel has a tough time if you disagree with him and gets a little angry about it; his tax policy would probably be more progressive than the current tax code, but it’s too idealist and leaves people too dependent on government checks. If you told him this, rather than discussing it he might scowl.
However, Gravel wasn’t there as long as these jokers. I believe he wasn’t even allowed to any debates past October. So even on the “sucking up oxygen argument” he still isn’t comparable.
Also, what Booman said.
Sharpton might be unqualified and unsavory(see Tawana Brawley), but he has a clue. No one in the GOP race can think for themselves.
Is there a law which says you shouldn’t vote for anyone smarter than yourself because you might not understand what they are doing? If you idolise egotism, consumerism, materialism, magical thinking, and prejudice over a public service ethos and a determination to understand and make the world a better place, should we be surprised absolute morons get elected?
If corporations have a vested interest in having ineffective government, should we be surprised that they promote stupid leaders? If politics is reduced to branding and image management, should we be surprised that the leaders who get elected represent brands, emotional “values”, positions on hot button issues, and photogenic TV “personalities” rather than any substantive understanding of public policy?
If the price of a gallon of gas is your yardstick for what political achievement should be, don’t be surprised that you get asset stripping, environment degrading, war making lunatics in power. You are getting what it says on the tin. If you let yourself be bought, don’t be surprised if you are sold for a song.
None of them are potential leaders of the free world. They couldn’t even lead from behind because they have successfully self identified themselves as victims. We’ve got some christians who are on a mission from God but, are victims of persecution from non evangelicals. One who is a victim of a Google search. Most declare they are victims of media bias. Some are victims of dirty tricks from identified and unidentified enemies of the left or right. The only other place you could find this many victims in one place would be in the center ring at the circus.
~Alexander Hamilton in response to Robert Bartlett about what type of government we should be
Now in retrospect perhaps Hamilton was wrong and Bartlett was right; when you have too many wealthy people detached from the everyday people, you don’t get good governance, per se. But Hamilton’s point is the same point that Jon Stewart made: “I want the smartest possible person leading this country, not some schmuck down at the local radio station.”
I don’t know how it looked in Hamilton’s day, but the problem now is that there’s zero correlation between the rich, the wise, and the learned. We don’t have an aristocracy in Hamilton’s sense; those ditches he so despised have been turned into gated communities and Central Park condos.
It just occurred to me that the spirit of what Hamilton wanted is, for better or worse, pretty closely fulfilled by Obama. But it probably was by Wilson, too, so the formula is open to some skepticism.
I think Hamilton’s own experience clouded his views on the meritocracy. He strongly believed in government and success based on merit and merit alone, and if we followed that, we’d be prosperous. I suspect he thought this because of his own upbringing and success against the odds, despite constantly being stuck in debt (often because as a lawyer he took up causes he believed in, not that which paid the most money). Having been born a bastard on an island in the Caribbean to rise up and be Washington’s most trusted follower might blind any of us.
Anyway, I agree with you about Obama. He’s the president we don’t deserve when it comes down to it…
all of the founders believed that people of ability should govern. See Jefferson and Adam’s letters, for example.
They also believed that this aristocracy should not be based on inherited wealth. Even Hamilton wrote about the dangers of to much concentration of wealth.
Gore Vidal once said something interesting regarding all of this. He noted that the very smart have a tendency to want to tell everyone how smart they are, and as a result they alienate others. This was what was remarkable, he thought, about Lincoln, who was always the smartest person in the room, but was more than happy to appear to be the dumbest.
Republicans seem to understand this better than Democrats. It was silly in the extreme for Jr. to play the Texas guy given his education at Yale and Harvard. I think the founders would have approved, though. The elite must govern, but in a Democratic Society they much appear not to be elite. This deception is something that I think the founders anticipated.
I saw that bit of the interview with Cain and I have a somewhat different interpretation. I’m willing to cut Cain some slack on his memory problem. Maybe he really was very tired, as he says. It was painful to watch, but once he finally got the track he did not come off as having nothing to say. Rather, it sounded like something he, or more likely he with his advisors, had gone over at some point. It’s just that ultimately the argument was toally conjectural and had no weight.
Cain said that he didn’t like the way the president handled Libya, and that he would have done it differently, would have gotten more specifics about the nature of the opposition and based his response on that information. The point he wanted to get across was that he is a very deliberate decisionmaker that understands the value of information. Actually that’s kind of refreshing in comparison with most of the other Tea Party clowns.
But Cain himself has absolutely no idea of what information the president had, or sought, on the subject, what decisions he made or what information he based those decisions on. So how can he say he didn’t like the way the president handled it or that he would have done things differently? In that sense he came off as both pretentious and disrespectful, without even giving any susbtantial basis for the criticism.
The “argument” resembled a sort of third-hand rehash of many of the criticisms made at the time — all of which were based on the fact that the president was not freely discussing what he knew or what he was doing. Which is hardly surprising under the circumstances. I’d be willing to bet that Obama did ten times as much deliberation as Cain could even dream of.
In fact, I would suspect that the reason Cain had trouble remembering his talking point was that it had come up quite a while back, because the criticism has a dated quality. It’s as if Cain did not realize that Obama had largely won the argument by facts on the ground. Not that everything’s now hunky dory in Libya, not by a long shot. But to turnthat into a valid criticism of Obama would require a rather different, and more complex, argument.
You probably have never taught a class and listened to students who haven’t done the reading “discuss” the reading. That’s what Cain sounded like. all of what he said was “filler” once he got the interviewer to tell him what Obama’s position on Libya was. It was horrifying to watch.
No, actually I have. Your description of it is perfect. It occurred to me after I wrote the comment, that is what it reminds me of — someone who crammed for a test and is trying to get the questioner to supply clues. But I still think it was better than Perry’s performance.
I see what you mean about cram for exam (when he says “Oh no, that’s the other one”) except he didn’t cram, he asked his roommate for some pointers over a beer or something. If he were a student we could fail him, or fail him in the midterm and see if he shapes up. A president who knows NOTHING about current international events? not to mention the 20th century which covered most of his lifetime? (China may want nuclear weapons). Only if we really want to be a has-been nation, which is where Koch bros want to take us (e.g. Mexico)
I think this is just a continuation of the rampant anti-intellectualism in this country. Comments about academics being stuck in ivory towers, derogatory remarks regarding prestigious universities, etc.
Stephen Colbert’s shtick about wanting a president who goes with “their gut” rather than worrying about “facts” because “reality has a well-known liberal bias” is making fun of this.
There appears to be a significant group of people who can’t find countries on map who are of the opinion that their president should be equally ignorant.
Romney is the only one truly interested in actually being President, well perhaps Perry is as well, but the rest are just on one long junket of grift, expertly playing the MSM who loves themselves a horse-race. Cain is selling books, Gingrich is selling Newt, and he’s been grifting off of that for about 15 years now, the Donald was selling his TV show. The rest are jockeying to be the next Mike Huckabee. What is truly embarrassing is the fact that the press corpse is a willing participant in this conspiracy of fraud.
You serve for four years. You get steno help, Secret Service protection for life–and an amazing pension. Plus. $400K per year and lavish lifestyle spending money.
And that’s all before you consider how much can be raked off the campaign money.
That’s what they call “taking personal responsibility”.
Actually, the SS protection is only for 10 years, as of 1997.
Why? Money, power, fame. The same thing that motivates the Al Capones, the Pinochets, the Madoffs. The ultimate fulfillment of the American Dream.
Your kid becoming president was the highest fantasy of parents a few generations ago. I wonder if that even crosses the minds of the newer crops of parents?
Now the dream is for your kid to become CEO of Goldman Sachs.
republican voters have fully embraced their idiocy and their bigotry, and insist on electing people just like themselves.
And “true progressives” are committed to helping them do so, as much as possible, just like they did in 2010.
You want the truth, BooMan?
Because, Barack Obama became President.
that’s the beginning, middle and end of the story.
since a BLACK man became President,
any old White candidate MUST be qualified…..don’t ya know.
Hmm, yes, in a post where Quayle, Agnew, and Herman Cain are all prominently mentioned, it must be that. Clearly.
To be fair to Reagan, George HW Bush was in fact chosen by Nancy’s astrologer, Joyce Jillson.
Maybe Cain has Early-onset Alzheimer’s. He really seemed lost. You know he was coached before hand and he has to watch Fox Spews so he is familiar with the subject. So my money is on Alzheimer’s …or Palinheimers. Palinheimers is a personality disorder where a politician exhibits severe ignorance, narcissism and greed. Usually accompanied by a big mouth and a lack of a soul. I’m having trouble sourcing that but trust me. So someone suffering from Palinheimer’s could look just as lost answering a question on foreign policy.
I disagree. To me he just looks disinterested in the topic. I don’t think I could talk any more intelligently about the pros and cons of Obama’s actions in Libya. But then I wouldn’t dream of running for President and putting myself in a position where I had to pretend I knew what I was talking about.
I first became aware of this in the 2008 election. As nasty as the rivalry sometimes became between the different Democratic candidates and their supporters, fundamentally I felt any of the top tier candidates were at least qualified for the office, and I would have been ready to support whoever the winner was without reservation. Meanwhile, even apart from politics, hardly any of the Republican nominees seemed qualified for the office they were running to me. I’d include Romney in this. At least as far as foreign policy is concerned, based on the last debate he’s nowhere near well informed enough to be considered seriously as a Presidential candidate. He only looks good, because of who he’s currently running against.
writings about the current field and Reagan ironic.
Ronald Reagan was an idiot. His knowledge of issues was not profound. I wonder if he would survived in the age of youtube and twitter. He said some astoundingly stupid things in 1980.
With one exception, the core Presidential GOP field’s credentials are about as good as the typical field. You have a former Governor, a current two term governor from the third largest state in the Country, a former US Senator, the former House Majority leader, and a member of the House.
In 2004 the Democrats included a 5 term governor (of a very small state), a General with no political experience, two senior Senators (Kerry, Dodd) and a Governor (Richardson), and one one term Senator who had been office 2 years before running for President (Edwards)
Of course, in terms of intellect there is an enourmous difference, but the political credentials are roughly equivelent.
I have to say the biggest shock to me is what an idiot Perry is. How he got to be Governor of the third largest state is beyond me.