I was just listening to a rehash of Governor Palin’s keynote address at the Nashville Tea Party Convention and was struck absolutely dumb by one of her applause lines… that the United States needs “a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law.” I’ve got a degree in political science and have watched candidates and elected officials since well before I could vote for any of them… and I have no idea what phrase actually means. I’m not sure anyone does. But to my horror the audience went wildly anyway.
As an aside, the sitting president, by definition, is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States (see Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution for reference purposes). In Article 2, Section 3, the Constitution also provides that the president will “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” For those of us who aren’t professors of law, that means that the president is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, among his other duties as assigned.
My point is simply this… Maybe knowing something about the law isn’t a bad thing if you want to be in charge of carrying them out. Having an education, whether it’s from Harvard, Frostburg, or Berkeley shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of or try to hide by dumbing down your vocabulary. What I basically heard a former governor say on television was that you shouldn’t be allowed to hold office if you’re too smart because you can’t understand the “common” man and woman. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m not comfortable with Joe Sixpack or Jane Hamburgerhelper setting foreign policy.
I think the thing that I find most troublesome about politics is the tendency of the masses to blame whoever happens to be in office for everything that happens. The reality is that the world we have today was built on a million small decisions by elected (and unelected) leaders who were Republicans and Democrats, Federalists, Whigs, Jeffersonian-Republicans, and others who had no party. The world is too complex to be effectively distilled into a 5 second sound bite. It’s nuanced and complicated… and it’s going to take more than “common sense” to correct the issues we face nationally and abroad.
If you want to disagree on issues, that’s a great and good thing. If you want to see change in government policy, that’s fine too. But don’t insult my intelligence by saying that because someone bothered to get an education they’re not qualified to lead. Pick a real argument, present it logically and appeal to my reason… Then maybe I can get behind it… until you do, it’s all just nails on a chalkboard.
