Such a statement seems obvious: Tea Party nominees are unfit for office. But, it's really the crux of the matter and we're overlooking it.
Remember when the Yippies in the form of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin went to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and ran a pig for president?
The Tea Party is doing the equivalent with its gaggle of goofball candidates, but it's not satire, not metaphor, not commentary on the system. They're doing it for real and actually getting the public to consider their ding dong idiots as being able to become competent senators and representatives.
The judgment "unfit" should be stamped across every one of their fliers, commercials, and press conferences.
Talk about lowering the bar for public office. Maybe the likes of Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller and the idiot of them all, Sarah Palin, will make it possible for anyone who has a hankering for a little fame or some undeserved notoriety to step forward thinking they are Cincinnatus, leaving their plow on the living room couch to come forth and save the country from liberals and progressives.
Sure, the bar for qualifications is low; that is, basically being of age and an American citizen for most offices, but the lack of self criticism and capability is appalling.
Most disturbing is thinking about any of these no-minds being in a crisis position. During my lifetime, I've lived through two crises that have brought the world to the eve of destruction:
- The Cuban missile crisis. I was twelve years old when the quarantine went into effect and I clearly remember climbing the stairs to my bed one night at about ten o'clock and wondering whether there would be a world in the morning.
- The 2007 financial collapse. Having watched the news during those days and shuddered along with the talking heads and the pundits, I became even more weak-kneed upon reading the accounts about Bernanke, Paulsen, and Geithner dealing with the near collapse of one financial institution after another, leading to the Lehman bankruptcy and its aftermath. Paulsen didn't have the dry heaves for nothing.
Now, can you imagine any of the Tea Party nominees getting even close to dealing with such crises? Anyone with a lick of sense on this basis alone should be willing to do anything and everything from keeping these unfit candidates from attaining office.
The flip side of crises is the mundane practices of governing: making laws, holding hearings, understanding the workings of Congress. There isn't anything about any of the Tea Party candidates that speaks to their qualifications for handling the minutiae of being a representative or a senator.
We tried this in Minnesota, where I am, with the election of Jesse Ventura as governor. Despite his rhetoric and good intentions, he was terrible at governance. Fortunately, he had enough sense to get out of the job after four years, probably realizing that there's more to being in office than making flip comments on David Letterman.
The Tea Party nominees are unfit to hold political office. Regardless of what we think of the Obama administration and the Democratic controlled house and senate, we should nonetheless work hard to keep the Tea Party nominees out of office.