Most know that Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. And most know that to do so requires a lot of work and brains. The Ivy League is not everything, but graduating from Harvard Law School does reflect a certain amount of academic achievement. He also was voted President of the Harvard Law Review, a singular achivement. Being very intelligent and hard working does not mean you're always going to be right, and in my view, President Obama has made plenty of errors. But being very intelligent and hard working does mean you can understand difficult and compex issues, and that improves your chances of getting it right more often than not. I think the Presidency requires that. Brains, smarts, hard work.
Decisions made by the President can affect war and peace, life and death. Look at George Bush. Not really dumb (Texas Law School rejected him, but Harvard Business School took him in for an M.B.A.), but not intellectually curious, certainly not in the league of Barack Obama in terms of intelligence and hard work. And we paid for Bush's mediocre mind and work ethic as Cheney manipulated him into the invasion of Iraq. Or as Bush pushed policies that lead to the Great Republican Recession we still are in. (Yes, his class world view and ideology also drive the decisions.)
College grades aren't everything; they don't determine your life, but they do show some things. They are a data point that can be used with others.
So all things considered, I prefer an intelligent and hard working president, even if he makes errors, over one who glories in ignorance as a virtue. If that makes me an intellectual elitist, so be it.
That brings me to Rick Perry and his speech at Liberty (Falwell) University, a bastion of "Christian" intolerance.
He talked there "in a speech that seemed to go to great lengths to explain and rationalize his poor academic performance in college, something that has already been an issue in the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination."
At least at the start of college, Mr. Perry did not make any F’s, turning in mostly C’s along with a smattering of B’s and one A as well as one D, which he received for a class in plane trigonometry during the spring semester of 1969, according to a copy of his transcript obtained by The Huffington Post.
The grades did not improve as his college career went on, as Mr. Perry pushed ahead with some of the more difficult science courses including organic chemistry, in which he made a D one semester and an F in another.
His other D’s included courses in the principles of economics, Shakespeare, “Feeds & Feeding,” veterinary anatomy, and what appears to be a course called “Meats,” though the quality of the copy of the transcript makes it hard to tell for certain.
“Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me,” he joked, suggesting his experience in what is traditionally a weeding-out class for doctors and other medical professionals focused his immediate career aspirations toward the military. Mr. Perry was a pilot in the United States Air Force in his 20s. His transcript shows two semesters of organic chemistry and two organic chemistry lab courses.
On the other hand, he also scored B’s in introductory literature, government, soil science, algebra, business law, and a course on the marketing of livestock.
NY Times
Some were tough classes, it was the late 60s, so maybe he was high a lot (although he'd never admit it). Texas A&M may not be Harvard, but I'm sure you can get a good education there and they have standards. But those are far from steller grades.
Perry went into the Air Force and became a pilot (Remember Bush?). And he's done well in life, elected to political office for 25 years, practicing crony capitalism to make himself wealthy, governor of Texas for 10 years.
You can't be dumb to do that. You must at least be clever and ruthless.
But haven't we seen this movie before? Perry makes Bush II look smart.
In 2000, I voted for Ralph Nader (I lived in a state where it made no difference in the final vote, Bush won by 2 1/2 % while Nader got 1 1/2 % of the vote). I was very frustrated with Clinton/Gore and gave up on the Democrats. They were neo-liberals. I even drove around Nader once when he came to make a speech and talked with him. He made a lot of sense and I agreed with much he said. On the substantive issues, I still do. On tactics, however, I was wrong (and so was he).
Some thought (not sure if Nader did because he never joined the Greens), but some felt that a good showing would build the Greens, and eventually, over time, as the Greens grew they would either push the Dems left or lead to a split among Dems in which progressive Dems left and joined the Greens to make a real progressive party. The better Dems so to speak either would prevail in the Dems for fear of losing votes to their left flank or leave. That was the hope as I understood it.
Nader knew there were differences between Rs and Dems, but felt long term those differences were not as significant as their similarities in upholding corporate power. The events of the last decade show he was not completely wrong.
And I saw Bush II as like his father, conservative, but a softer, gentler one. He talked compassionate conservatism. I thought Gore would win anyway, so voting Nader seemed right at the time.
And I was so wrong.
I don't say this to discourage those who feel they must vote or support a third party alternative. They do it in good faith and, while disagreeing, I respect their choice.
The Gore in 2000 to me seemed another corporate Democrat with some Green rhetoric. Remember, it was not until 2002 when he came out against the invasion and worked with moveon and then with his movie that Gore became loved by progressives. In 1988 and 92, he was seen as a conservative/moderate democrat.
And NAFTA, ending welfare, a lost opportunity for Democrats after so long under R rule (1968 to 92, with the exception of the conservaDem Carter). What was moderate in 1972 had become radical, a third party ideology now, as I saw it. The Party kept moving rightward.
Yet this country would have been so different if Gore had been elected, flawed as he was. The EPA would have been an EPA. He would not have invaded Iraq. There would have been no Bush tax cuts. It may not have been a liberal paradise, but it would not have been a Bush hell. We might have avoided the bubble and Great Recession.
Perry does not have the brains Bush did. Say what you will about Barack Obama, and I have at times, the man's smart. That gives me hope. He can learn and adapt, and I see some signs of that recently.
There's always hope with a centrist Obama who is intelligent and looks at data. I'll be pissed off at a lot of decisions in the future, as I have been in the past, and as I would have been with Gore if he had won in 2000.
I see 2000 again in 2012, although without a third party that could compete as well as the Greens did then. But I see and feel the lack of enthusiasm, the frustration like 2000 in me and among some folks. That thought that the Dem party as a whole is worthless and will never change. The lack of hope.
Then I think back to 2000. If only Gore had won, so many lives would not have been lost.
And I know what I have to do.
(Sort of stream of consciousness and ended a different place from where I was planning to go, but so be it.)