that the United States is short on qualified leaders because we're again
fooling ourselves into thinking the current crop of candidates for
president is adequate.
We're a nation obsessed with business but ironically very lax in our
judgment of potential statesmen.I think of it as a national insanity.
Seriously.
If you've tried getting a job in any of the major professions or in
management during the past 20 years, you may have noticed an increasing
effort by employers to find the "right" person for each job.
A college degree was for many years in high demand; over the past ten
years it has become a requirement in most professions. Sometimes a
degree trumps years of experience. Sometimes there's this thing
they call "fit," which is often just a judgment call. But you
always have to be qualified.
In the race for president, though, the use of the term "unqualified
for office" has reached the level of cliche, and that's a big mistake.
Candidates now call each other "unqualified" as often as Simon Cowell
criticizes a "singer."
But the criticisms are correct: Most of these candidates really are
unqualified.
The presidency is the most high-profile and most important elected
office in America. The individual who holds that office can
influence any number of US policies, trends and cultural agenda.
Oh, and then there's that pesky nuclear option.
Why, then, do we insist on coming up with candidates who have little
or no experience in the duties and disciplines of the office?
What do I mean? Well, you try to get a job as a nuclear
researcher. Let's say you have experience as a librarian or a
supermarket manager. Does that qualify you for nuclear researcher (NR)?
Well, you have some of the skills of an NR when you're a librarian;
you're skilled at research. You have some of the skills as a
supermarket manager because management skills and attention to detail
are part of the NR job description.
But while you can certainly apply for the NR position, you won't get
it -- because you're not really qualified.
If you're a stocker, you can apply for the position of supermarket
manager, but you won't get it. Companies expect their people to work up
the ladder.
But if you're running for president of the United States, we don't
think twice about considering one-term Congress people, two-term state
governors or people who've never held elective office as possible
candidates -- if we like them.
I like Obama. But then, I like Hillary Clinton.
I even like George W. Bush...
...but can you imagine any company or non-profit hiring people at
$100,000 or 200-grand a year only because they like them? It's
unthinkable to begin with, because of the incompetence that would become
rampant in the organization.
In the private sector, we hire people based on their abilities,
experience and education. With the huge competition among businesses,
there's little time for a learning curve these days. If you're
hiring for a job, you need someone with proven ability to do it from
day one, preferably someone who's already doing that or a very
similar job!
But with the top office in the land, we allow a learning curve that
goes on for months.
It's only with politicians that we Americans will hire someone even
though they have little or no experience in a really similar office.
We just turn the job over to them and wish them well with that learning
curve. Gee. Hope it doesn't take 'em too long...
Are you sure that doesn't sound just a little insane?
When it comes to what many believe to be the most important job in
the world, we get ideologues who promise US citizens and even
non-citizens anything -- whether they
can deliver it or not, and they can't because they've never had the damn
office so how do they know what they can do? -- and we get overly-confident
charmers who tell us just what we want to hear.
And worst of all, we believe them and turn them loose once they have
the job.
No wonder it's a big American pastime complaining about the
president, whoever it might be.
Candidates are held up before us with a charming style, or a good
rhetoric and/or some light experience outside the federal government,
and we end up voting for the "lesser of evils."
Sure, it promotes the idea that "anyone can be president."
That's the old American ideal. But
it also makes a mockery of the American concept of "earning a
promotion."
Good luck trying for that CEO position you've been longing
for.
If anyone can come from nowhere (like Barack Obama, George W. Bush,
Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter) with little or no federal government
experience and go for the top job and not be laughed out of the race but
instead encouraged, taken seriously or even idolized,
what does that say about us as an electorate?
And we have to put up with these political learning curves every time
we get a new president these days. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton,
Bush...now another one. The last president who didn't have a long
learning curve in office was Bush Senior because he'd already been vice
president.
Now it's become a laughable process administered and propagated by
fools, and that includes us, the electorate.
So what's the answer?
Okay, call me crazy but how about allowing top cabinet members to run
for office? In the 2008 race, the Democrats have been running a lawyer
married to a lawyer versus a lawyer married to a lawyer.
If we have to have lawyers for presidents, why doesn't the attorney
general ever run? Or maybe the secretary of state? U.S.
Attorneys have federal experience, who's stopping them? Ever heard of a
Supreme Court justice running for president? Why not?
Because it's below their dignity.
Why is it always some congressperson or governor anymore, always trying to
sell his or her "experience" when we know it isn't true when applied to
the executive branch?
I like this idea: Identify brilliant people long before the election,
people who have experience in how government works, who also are good
administrators and understand politics and who have a good personality
and sense of humor and who also happen to absolutely love America?
Over 35 and a citizen, of course. Military service would be nice but
not required. It would be secondary whether they're good speakers
or are self-promoting or have pledged their lives to their political
party. I bet we could find dozens of these people in America.
Just get them past a background check, then turn the
increasingly-deceptive and partisan political parties loose on the final
prospective candidates for vetting.
But don't let the political parties search out the potential
candidates! Let a group of regular folks do that. I'll even volunteer to
be one of the geeks who find the next set of nominees.
Who knows? We might even end up with a good leader who's
competent from day one and who's dedicated to What's Best For America,
rather than the continual and unending What's Best For My Campaign
Contributors and My Party.
Come on, we've got presidential candidates who accept huge monetary
contributions and who make promises to American citizens that conflict
with the wishes of their contributors. So when they get into office, who
do they screw? The citizens. We need someone who'll turn
around and screw the contributors once they're in office.
When you're president you're supposed to serve the people of America,
not campaign contributors.
And maybe that new kind of president will talk to us, tell us what
he's really doing as often as possible instead of doing things and
waiting for us find out later. As my grandfather used to say, That would
be different.
But then, my theory has always been that private people who don't
seek out public service are precisely the people who should be in
public service. So draft the great people into service. Let
the people who live for the limelight go into show business or become TV newspeople, who cares?
And there are a number of self-aggrandizing people who live
for "public service" (i.e. the limelight) who should be forced to work a
Postal Service window. That, too, is a kind of public service, so
run with it, public servants!
Brilliant leaders with innovative ideas, knowledge, respect for
fellow Americans and some people skills would be a refreshing change
from the leaders of the last 20 or so years, and now I'm not just
talking about the presidency.
Leaders of all kinds who have new ideas but who don't want to be president,
well, draft 'em. Force 'em
to do it. They'll get used to it. Everyone loves attention.
They'll even start to love the limelight after a few months. I guarantee
it. They'll probably even go for a second term.
Once elected, all we have to do is make sure they spend at least half
of each year outside the Washington Beltway, but in the United States. Don't
let 'em be caught up in the fake Washington Way. And jets paid for by taxpayers shouldn't be theirs to run off to Istanbul on
a "fact-finding mission" while living it up in nice hotels, also paid
for by taxpayers.
Then a statesman rather than a politician might occupy the White
House again, and maybe that person will listen to the people who
actually put
him or her there via the ballots, and forget about the lobby, corporate
and special interest money it took to pave the way.
It's the money it takes to get these people to the White House that's
demanding the corruption.
Let the lobbies buy off Congress; they've always be for sale. The
presidency should be above all that.
But then, that's just me, y'know? M.S.
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by Mike Shiloh |
