This is actually a political post. But you gotta be just a little patient.
Back in my senior year at college, I was sitting in the Philosophy “department” (my college had one philosophy prof; I was waiting for him in his office), reading one of the academic philosophy administration’s trade mags (sorta like Variety or Radio and Records, only advertising job trends for post-structuralists and help wanted ads for Nietscheans). And I happened upon an article that explored a trend (or “trend”) of people applying to medical school with Bachelors’ in Philosophy (as well as, y’know, degrees in Chemistry and/or Biology, to boot). The piece touched heavily on the worth of, and need for, doctors who could see beyond the numbers in the test results (as important as they are) to the larger values and ethics of the field.
And in twenty-odd years of dealing with doctors (mostly pediatricians), I’ve seen there’s some merit to this; while medicine is at its core a scientific field, most of them still have to not only deal with people, but with people who are frequently under immense stress, undergoing some of the most miserable traumas in their lives. The best doctors do it very well; the worst are terrible.
The Minnpost last week had a post on the subject:
Do you have the personality to be successful in medical school?
A recent study, co-authored by a University of Minnesota psychology professor, has found that certain personality traits may be a better predictor of success in medical school than MCAT scores — particularly during the latter years, when students are out interacting with real patients.
As medical students become “more involved with patients and applied work, personality becomes more and more relevant and predictive” of how well they do in their coursework, said Deniz Ones, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and one of the co-authors of the study. I talked with her about the study on Thursday.
In other words, the real predictors of success in medicine are not the grades a student gets in high school, college and med school, or the half-decade of test scores leading up to medical school.
It’s the personality.
The study, which was published in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, looked at five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness), each with six different sub-traits.
The one trait that remained consistently important throughout the seven years of medical training was conscientiousness (competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, deliberation), said Ones.
“This is the dimension that is particularly found in education achievement because it’s related to effort and hard work,” she said. “It’s been shown to be related to college performance in other graduate settings as well.”
In medical school, however, conscientiousness became doubly important, said Ones, because attention and diligence is not only essential for good study habits, but also for diagnosing and treating patients.
But there’s a surprise; extroversion is the other apparently-dispositive trait for predicting success.
But another personality trait that showed up among successful medical students did surprise Ones and her colleagues: extroversion (warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement-seeking, positive emotions).
“At the beginning of medical school, this trait was actually negatively related to performance,” said Ones. After all, extroverted students are more likely to spend their time socializing rather than hitting the medical texts.
“But over time, if they managed to hang on, this liability became an asset,” said Ones. “This is the dimension that allows them to talk to patients, to have an interest in them and care about them.”
Of course, we’ve all run into doctors who lacked any human-interaction skills whatsoever. I’m willing to bet that the resident who presided over the early labor before my daughter’s birth, a dour Hindi woman with the people skills of the west end of an eastbound lawn mower, got really good grades in high school, college and med school.
“Most of education is geared toward the acquisition of knowledge and skills. That’s what MCAT assesses,” she said. That’s OK, she says, but, as this study and other research shows, how smart someone is often fails to predict how successful they’ll be at a specific profession — particularly one like medicine, which requires such strong people skills.
Of course, it goes well beyond doctors.
I read this study, and I’m reminded of the concentrated snootiness that the left – the “party of the people” – focuses on politicans who, for whatever reason, did things with their early lives other than playing the paper chase. Sarah Palin’s an obvious example – and too current, really. A much better one – Reagan. Reagan was an adequate high school student, went to a very obscure college (Eureka), got further adequate grades…
…and pretty much ended his academic career.
During Reagan’s political career, some razzed him for not having had a more distinguished academic career – as if he’d have done a better job of reviving the economy, restoring America’s mojo and peacefully toppling the Soviet Union if he’d started his adult life as an insufferable Ivy Leaguer.
Indeed – as the survey of medical students shows – he’s have likely not done nearly as well.
Think about it; the people who get into either medical school or the Ivy League based purely on their high school grades (let’s leave out legacy admissions for now) did so because they were among that thin film of high schoolers who were motivated from Junior High onward to do one thing; get grades. Not develop social skills; not diversify their personalities; not develop all the soft skills that go along with having to deal with people and navigate real life.
What do you get with a doctor or a politician whose highest pre-adult achievement was getting straight A’s, thereby getting into top-ranked schools? Someone whose entire formative experience is focused on the academic skills – reading, regurgitating facts on command, kissing ass – and who may or may not have the faintest interest in or empathy for you, the patient/voter.
And someone who may have put grades, if not in the back seat, at least in the shotgun position?
Well, the article above explains the results with doctors.
So do you think things are different for everyone else in the real world? Say, with the leader of the free world?
If I may, you seem to be ignoring this part of your own post (my emphasis added):
“The one trait that remained consistently important throughout the seven years of medical training was conscientiousness (competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, deliberation), said Ones.
“This is the dimension that is particularly found in education achievement because it’s related to effort and hard work,” she said. “It’s been shown to be related to college performance in other graduate settings as well.”
Effort. hard work. achievement, preparation for post-education life and success. Compared with……NOT doing those things.
You are more of a fan of Reagan than I am; let us for this discussion leave it at that. So…both he and Palin had brief careers related to sports, and both were governors of states with a Pacific coast line, and both had limited academic backgrounds at a time when for Reagan, I would argue that college educations were less of a requirement for having many careers than is the case in the last 20 years.
Just for starters, there is a huge difference between the states of California and Alaska. Alaska has a very tiny tiny population spread out over a big state; California has one of the largest populations, some of it very densely settled, and is one of the largest and most diverse in area with a couple of the largest /larger urban areas as well. Reagan learned a lot about politics and organizations with his involvement in SAG; Palin has no equivalent. Reagan served two full terms as California governor;if I recall, 67 or 68? before running for President. Palin did a stint as mayor in a town smaller than many schools, run by a professional manager instead of Palin. Palin’s was elected governor, and only served 2 1/2 years of that one term, and a good part of that she was out campaigning for the 2008 election.
As much as your veneration for RR may motivate you to see / seek another Reagan, with sincere respect, I think that wish is perhaps leading you to deceive yourself into thinking the few superficial similarities may lead to another, new, this time female equivalent of Reagan appearing on the current political scene.
For better or worse, Reagan was a one of a kind. Palin has shown none — NONE — of the gifts, or serious background that made Reagan who he was as a leader. That lightning isn’t going to strike twice; at best you might get a very small sizzle, followed by a pop and a fizzle.
I’m guessing that for people in most professions when dealing with ‘normal’ cituations, the people with better soft skills will be ‘more successful.’ (Although the metric of ‘success’ is not really described above. But that’s a different topic.)
However, if something goes terribly wrong at a very bad time I, for one, would rather have the introverted brainiac at the helm. That goes for medical providers as well as leaders of the free world.
And another thing…. The analogy b/t medical providers and presidents doesn’t hold up w.r.t. education.
Providing medical care seems to have the following attributes:
* Medicine a highly technical/scientific field
* Providers deal with many (relatively) small issues throughout any given day.
* the number of people interacting with a patient at any given time is very small – the physician in charge is making the call, period (although consulations with other physicians is good practice).
Leading a country (among other things):
* Not very technical or scientific – more diplomatic, etc.
* Leaders are dealing with a small, albeit very large/important, number of items, and usually the same ones from day to day
* Leaders have a staff of officials from which expertise/guidance can be drawn before any ‘diagnosis’ is rendered.
Not creating an analogy; just pointing out that a paper credential is, at best, a laughable prediction of ones’ value or competence in adult life.
Good thing our President was a Community Organizer, then, Mitch!
This ain’t about education. Al Sharpton’s CV is even less impressive than Palin’s but I do not remember any democrat — ever — saying that Sharpton’s lack of a college degree disqualified him for the office of the Presidency.
I think my ideal surgeon would have never spoken to another human being in his life who wasn’t a superior surgeon to herself. Nothing but study. As for a GP, yeah, a little people skills are nice.
I would like to know what “success” means in this, though. Is success patient satisfaction? Because that’s not always the sign of the best doctor. When the doctor, who knows more than the patient about medicine, tells the patient he is wrong and doesn’t need the expensive test, that can lead to an unsatisfied patient, even if the doctor was medically accurate.
Yeah, that ideal surgeon would inhabit a very “interesting” world. I wonder who would choose such a life.
Successful probably means successful where patients can choose their own doctors, DiscordianStooj. Success in a free (as in freedom) world probably means a satisfied patient. A doctor with good technical and people skills can probably let a patient know why they don’t need an expensive test. A doctor and patient with little or no freedom? Yeah, I guess since they have no choice they could be total jerks and it would not matter.
So pretty much everyone with insurance is unsatisfied, since pretty much every plan has “in-network” doctors and such?
I didn’t say they have to be jerks. But people don’t like being told they’re wrong, even if they have no idea what they are talking about.
I hope this makes you very happy then Terry –
Terry wrote “Al Sharpton’s CV is even less impressive than Palin’s but I do not remember any democrat — ever — saying that Sharpton’s lack of a college degree disqualified him for the office of the Presidency.”
Sharpton’s lack of education makes him unqualified to function as the president of the United States, one reason among many.
There are so very many other reasons why Sharpton is an unacceptable candidate that perhaps this reason lingered beneath your radar. I would be surprised if you could demonstrate that Sharpton ever had any significant support for a run at being elected president other than in his own mind.
Merry Christmas!
Mitch wrote”Mitch Berg Says:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
“Not creating an analogy; just pointing out that a paper credential is, at best, a laughable prediction of ones’ value or competence in adult life.”
And yet, I’m betting you wouldn’t want a surgeon operating on you who hadn’t graduated from med school, wouldn’t use a lawyer who hadn’t been to law school, wouldn’t go to a dentist who hadn’t graduated dental school, wouldn’t want an architect who hadn’t an education to design a house that you would then have built…………the list could go on indefinitely; you get the point.
So, no Mitch, paper credentials ARE indicative of competence in their adult life. Certainly it is not the only indicator, and people may have varying degrees of importance in what one chooses to do.
I find your persistence in denying the importance of education a bit surprising from the son of a school teacher. Or don’t you value what your education contributed to YOUR life? You know, skills like, oh………writing? Speaking well? Literature and history?
And yet, I never once heard this argument while Bush was in office……….. you know, rank and file conservatives complaining about how useless his ivy league education was. Not until Palin came along did anyone try to pretend that there wasn’t a difference between the education and competence resulting from that education of a highly regarded academic institution compared to a community college.
Gee, I wonder why that is…..oh, wait, no I don’t.
One more line of questioning.
Do you as a parent encourage Bun and Zam to do well in school, in preparation for their lives after school? And do you encourage them to aim after high school, to go to college – the best college that will accept them?
I’m assuming so, from the eloquent advocacy you’ve demonstrated on behalf of charter schools, but I’m asking anyway.
And if you are encouraging them to get some kind of post-high school education……….why? IF you really don’t think it is important to what they do in their adult lives.
And when you describe education as “Someone whose entire formative experience is focused on the academic skills – reading, regurgitating facts on command, kissing ass – and who may or may not have the faintest interest in or empathy for you, the patient/voter.”
Is that how you see education? I don’t recall kissing ass as a part of my education. I recall doing my level best to challenge my teachers, I recall doing a lot of reading, assigned and otherwise——-reading is good. I recall being reqired to base assertions in fact, and to research and challenge facts, not simply parrot or puke them out on command. What I don’t see you mentioning as educational achievement or academic skill is critical thinking, easily the most important formative experience in education.
Dog Gone said:
“I don’t recall … I recall …”
Wow. How old ARE you, Dog Gone?
And yet, I’m betting you wouldn’t want a surgeon operating on you who hadn’t graduated from med school, wouldn’t use a lawyer who hadn’t been to law school, wouldn’t
Sure, and irrelevant; those are professions with generally recognized standards. Doctors, engineers, dentists – you can’t find any of them who don’t have the credentials.
But that’s a complete strawman, and I’d hope you know it.
And for fields where there are no technical-competence accreditations – which covers the vast majority of all jobs in the world – it’s even more so.
I find your persistence in denying the importance of education a surprising
As well you should – because I”m not. And you seem to have particular trouble figuring out why.
Education is different from schooling. A person can be quite well-educated without formal schooling of any kind (my old drummer, with his tenth grade education and a voractious love of reading, knew more about western literature than most lit grad students I knew).
And intelligence, especially applied intelligence in any given area, generally has nothing to do with where one got one’s degree. That’s why I supplied the example of my competition with the Dartmouth twerp. By your standards, I shouldn’t have even applied for the job; how dare a grad of a mere liberal arts school go up against Ivy trash?
Furthermore, most people – as in, the imponderably vast majority – don’t find their sea legs at applying their own intelligence until they’re WAY older than 18 – by which time the formal education train has long left the station.
My point (or my big one at the moment): by age 40, anyone who is still going “I went to Harvard” needs to get beaten with sticks; if your accomplishments don’t speak for you, then shut the eff up. What you have done lately?
Mitch wrote:”My point (or my big one at the moment): by age 40, anyone who is still going “I went to Harvard” needs to get beaten with sticks; if your accomplishments don’t speak for you, then shut the eff up. What you have done lately?”
Not a strawman argument at all, but rather pointing out the fallacy inherent in your argument. In the case of two individuals that you compare for qualifications for serving as president, you demean the accomplishments of mutlitiple degrees with honor, including course work in international relations, while positing that community college prepares someone for president. I would dispute that argument
If the real consideration is what either did after college, I think being a professor of constititutional law and trumps being a sports reporter in the tiniest of competitive markets. State senator representing a vastly larger constituency is more significant than being the mayor of a town of 5,000. Senator representing a larger and more diverse constituency is more significant than being a partial term governor, and getting elected versus not getting elected is more of an accomplishment. Then there is the three books someone wrote themselves compared to a book that someone had to write for them – ghost writing being by definition someone writing it FOR you, NOT WITH YOU. Both individuals have been married, and parents – that’s a wash.
So………..if you really, seriously want to talk accomplishments, then your argument in comparing Obama and Palin don’t hold up. Comparing Reagan and Obama would be a better comparison.
As to your competing with a Dartmouth grad – hey, I know you. I’d always encourage you to compete for something, and believe you could succeed, and I have never ever diminished your talents and skills because of where you grew up or went to school – nor have you ever known me to do that to anyone else. What would be important would be a couple of things, including what part of your education, especially college, prepared you for that job – but also what else you’ve done, including post college education, formal or informal, applies to you doing that job. And what talents you have compared to the other applicants.
Education is something that I don’t see ending at college; it is something that should be ongoing, just sometimes less formally (and sometimes not so informal).
Perhaps I’m not understanding you, because what I’m reading looks a lot like trying to deny accomplishment in the name of being anti-eletist. I have NEVER denied that there are multiple kinds of accomplishment besides academic ones, or that they can sometimes be equally important in terms of doing a particular job.
The problem is in the objectivity of assessing those credentials and abilities. I was insulted here with being called a snob for respecting academic accomplishment. My arguments about relative numbers of constituents as an indicator of job difficulty was pretty much ignored.
Snobbery had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I think you are well aware Mitch that I have never valued people, or their expertise, exclusively on the basis of where they went to college or even IF they went to college. I certainly have never selected my friends on the basis of financial or geographic backgrounds.
What I tried to do in a previous discussion was first look to quantifiable measures before less objective / more subjective ones. I think that is the problem with a similar discussion here. You are – as I read it – trying to make an argument against those objective measures. Respectfully, I think that is a losing argument. What would make more sense, respectfully, is to better define those subjective criteria, recognizing that there will be less agreement about them because they are subjective, and then showing why Palin (in this case) has thoses less objective but still valid qualifications in greater measure than Obama.
Which is the second hurdle to overcome in this argument. Because if you are going to argue that Palin has valid non-academic strengths, you have to allow that Obama is not only defined by his academic strengths either.
Dog Gone, Obama was not a professor of constitutional law. He was lecturer. Professors publish. Obama did not publish. People who get advanced degrees and do not publish are not academics, they are teachers.
According to factcheck.org : the question was “Was Obama exaggerating or factually wrong in referring to himself as a “constitutional law professor” at the University of Chicago Law School even though his official title was lecturer?”
The answer from factcheck.org was : ” His formal title was “senior lecturer,” but the University of Chicago Law School says he “served as a professor” and was “regarded as” a professor.”
The official UC statement about his status is:
“UC Law School statement: The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as “Senior Lecturer.” From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”
also from factcheck.org on the subject:As a “senior lecturer,” Obama was in good company: The six other faculty members with the title include the associate dean of the law school and Judge Richard Posner, who is widely considered to be one of the nation’s top legal theorists.”
I believe your comments about publishing are correct for those who are on the tenure-track, but less clear-cut when not on a tenure-track. Teaching constitutional law for 12 years is still a respectable achievement after completing his ‘formal education’, as is being a full member rather than adjunct of this faculty with offers to become a tenured faculty member.
But thank you for sending me off to research again what I had remembered from reading earlier. I hope that in light of this, I have used the term professor correctly to your satisfaction. I enjoy comments like yours very much.
Troy Says:
December 24th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Dog Gone said:
“I don’t recall … I recall …”
“Wow. How old ARE you, Dog Gone?”
Troy, didn’t anyone teach you it was rude to ask a woman her age, LOL?
As I’ve stated previously, I’m a little older than Mithc, a ‘boomer’ if you will.
I recall or I don’t recall are gentler ways of disputing a point; what some people term ‘soft skills’.
Not a strawman argument at all
Yes, it was. Surgery, the law, medicine and engineering all have professional certifications. Education is a component of all of them. So when you ask me if I’m blase about education with a doctor or surgeon, it is the very definition of a strawman. Indeed, anyone calling themselves a doctor or engineer who’s not been to school is breaking the law.
It’s not just a strawman, it’s an absurd one.
In the case of two individuals that you compare for qualifications for serving as president, you demean the accomplishments of mutlitiple degrees with honor, including course work in international relations, while positing that community college prepares someone for president. I would dispute that argument
Feel free, but it wasn’t my argument.
My argument – and I’ve repeated this at least twice, now – is that a paper credential that reflects nothing but a person’s application to academics between the ages of 12 and 26 should not be seen as a dispositive sign of ones capacity to do any kind of job that isn’t directly technically related to the degree itself (and even then, experience always matters more anyway).
Are we clear on this?
If the real consideration is what either did after college, I think being a professor of constititutional law and trumps being a sports reporter in the tiniest of competitive markets.
Two points:
“Trumps” it…as what? As sign that someone was a *lecturer* at a law school? Sure; in the cosseted, utterly academic world of the legal academy, he had it going on. Good for him. That he could solve problems, bring people to consensus, and make decisions? Being a lecturer or a professor is of vastly less use than working in a craft. And while you disparage small-market broadcasting, it is in fact a great training ground for some of the most useful skills there are; thinking on ones’ feet; solving problems that may be outside (sometimes waaaay outside) your formal training; dealing with people in an environment where you have to negotiate with them. Being a low-level academic is utterly useless to any of those.
We seeing a pattern, here?
State senator representing a vastly larger constituency is more significant than being the mayor of a town of 5,000
And that’s the third time you’ve brought that up.
And for the third time in response; you’re comparing apples and axles. Senators at any level have ZERO executive responsibility. That’s why Senators make such uniformly awful presidents; they have no experience with accountability. None (at least, none from their Senate careers). Obama has never, not once in his life, had a job where the buck stopped with him.
This has been explained several times now. You really need to stop ignoring it.
. Senator representing a larger and more diverse constituency is more significant than being a partial term…
…yadda yadda. Ibid.
Then there is the three books someone wrote themselves…
You seem to think that that grows more relevant with every time you repeat it. It’s not.
. Comparing Reagan and Obama would be a better comparison.
Well, no – because on their respective inauguration days, Reagan had eight years of experience as governor of America’s most (or possibly second-most) populous state. He was incomparably more qualified than Obama. Reagan never held a deliberative job in his life; his only political experience (SAG President, Governor, President), ever, was executive; the buck always stopped with him. In other words, it was of some use to being President.
Unlike anything Obama has ever done.
And yet there were those – many of them – on the left that poo-poohed all of that, because Reagan “only” attended Eureka. Not Harvard.
{{facepalm}}
As to your competing with a Dartmouth grad – hey, I know you. I’d always encourage you to compete for something, and believe you could succeed, and I have never ever diminished your talents and skills because of where you grew up or went to school – nor have you ever known me to do that to anyone else.
Well, thanks – but you are doing that. You’v said the mere fact that a 40-something attended Princeton in his teens and twenties makes him better qualified to lead people than going to a community college. Leadership is a personal skiil, and has nothing to do with ones’ education.
Education is something that I don’t see ending at college; it is something that should be ongoing, just sometimes less formally (and sometimes not so informal).
Right, but that’s different from your original point.
Snobbery had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I think you are well aware Mitch that I have never valued people, or their expertise, exclusively on the basis of where they went to college or even IF they went to college. I certainly have never selected my friends on the basis of financial or geographic backgrounds.
No, I’m with ya there. But…
What I tried to do in a previous discussion was first look to quantifiable measures before less objective / more subjective ones. I think that is the problem with a similar discussion here. You are – as I read it – trying to make an argument against those objective measures. Respectfully, I think that is a losing argument.
I’m not arguing against objective measures – although they’re of limited worth in gauging a leader’s potential. And I do hold, strongly, that a paper credential that represents ones academic drive from age 12-26 is of very dubious value in comparing 45-year-olds who have other merits.
What would make more sense, respectfully, is to better define those subjective criteria, recognizing that there will be less agreement about them because they are subjective, and then showing why Palin (in this case) has thoses less objective but still valid qualifications in greater measure than Obama.
Here are some criteria: some are more objective, some less:
– Executive Experience
– Experience with negotiations (with people who are neither peers nor subservients).
– Experience in a variety of walks of life (e.g running a business, as opposed to
spending ones’ entire life in academia or government)
– Ability (and demonstrated success) at delegating authority.
– Experience managing (NOT just deliberating) institutional budgets, and the negotiations the go along with ’em.
– Experience at dealing with “buck stops here” situations.
– And, yes, congruence with my personal political beliefs. I think that a high school
dropout who’s had too many concussions and doesn’t speak any English, but
is a free-market, limited-government conservative, will be a better President than
another big-government, tax-and-spend utopian who happened to go to Brown.
Is Palin the perfect candidate for president? Far from it.
–
Which is the second hurdle to overcome in this argument. Because if you are going to argue that Palin has valid non-academic strengths, you have to allow that Obama is not only defined by his academic strengths either.
Allow it? It’s all I’ve talked about! I have never thought for twenty seconds about his academic background; it matters not one iota to me.
I think I’ve made that clear, haven’t I?
Mitch writes: “Well, thanks – but you are doing that. You’v said the mere fact that a 40-something attended Princeton in his teens and twenties makes him better qualified to lead people than going to a community college. Leadership is a personal skiil, and has nothing to do with ones’ education. ”
Sorry, but I would argue that Obama has demonstrated more leadership in his career than you respect. And I would argue further that the complexities of the job of President of the United States needs a heckuva lot stronger preparation in terms of depth and breadth of knowledge, and critical thinking than is provided by community college. Leadership may be a different skill set, you haven’t demonstrated to me that Palin has it. It does NOT negate the importance of an excellent education; it is not either / or, it is a matter of AND. That you appear to be disparaging the value of education is apparent in phrases like “Being a low-level academic is utterly useless to any of those. ” Seriously? Being a TA for a lower level undergrad class is being a low level academic. Being a professor in law school is not. From the UC statement: “Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. ”
You describe these skills:”thinking on ones’ feet; solving problems that may be outside (sometimes waaaay outside) your formal training; dealing with people in an environment where you have to negotiate with them. ” I cannot believe that you are actually suggesting that a sports caster has mastered a greater competency in these skills, or used them more, than a state or US senator has. It defies reason. And are you seriously suggesting that law students don’t do their level best to put law professors on the spot, requiring them to think on their feet? You don’t think being a lawyer or law professor means understanding complex matters and being able to articulate them? Really?
You write:” And I do hold, strongly, that a paper credential that represents ones academic drive from age 12-26 is of very dubious value in comparing 45-year-olds who have other merits. ” Really?Because when it comes to understanding the role of this country in the context of the rest of the world, I can’t imagine Obama not being able to answer a soft-ball question about the Bush Doctrine. I’d expect him to be articulate with a hard-ball question, not have to have the interviewer explain to him what the Bush Doctrine was. I think it is important for a President to know that kind of thing. Which means that education is important, not of dubious value. So, maybe you should think about it for longer than 20 seconds.
And “Then there is the three books someone wrote themselves…
“You seem to think that that grows more relevant with every time you repeat it. It’s not.”
I see it as Palin claiming credit for and profiting from something that was not her work, while Obama wrote three books for which he does deserve the credit – another post-educational accmplishment. I admire good writing, including yours. Shouldn’t I?
You write (altering continuity here):
– Executive Experience: and
– Experience at dealing with “buck stops here” situations.
as you define them, isn’t this redundant, the same thing?
– Experience with negotiations (with people who are neither peers nor subservients).
Seriously, Mitch, are you suggesting that Palin’s partial term as governor gives her greater competence at this than someone who has negotiated legislation with their colleagues in office? NO.
– Experience in a variety of walks of life (e.g running a business, as opposed to spending ones’ entire life in academia or government)
I would argue that Obama’s work as a practicing lawyer qualified him in business, and why the heck should I ignore academia and government service as qualifications? And what business did Palin herself ever run?
– Ability (and demonstrated success) at delegating authority.
You don’t think someone who is succesfully handling a career AND teaching law school understands delegating authority to get things done???? And Palin has accomplished getting what things done exactly?
– Experience managing (NOT just deliberating) institutional budgets, and the negotiations the go along with ‘em.
Do you not understand that it is the legislative branch of government that handles the purse strings, not the executive?
Mitch wrote:”Snobbery had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I think you are well aware Mitch that I have never valued people, or their expertise, exclusively on the basis of where they went to college or even IF they went to college. I certainly have never selected my friends on the basis of financial or geographic backgrounds.
No, I’m with ya there. But…”
Thank you, but it would have been nice if you had said so earlier. Hugs to you and the kids; hope Santa was good to you and that the kids are handling the shoveling, LOL! Early wishes for a very happy new Year, to you and the ‘Mitchketeers’ – and especially to AC.
An FYI, I was a little vague on Palin’s CV, so I did a little checking.
After graduating college in 1987, she went to work as a sportscaster for two years and writer for the Frontiersman (I’m still trying to figure out how often she wrote, and how much). She then left that to help part time with the fishing business – but not apparently as an executive in any capacity. While Mitch may be very correct about the usefulness of small market broadcasting for learning a variety of skills, it doesn’t appear that Palin was very good at it. That small market broadcasting CAN provide opportunities for learning skills seems reasonable. That everyone who dabbles in it aquires those skills is a different matter, paticularly if they quit after a relatively short period of time.
Palin’s longest period sticing at a career was the two terms as mayor, when she hired a professional manager to make the executive decisions.
She then ran for lieutenant governor and lost. She then served on the Oil and Gas Conseration Commission, and quit over the ethics complaints she filed– however, the Democratic legislator, Eric Croft seemed to manage to sign the same complaints — without quitting.
After that Palin did two years working for a non-profit (527) political organization for Ted Steven’s……….and we know how ethical he turned out to be. This was pure politics, not even a hint of government employment in it. Followed by her run for governor in 2006, leading to an uncompleted term.
Gee, you know those important skills and other qualities you wrote about? Twelve years as a professor, and serving full terms in the IL senate and part of his US Senate term, leaving only to serve as President? That looks like someone who has longevity in a job, and who doesn’t QUIT.
Interesting information about Reagan, who graduated from college in 1932, when people going to college was less common. I haven’t verified this yet, but he was credited with having a photographic memory. Mitch, you probably know Reagan’s CV better than I do — is this true? Did he have a photographic memory where he remembered everything he read after just one glance?
I’m thinking if that was true, he had an advantage at mastering a lot of things that had nothing to do with the size of the college he went to, but to his credit he did get his degree in economics and poli-sci (useful, presumably in those government jobs Reagan held).
Dog Gone said:
“I cannot believe that you are actually suggesting that a sports caster has mastered a greater competency in these skills, or used them more, than a state or US senator has.”
Do you always put on those rose colored glasses before turning to CSPAN?