Joke candidates tend to give joke answers to easy questions. I guess there are some people who think it’s easy to be president of the United States and that anyone can do it. Do you remember when candidate George W. Bush demonstrated that he didn’t know the names of the leaders of India, Pakistan, Taiwan, or Chechnya? Obviously, most people can’t name them either, but most people aren’t trying to be commander-in-chief of the world’s most lethal arsenal. Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather Pizza, doesn’t have a clue what the words “Right of Return” mean in a Palestinian context. What that shows is that Mr. Cain is approximately 100% ignorant of the history of negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Again, that doesn’t separate him from the average voter, but it does mean that he has no business thinking he’s knowledgeable enough about foreign affairs to be in change of them.
I don’t think this position that I’m taking is an elitist position. Anyone should be able to become president. But there’s hard work involved in making yourself qualified for the position. Before you announce to the world that you are a candidate for president, you should have already done that hard work.
We have a right to expect our leaders to be highly educated and highly knowledgeable in ways that we are not. Unfortunately, the party that gives us Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle and George W. Bush and Sarah Palin doesn’t value book-learning or broad experience in the wider world. A graduate degree (in anything but business school) and a passport are almost disqualifiers for the Republican base.
Herman Cain probably just gained a few points in the polls by demonstrating that he doesn’t waste time thinking about foreigners and their stupid conflicts.
