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« Wishin' and Hopin' | Main | Newt Says »
Monday
Dec122011

Nothing v. Everything

DateMonday, December 12, 2011 at 07:44AM

I read here that Rick Perry couldn't name all of the Supreme Court justices. 

Cain couldn't remember which side Obama was on in Libya, or even which of the many Libyan conflicts his interviewer was referring to.  

Apparently the snappy retort from both is: Presidents don't have to know that stuff, and the related assessment, that knowing details like how many Supreme Court justices there are is an unattractive quality in a candidate.

Then, there's Newt "Knowitall" Gingrich.  He knows everything.  He knows more than everything.  He takes random facts and synthesizes them and creates a whole nother universe of True Stuff to be his exclusive gated community of Knowledge that only Newt has the gate code for.  He's the Chuck Norris of Eggheads.**

I'm having a Goldilocks moment.  Can't we just embrace a candidate who is rather well informed, has a good grasp of the facts, a reasonable grasp of the background of most things but not so fabulous a background that he has to pull the Ottoman Effing Empire out of his hat when discussing the Palestinians?  Where is my just right candidate?

Note to Newt: 90% of the people out there don't know what the Ottoman Empire is.  The ones who do think you're a pompous corruptocrat.  

You're welcome.

_______________

** From Newsweek, via Mona Charen: "“You take brain science, you take personal and Social Security savings accounts, you take offering the poor the opportunity to work and have a paycheck instead of food stamps, you take "Lean Six Sigma"– a management-efficiency doctrine, his latest fascination– " and suddenly you have a Gestalt that is in many ways conservative, but in many ways very moderate"   

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