Friday, January 9, 2009

Qualifications Don't Matter

Democrats have a funny relationship with the concept of suitability for public office. You'll recall that Sarah Palin, who was actually a governor of a state and a former mayor, was not deemed fit to run for the one office in government that really requires no particular qualifications, but Barack Obama, who had almost no public record, was deemed eminently prepared to be the leader of the free world.

Now we have Al Franken, whose primary qualification for high office is that he is a comedian and a tax cheat who professes to enjoy pornography with his twelve year-old son, being elected to the U.S. Senate by Democrats in Minnesota, the same people who once elected a man to be their governor whose only preparation was that he was once a professional wrestler.

We also have the spectacle in New York of a woman who can scarcely string together three words without interjecting a "you know," and whose chief claim on public office is that she's a Kennedy, being appointed by the Democratic Governor to fill the vacant Senate seat of another woman whose only qualification for being elected to that seat in the first place was that she is the wife of a former president.

We also have witnessed this week the appointment by our Democrat President-elect of a man to head the CIA whose only apparent qualification for that job is that he's "politically savvy."

During the Clinton years, when the President was fending off criticism for his various peccadillos, we were frequently reminded by Democrats that "character doesn't matter." Now they're telling us that qualifications don't matter. I can't wait to see what doesn't matter next.

RLC