It seems like every time I turn on the news I find evidence that many of our political leaders are what might charitably be called dim bulbs, one taco short of a combo plate, etc.
I’m not talking about the people you simply disagree with. During the last campaign I had plenty of disagreements with both President Obama and Mitt Romney and from my perspective some of the things they said and some of the positions they took were just plain dumb.But that does not mean they are dumb, indeed both are pretty smart.
It’s only logical that all of us would think that, at least on some level, those who disagree with us have dumb views (sort of by definition we think our views are right and thus opposing views would be wrong) but that does not make them dumb people.
However these days it seems like have an increasingly large crowd of people who are just plain dumb. While those on the right certainly have gotten more press for the stupid things they say it’s fair to say that there are people like this on both sides.
I could probably spend the next month listing all of them. I’m also sure that with a little research I could find another months worth of idiocy from the left.
The sad part of course is that the candidates we nominate for public office should be, as was once said, the best and the brightest. People should be honored to serve and it should be those who truly can accomplish things that are elected.
This doesn’t mean that we would limit service to only the elite, of course. Some of the greatest leaders in history have come from humble origins. Harry Truman was one of the best Presidents this nation ever had and he never set foot in college. President Eisenhower also had relatively humble origins yet rose to lead an army through war and a nation through peace.
By contrast Jimmy Carter was very well educated but didn’t exactly shine when it came to being President and many are questioning President Obama at this point.
Today I think we would almost have to dream of a world where candidates like Truman or Eisenhower were offering themselves but I do hope that we can get something better than what we have. In many contests it is a matter of deciding which lousy candidate we decide to vote for.
Is it really that hard ?