Thursday, August 28, 2008

Expertise vs. Judgement

Since EnviroMom was chapping my ass about posting, here's the second post in a week. Now I have to think of something new to call her. "NagMaster2000" maybe?

So... for what it's worth...I was watching the convention last night and Joe Biden finally got to what I had been groping towards all this time regarding Obama. Bill Clinton may have said Obama was ready for the job, but what Joe Biden actually said in his speech was that Obama had always been ready for the job. By virtue of the fact that he makes good decisions and periodically revisits them to evaluate their appropriateness.

McCain has a greater history in the Senate, though his recent round of flip flops are hardly his first (his post-Keating re-invention as St. John The Maverick was the first) and they're worth noting. I think they will be. Joe Biden started the "more in sorrow than in anger" trope, and I expect that at some point the argument will develop into, "I can't believe what my old friend has begun saying because he's trying to please a corrupt and intellectually bankrupt Republican Party. Does he really believe that???"

So let's look at what "Bomb, Bomb Iran" John's legislative accomplishments have been recently. He opposes Lily Ledbetter (by supporting a Republican filibuster), because apparently pay discrimination is just fine as long as your victim can't figure out they're getting fucked within 180 days of getting their first paycheck. He was against Webb's GI Bill before he just didn't care enough to show up to vote one way or another before he decided to take credit for it in the Rose Garden. He was against torture before he was for letting Bush get away with a signing statement saying, "But torture is defined by the President at his sole discretion acting as Commander in Chief," so that St. John could get a photo-op with the Deciderator in the Rose Garden.

Basically, John McCain is very good at getting REALLY STUPID SHIT done. Frankly, I prefer incompetence in the service of idiocy, thank you very much.

In turn let us consider Obama. Negotiate with Iran with no preconditions? I work in marketing, so I've been part of more than a few negotiations. Let me tell you...if your precondition for even starting a negotiation is total capitulation from the other guy you're NOT NEGOTIATING. You're issuing an ultimatum. Phrased in the form of a negotiation offer so that people who are dumber than a bag of hammers can't figure out you're actually REJECTING any possibility of negotiation. "Fooling some of the people all of the time," leaps to mind here.

"I'm not opposed to all wars, I'm opposed to dumb wars"? Preach it, brother. I was an Army Officer, so pretty clearly I'm not opposed to all wars. But watching a bunch of kids who trust you to do the right thing by them get killed because some dumb fuck of a politician can't keep a hold of his fucking temper for 24 hours at a stretch? Not exactly what any of us signed up for.

Pragmatic free market philosophy in support of an egalitarian redistribution aimed at creating equal opportunity? Pretty much describes my philosophy: The economic purpose of the state is to keep capitalism and free markets from fucking it all up for themselves. Because the Good Lord knows that a 24 year old bond trader wondering where his next Ferrari is coming from is NOT who you want ensuring that capitalism doesn't shit where it lives.

I infinitely prefer judgement to expertise. Expertise can be acquired (or hired). Judgement you're born with. And John McCain doesn't have judgement. He has a seething mass of free floating anger waiting...just waiting...for someplace to light so he can engage in the next round of spastic shitheadedness.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...And if the American people elect him, if they reject hope, rationality, and education in order to cling to the ass-backwards goat-fucking, authorit-awesome government offered by McC and the repubs, then I'm afraid I'll have to wash my hands and neither vote nor follow politics again.