Let's say you have to choose between two candidates for a VERY important government job.
Candidate A graduated from an Ivy League university and went on to attend the best law school in the country, where he was chosen to be editor-in-chief of the most prestigious law review in the country. He graduated from law school magna cum laude.
Candidate B was accepted, largely based on legacy, to one of the most reputable military academies in the nation. He graduated 894 of 899 and immediately entered the military. He did not go on to obtain an upper level degree.
So, uh, who'd you pick?
Reading the credentials of Candidate A, I think it's pretty obvious who were talking about here. It's well-known that Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University and went on to become the first black editor-in-chief of the incredibly prestigious Harvard Law Review. Judging from his academic history, the eloquence of his speaking, and the political shrewdness displayed in his campaigning, Obama's intelligence is undeniable.
On the flip side, John McCain's intellectual capacity remains, to me at least, a bit of a mystery. I think that while many people are aware that he entered the Naval Academy as a third-generation legacy student, few realized that he graduated 6th-to-last of his class of 899. That fact doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his cerebral capacity. He entered the military immediately after graduation, as required of an Annapolis grad. Don't get me wrong here - McCain's military service as military captain was indubitably honorable, especially the six years he spent as a prisoner of war. But, I feel that the attention given to this experience often glosses over the fact that he subsequently retired from the military, left his wife for an heiress 20 years his junior, and then used his young wife's gargantuan bank account to finance his entrance into the political realm.
Twenty-six years in office later, McCain has no doubt accumulated a shrewd political education. He did not, however, deem it necessary to ever return to school to compensate for his poor academic showing as an undergrad. I know that as an upper middle-class college student, I sound very judgmental and even elitist for criticizing him for this. There are many successful, brilliant people in the world who never even attended or completed college (case in point: Bill Gates). However, McCain is not a Wunderkind whose genius allowed them to eschew traditional models of higher education. In fact, his academic showing at Annapolis was miserable and, arguably, despicable. Access to education is certainly an issue of great contention in this country, but John McCain, as a wwalthy, white American male, certainly had ever resource available to him to pursue some form of greater education in his twenty-six years retired from military service.
I'm sure some people would consider this a non-issue and throw around terms like "book-smart" and "experience." But this is the President of the United States we're talking about. Why shouldn't we expect the person in this position to be of superior intelligence? For eight years, we trusted a man who believes "misunderestimated" to be a word with this office, and look we're that's gotten us - engulfed in two wars, $400 billion in debt, and slowly finding ourselves being manipulated into destroying fragile American wildlife to further profit gluttenous oil companies.
I expect my president to smarter than I am, ok? And as a college student who aspires to one day obtain a masters AND a doctorate degree, I cannot respect a man who just barely managed to graduate college. In a country where so many communities desperately desire higher education, McCain's educational track record makes a mockery of their aspirations.
