The Education of Politicians
Biden's recent demonstration of striking ignorance of both political and technological history raises an interesting question: How well educated are successful politicians? People writing about them are likely to themselves be intellectuals of one sort or another, often academics, hence inclined to attribute to those they support the virtues that academics approve of. But is it true?
Suppose, for instance, that all four candidates were required, tomorrow, to take the SAT aptitude tests and a small selection of the SAT subject tests--say American history, math, literature, and one or two others. Any guess which if any of them would get scores that would earn admission to Stanford? University of Michigan? Podunk U.?
At various points during the past eight years, information on grades for Bush, Gore and Kerry, SAT scores for Bush and Gore, became public. Gore had a respectable score (730) on the math SAT, but his one D was in natural science, which is at least interesting. My guess is that if one did have such information, it would be a rare candidate for President or VP who met the standards that elite academics routinely apply to each other and their students.
Anybody know if any such data has been made public with regard to any of the current candidates?
Of course, as I commented in my earlier post on the Biden gaffe, it isn't clear that it matters very much.