Are you wonkish enough to be President?

[mmcirvin]

So George Will wrote some column in which he implied that John Edwards had never heard of conservative social theorist James Q. Wilson, and Michael Tomasky got in a big argument on the American Prospect group blog about whether this mattered or not (if true), and eventually he posted his pop quiz of things you ought to know if you are going to be President.

He figured you ought to score at least 15 out of 20 to be fit to run the country. I only got 11, though there was one other where I just got part of the name wrong and a couple others where I said "damn, I should have gotten that" afterward. For some reason, I did better on the ones he considered higher-priced than on the ones he seems to have thought were gimmes. Anyway, I have no intention of being President so I can revel in my ignorance.

He should have had it calculate which screaming Sunday-morning pundit you are.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

P. S. I didn't know who James Q. Wilson was either. Though once people started talking about him I figured I'd probably heard him mentioned in some article that mentioned broken windows, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and "defining deviancy down" a lot.

[jwgh]

I think a nice followup to the Tesla question would be "Did you just roll your eyes?"

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

And the resonance loosened bowels for twenty miles around! Including the bowels of... J. P. MORGAN!!

Wonkishness vs simple willingness to research & learn

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

I actually wouldn't much mind if the President didn't know about Tesla nor FDR's cabinet so long as, say, he made a point of being informed about what happened the last time a Western power tried to make Iraq safe for Democracy before setting off to do it again.

Re: Wonkishness vs simple willingness to research & learn

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

It does say that the quiz is for a *Democratic* Presidential Candidate.

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

Seems to me it would be a lot more useful to have a short-essay version explaining/reacting to the concepts put forward by these thinkers, instead of being able to cite title and date. I mean, does it matter if I don't know James Q. Wilson by name, if I can put together a reasonable summary of the "broken windows" thing?

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Ray Suarez for President!

[(Anonymous)]

Edwards was asked about this in an interview yesterday, and this is what he had to say:

Q: Back to George Will. He suggested that you did not recognize the name James Q. Wilson. Do you know who James Q. Wilson is?

A: Yes, he’s a conservative thinker, a smart guy. I don’t claim to have studied everything James Q. Wilson has done, but I do recognize the name.

Full Interview (http://www.newsobserver.com/164/story/416713.html)