Actors, Lawyers, Chimps and Presidents

In his rant to the chair, Clint Eastwood said a lot of things. Most of them were the ramblings of an old senile man who seemed lost, but there were some important thoughts to tackle. One of them was this statement:

"See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to be president anyway. You know, attorneys are always taught to argue everything, and always weigh everything and weigh both sides, and their always, you know, you know, they're always devils advocating this and bifocating this and bifocating that. You know, all that stuff.
But, I think it's maybe time..what do you think?...for maybe a businessman. How about that? A stellar businessman."

-Clint Eastwood in his speech to the chair.

Now, I guess Clint was so busy rambling, ranting and being delusional that he didn't bother to do any homework. You see, Mitt Romney has a law degree from Harvard Law School. I guess, based on Clint's assessment, that Mitt should not be president. Good thing the Republicans used such wise judgement, weighed all the facts carefully, and had a senile, old actor speak on behalf of their "great white dope".


I am pretty sure that we would want a president who argues with those he or she thinks is wrong. A president who always weighs everything and both sides so they can make an intelligent decision based on facts and the opinions of experts. Someone, say, who is, I don't know, not like George W. Bush.
George W., who got his undergrad degree at Yale, and then his MBA at Harvard, by his own admission was an average student. Clearly, although he has an MBA, he has no concept of business and plunged the country very deeply into severe debt, while creating next to no jobs and leaving office under the threat of a depression.
Oh, and he is the one who listened to his "experts" and started an expensive and futile war to find weapons of mass destruction that never actually existed. That might have been a good instance to argue and weigh all the options before you bankrupted the country for a needless war, one that can't be won. Just sayin.
Yes, it is true. We should want a businessman to be the President. The United States is actually the biggest single business in the world.  But a businessman who creates wealth and jobs. not one who buys companies, breaks them up, sell the parts for profit and destroys everything for the sake of his own profit. We don't need those. We already have plenty of people like that who are very good at it. People like Mitt Romney, who made his fortune doing exactly that.

From Wikipedia:

"Romney soon switched Bain Capital's focus from startups to the relatively new business of leveraged buyouts: buying existing firms with money mostly borrowed from banking institutions and using the newly bought firms' assets as collateral, and selling them off in a few years. Bain Capital lost most of its money in many of its early leveraged buyouts, but then started finding deals that made large returns. The firm invested in or acquired Accuride, Brookstone, Domino's Pizza, Sealy Corporation, Sports Authority, and Artisan Entertainment, as well as lesser-known companies in the industrial and medical sectors. Much of the firm's profit was earned from a relatively small number of deals; Bain Capital's overall success–to–failure ratio was about even."

"How's that workin for ya?" 

-Dr. Phil
 
What is wrong with a lawyer? They are smart. we should want a very smart man or woman as president. Sure, lawyers have a bad reputation and they have their issues, but so do ruthless businessmen, like this guy.

 

George W. Bush was a buffoon. Certainly, we don't want that. Neither Obama or Romney, or Biden or Ryan are buffoons. That isn't the issue here. They are all very smart and accomplished men. They all have education and degrees and have been successful in what they have done.
Back in the 1980's, after a very turbulent 1960's and 1970's, which culminated in Americans being taken hostage in Iran, Ronald Reagan brought a different image and won the Presidency.
Who was Ronald Reagan. Well, he was the Governor of California. But, first and foremost, he was an actor. A weak actor. A poor actor who was famous for acting with a chimp.

Now, Ronald Reagan did a lot of good things while in office, mostly he restored the confidence in the country that was lacking after a succession of weak presidents, most notably Linden Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. But mostly, his legacy was what is now termed "voodoo economics".

In fact, the term was coined by Reagan's own Vice President, George Bush Sr., when he was running against him for the nomination. The facts are that it was voodoo, and didn't work and the debt only grew, and many other factors (high interest rates and unemployment, jobs going overseas) only got much worse and not better. Ronald Reagan was neither a lawyer or businessman. He was an actor. A second rate actor. But he put on a good show and many still consider him to be a great president and leader, of which he was neither. 

Clint Eastwood was a great actor. Certainly he can be lauded as that.
Clint was great when others were writing the words for him. When he was allowed to speak for himself, not so much.
Even Mitt knows to let others write his speech for him.
In light of Clint's speech, I guess we see what happens when actors get involved in politics. Good? Not so much. 
If Mitt was actually a great leader, he would have known to not let Clint Eastwood get up on stage and make Romney and his party look like a bunch of idiots for letting that happen.
He didn't do that.  
Mitt Romney for President. Good? Not so much.