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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (103193)	2/5/2009 11:26:54 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 544137

<<<Why do you care so much about the writers backgrounds?>>> Trying to find out what makes these people tick. Part of a due diligence process. It is helpful to know what they were like when they were kids. What kind of education they had. How did they do in school. What kind of character flaws they may have. When and if they had to turn their life around. Take for example my opinions about Eric Holder, Timothy Geithner, and George W. Bush. Eric Holder was born to parents of Jamaican ancestry in the Bronx NY. He was accepted to a very competitive public hs (Stuyvesant) that does not accept student based on any type of preferential basis. He went on to Columbia University a Ivy League school that is looked down on other Ivy league students because Columbia tend to be nerdy, where kids have to study and study hard. Not kown as a privileged ivory tower type of institution. He then went on to Columbia Law school. You know this kid did not get through school on a pass. You just know that he had to work and study to get through school. Compare that to the path that George W. Bush took to get through school. Did family money and power help Bush get into an elite prep school? Did generations of successful graduates from Yale give Bush an legacy advantage of getting into Yale where you could skate buy on gentlemanly Cs ? Did Bush have to work very hard to get his degree in a then very new program (MBA) at Harvard? How would their up bring predict how they would approach doing then equivlent to "homework" later in life. Would that kind of information be important to find out where these people are coming from and how they would approach life? Timothy Geithner on the hand looks like the real deal as far as you can tell by his biography. He did well, every step alng the way, in a very competitive academic environment. He did well in climbing the ladder of success after school. He had passed every test. However, we did find out when shove becomes push he decided to punt and took the easy way out. A lot of people make small mistakes and get away with it Except in this case, the small indiscretion became public and was embarassing. Now when you see him being trotted out to sell an important program that has wide ramifications, Tim Geithner appears very small. It does not seem like he would be able to speak truth to power. He owes too much to power. I just do not think he could be effective. In defense of Obama, I think he has a big backup in place. Larry Summers is the defacto Treasury Secretary. So, what does background have to do with some one preaching economic well being for the country? A lot.