Minimum Expectations

The response to John Kerry's debate performance is interesting. People aren't merely reacting as though Kerry was good. They are treating his adeptness with a sort of cold shock, like being suddenly woken up from a long sleep.

The reason for this response - in my ever-humble opinion, of course - is not merely because Kerry was poised and self-assured. It's because George W. Bush has caused us to forget what a President IS.

A President is supposed to be knowledgable. A President is supposed to have command of the facts. It used to be considered the minimum expectation for the job.

But people watched with shock. "My God! The man is running for President and he knows what he's talking about!"

That's how far Bush has lowered expectations for the office of the Presidency. We are surprised when a Presidential candidate demonstrates a strong grasp of the facts.

Of COURSE Kerry knows what he's talking about! He's running for President! He'd better!

But the fact that Bush doesn't have a grasp of the facts and half the electorate thinks that that's somehow acceptable is a sad, sad indictment of that half of the electorate.

What impressed people, after all, was not remarkable stuff. It was just accuracy and precision. Kerry saying, "There's some 600-plus tons of unsecured material still in the former Soviet Union and Russia. At the rate that the president is currently securing it, it'll take 13 years to get it." Do you think George W. Bush knows how much unsecured nuclear material there is? I don't. It's the sort of thing every American should EXPECT the President to know, of course, and there are NO expectations for George W. Bush.

Because of Bush, we now expect the President to talk only in soundbites. Only in simple, scripted sentences that are almost devoid of specific meaning. Not to be too complicated. Not to think too deeply.

But Kerry reminded us that that ISN'T what a President is supposed to do. A President is supposed to be the best among us. He's supposed to know more. He's supposed understand more. He's supposed to think deeply. That's what the job entails. It doesn't require swaggering and strutting. It requires thinking.

Maybe I'm old, but I remember when it WASN'T a shock to have a President who was schooled in history and conversant with the facts. We should INSIST that they be.

After all, it IS hard work.