The Trivial Pursuit

This editorial by Bob Hebert is written in response to Al Gore’s recent Nobel Peace Prize win. He praises Gore for being “one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, talented men in America and remarkably well-equipped to lead the nation”, then goes on to criticize President Bush and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Hebert mentions that although President Bush showed many vulnerabilities in 2000, “it was not him but Mr. Gore who was mocked unmercifully by the national media”. Gore, indeed, was ridiculed for his lack of style and his sighing and alleged eye-rolling while on tv. Everyone believed that he didn’t have the “look” necessary to be leader of the free world. According to Hebert, “we’ve paid a heavy price”. He writes that although Bush “looks” like a model president, he “doesn’t seem to know up from down”. Hebert mentions some of Bush’s failures, such as “blithely [steering] the nation into a bottomless pit of debt”. The nation definitely should’ve chosen the president that would’ve helped the nation instead of choosing the one that looks like he would.

Hebert then swiftly moves on to criticizing Giuliani. Hebert believes that the basis for Giuliani’s presidential candidacy is due to “ his contention that he is some kind of expert, a veritable guru, on matters related to terrorism”, something that Hebert calls Giuliani out for by mentioning two instances:

"Mr. Giuliani foolishly insisted, against expert advice, on placing New York City’s state-of-the-art emergency command center on the 27th floor of a 47-story building that was known to be a terror target and that was destroyed in the World Trade Center attack.
And he pushed hard for the corrupt and grotesquely underqualified Bernard Kerik to be appointed to the top antiterror post in the Bush administration, secretary of homeland security."

It’s obvious that Giuliani is not adept enough to guide this country away from terrorist attacks. If this is his specialty, a specialty that he has shown to have failed at, then how can he be able to guide the country regarding other issues?

Hopefully, in the upcoming election, the nation disregards every insignificant details of a candidate and elects a president proficient enough to pull the country out of the slump that our very own President has pushed us into.

Source: NY Times