At the risk of becoming a broken record (Note to the kids: "records" were a method of playing music in the last century), let me point out this bit of maddening advertising from Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson, the latest candidate to make "I know nothing about this job, so please hire me for it" the centerpiece of his campaign:
Wow -- I'm shocked, shocked that there are no "manufacturers" in the Senate, while there are 57 lawyers. How can they even turn out the ball bearings they're supposed to be making? Oh wait -- they don't make ball bearings in the Senate. What was that they make again? I remember: Laws! Why should lawyers be involved in that?
I'm not saying you have to be a lawyer to make a good lawmaker. But it's not completely irrelevant. On the other hand, manufacturing plastics -- what Johnson does -- is pretty irrelevant. Ron Johnson may know how to "create jobs" through the selling of plastics, but that's very different from knowing how to create jobs through the crafting of legislation.
I can't say I know a great deal about Johnson (here's some info if you're curious). But I did see him on teevee saying that health-care reform was the greatest threat to individual freedom he had seen in his lifetime. So if the government taps his phones without a warrant or goes through his library records, he's good with that, so long as it doesn't try to make sure he can get affordable health insurance. He also thinks that global warming is caused by sunspots. And he's not the dumbest Tea Party extremist who could get elected next month -- not by a long shot.
-- Paul Waldman
