If you don't think education matters...

With apologies to the original poster, Mr. Scorpio on DemocraticUnderground.Com

Wikipedia: Rachel Maddow
Maddow earned a degree in public policy at Stanford in 1994. At graduation she was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship. She was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. This made her the first openly gay or lesbian American to win an international Rhodes Scholarship. In 2001, she earned a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in politics at Oxford University. Her thesis is titled "HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons" and her supervisor was Dr. Lucia Zedner.

Wikipedia: Sean Hannity
He grew up in Franklin Square, New York and attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Hempstead, New York during his middle school years and St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary high school in Uniondale, New York. Hannity dropped out of New York University and Adelphi University.

Wikipedia: Glenn Beck
Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982... In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education

Wikipedia: Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh graduated from Cape Girardeau, Missouri Central High School, in 1969; where he played football. Because of his parents' desire to see him attend college, he enrolled in Southeast Missouri State University but left the school after two semesters and one summer. According to his mother, "he flunked everything", and "he just didn't seem interested in anything except radio."

Opinion
Is the gentleman who put together the above image comparing the education of these four people being fair? Am I being fair to the four people in reposting the comparison? Good question but it certainly shines an interesting light on a strange phenomenon I have been observing for the past few years regarding the far right of the American political spectrum.

While anything in politics needs to be taken with a grain of salt - we, the people, need to provide a check and balance in the system and hold any politician accountable - the far right, the Tea Party, and now the Republican party, seemingly under the influence of the far right, has put forward a platform and justified it with frightening leaps of logic sometimes devoid of facts. I would be one of the first to worry about politics in general but somehow the Conservative end of the spectrum has gotten more and more extreme. As the problems mount and as the situation seemingly gets more critical, the intransigence of the GOP has long crossed the line from disturbing to frightening. They are right and everyone else is wrong.

I suppose anyone could put forward the idea that hyperbole is an effective rhetoric device for emphasizing a point. Unfortunately, does anybody know where the truth lies anymore? If you keep saying we've arrived at the apocalypse, do you promote rational dialogue or do you incite fear?

Another group of four

Wikipedia: Sarah Palin
After graduating from high school in 1982, Palin enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Shortly after arriving in Hawaii, Palin transferred to Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu for a semester in the fall of 1982, and then to North Idaho College, a community college in Coeur d'Alene, for the spring and fall semesters of 1983. In June 2008, the Alumni Association of North Idaho College gave Palin its Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant, then finished third in the Miss Alaska pageant. She played the flute in the talent portion of the contest, and received both the Miss Congeniality award and a college scholarship.

She enrolled at the University of Idaho in Moscow for an academic year, starting in August 1984, then attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska in the fall of 1985. Palin returned to the University of Idaho in January 1986, and received her bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism in May 1987.

Wikipedia: Michele Bachmann
She graduated from Anoka High School in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working on kibbutz Be'eri in Israel. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A.

In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). While there, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, and should become one again. In 1986 Bachmann received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University. She was a member of the final graduating class of the law school at ORU, and was part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved the ORU law school library to what is now Regent University.

In 1988, Bachmann received an LL.M. degree in tax law from the William & Mary School of Law. From 1988 to 1993, she was an attorney working for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Wikipedia: Rick Santorum
Santorum attended Pennsylvania State University for his undergraduate studies, serving as chairman of the university's College Republicans chapter and graduating in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science. ... He then completed a one-year Master of Business Administration program at the University of Pittsburgh's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, graduating in 1981. In 1986, Santorum received a Juris Doctor with honors from the Dickinson School of Law.

Wikipedia: Rick Perry
Perry graduated from Paint Creek High School in 1968. He then attended Texas A&M University, where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets, a member of the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity, was elected senior class social secretary, and was also elected as one of A&M's five yell leaders. Perry graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science in animal science.

Upon graduation in 1972, Perry was commissioned in the Air Force and completed pilot training in February 1974. He was then assigned as a C-130 pilot to the 772nd Tactical Airlift Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base. Perry's duties included two-month overseas rotations at RAF Mildenhall in England and Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany. His missions included a 1974 U.S. State Department drought relief effort in Mali, Mauritania and Chad, and two years later, earthquake relief in Guatemala. He left the Air Force in 1977 with the rank of captain, returned to Texas, and went into business farming cotton with his father.

Final Word
The first group of four, all involved in newscasting, makes a remarkable correlation between education and political leanings or education and objectivity. The second group of four shows that the far right is not without education but I would certainly question how that education led those people to their ideology. Can I or anyone else use education as a litmus test for qualities of the individual? Without a doubt, anyone would qualify Abraham Lincoln as one of the great presidents and yet, Wikipedia reports he was mostly self-educated. In contrast, George W. Bush earned a B.A. in history from Yale and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard. He is the only U.S. President to have earned an M.B.A.

Let me add, however, that the historical rankings, whether done by scholars or by the public, put Abraham Lincoln in the top three of the all-time successful presidents while George W. Bush is consistently towards the bottom of the list.

References

my blog: Rush Limbaugh: That's spelled with one F and one U - March 2012
Recently, the world has been atwitter on Twitter and other social media commenting left, right and centre about one Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Of course, it is easy to pile on by calling him an anal orifice or a Neanderthal or a meany... (I consult my notes) oops, that's a f**kin' meany... however I can't help feeling there is more, much more not just to this particular story, but to what the story represents. This is the tip of the iceberg.

my blog: My postings on politics

2013-04-29

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