On C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning, the first question on open phones was "what do you think makes a person qualified to be president?"
Technically there are only three things.
According to the U.S. Constitution, Article II (Paragraph 5), to be president the following is required:
*Be a natural born citizen
*Attained the age of 35-years
*Been a U.S. resident for 14 years
Not to hard to do. Either you have them or you don't.
Of those three, there's only one I wonder about: 35-years-old.
Does that really apply today? Is 35 years on this planet enough to give someone enough experience to be president? Maybe it did when the Constitution was drafted, and you were lucky if you celebrated you first birthday let alone any birthdays beyond 50.
If I had my druthers, I'd rather take my chances with the 35- to 45-year-old who may still be pliable enough and open-minded enough to listen to and be open to suggestions, than the 65- to 75-year-old who may be so set in his ways that he's immovable.
Someone who's older, a lot older, may have the wisdom and experience, but he may also die in office, so the veep better be more than a figurehead who can garner votes, because he's from a certain part of the country.
Either way, it's a crap shoot.
Taking the Constitutional qualifiers to the outer limits of the extremely ridiculous, any inmate in any asylum qualifies (draw you own conclusions). It also means that any one of us who meet the three Constitutional stipulations can be the prez, regardless of anything else.
Of course, those weren't the answers C-Span was looking for.
They got the usual responses and one from left field:
*Wisdom
*Foreign policy experience
*Experience period, no qualifiers
*Must have been a governor
*Intelligent, well-education, know American history
*Play well with others
*Ability to turn the country around and reverse Bush policies
*Sincere
*The ability to choose wise advisors
*Blah, blah, blah.
All of the above are qualifications to be considered, but in the final analysis no one is qualified to be the President of the United States, a one-of-a-kind job.
It's not like any other job in the country where you can work your way up through the ranks to be completely qualified. Not even having been a representative, senator or governor are qualifiers.
There aren't any President-101 college courses, although a few courses in Constitutional law couldn't hurt.
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