For president, no experience is needed

It’s preposterous that experience in government should be a disadvantage in running for president. But we’ve reached the point where actual current government service is almost disqualifying (although our sitting president is an exception to that), past government service is a disadvantage and no previous experience is necessary.

Nasty “gotcha” politics are part of the problem. They can’t attack your record if you’ve got no record. That was one of Obama’s big advantages in 2008, when he’d only been in the Senate for three years. You get no points for years of government service, but some long-forgotten vote can come back and haunt you. So the fewer votes, the better. Or now the very fact of long and loyal government service is a weapon to be used against you.

Citizens may be genuinely and rightly angry at the government’s failures. More likely, they are unreasonably disappointed that the government can’t suspend the laws of mathematics and solve our economic problems in a snap. The politicians are at fault for making promises they can’t keep, but the voters are also to blame for believing the promises — in fact for insisting on them.