Flashdance

How many things does Kagan's nomination mean? There are some obvious curiosities that will be beaten to death by the news/entertainers: Should we be governed by anyone other than the Ivy League? Is there no one else? In a country obviously obsessed with over representation of tiny minorities, can't there be some representation from us average working stiffs?

But there is another question. A number of years ago there was a movie called The Killing Fields, a harrowing story of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge and their homicidal ideology and reign. The supporting actor, a medical doctor who emigrated from Cambodia, won that year's Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. I remember at the time asking, "How is it possible that a man with no acting experience from a country without a film industry and with limited personal exposure to film at all could win this award?" Is it that easy? Where else could this happen? What other jobs could a total amateur walk in and dominate the scene? Center field? A logistics man in a warehouse? Neurosurgery?

I remember a television program where several people were tasked to develop an amateur in a field to fool experts in that field. Short order cooks would be trained to be a line chef in an excellent restaurant and their food compared to pros working in the field for years, a casual rider would be taught to compete in dressage, a barber would be taught and compete in hair styling. The revenge of the average. Brilliance uncovered in Everyman.

Flashdance.

Some leeway must be given to the arts and the subjective world but does that leeway extend to elected officials? The Supreme Court? Military leaders? The Fed? We as a culture have always loved the underdog, the man who rises from disadvantage to succeed in the face of overwhelming odds. But to be on the Supreme Court? Maybe our surprise and outrage is misplaced; maybe this nomination doesn't oppose reality, maybe it is the truth. Maybe all of these people are simply performers--like the Cambodian doctor--and there is nothing more to them than form and dress, intelligence and ambition. Maybe that explains Hollywood's fascination with them; maybe they see them as colleagues, fellow actors on a different stage. So their disdain for someone like Palin has nothing to do with her inexperience as they know it does not disqualify her for any office.

Cincinnatis lives! If Washington is an OJT center perhaps we the people can take back the job of running the government. All the time we were deferring to these "special people" and all the time they really were just like us. Equality is not just some concept that places all men equally before God and the law. We are more than "equal", we are "the same". The Same. Equal and Interchangeable Parts in the social and political Whole. Knowing this, we now can be ruled by random choice, like jury duty. And these burdened academics can throw off their heavy leadership mantle and go back to the university coffee houses.

I'd like to be ambassador to Italy. Or some place in the Caribbean.