Morning Joe Gets It - Spitzer Principle

Joe Scarborough today tells it like it is and how it needs to be.

Competence in a particular area of expertise must not be drowned out by either political party loyalty, or an application of morality which defeats the use of that competence.

His example was Elliot Spitzer, who was dethroned because of the use of prostitutes while in office, and while using public funds.

He pointed out that Spitzer should not be banned from the empire on any issues where he has a competence which almost no one else has, specifically in the arena of Wall Street nefarious scheming.

Spitzer knows where the bodies are buried, which closets have skeletons in them, and can help us find out what went wrong with our economy.

Thus Joe concludes, his knowledge should not be thrown in the garbage, because it is valuable to the country. That seems so obvious, yet Joe has the sense that we as a country have lost touch with the obvious somehow, and that the obvious is cloaked from us and just beyond our grasp.

The fundamental problem is our grandiose and ill advised notion of office vs. individual. It is as if we are constantly electing a Pope to be president, congress member, or even dog catcher.

We have forgotten that a person's religious morality is simply not a valid measurement of some skills and some abilities we need to use.

The mechanic who works on your car, who can do an incredible job, does not need to be a Cardinal or a Deacon in a local church before you car can be professionally repaired.

Anyone can have what someone else thinks is bad morals and still do a good secular job.

Rocket scientists do not have to be Christian Scientists to land a rover on Mars.

What office holders should be is honest, and they should have the public good in mind. With that type of character their specialized skills can be mined for the public good.

Baptists, Muslims, Republicans, Catholics, Democrats, Jews, Atheists, and the rest of them can do that; or not, regardless of their religious moral convictions, if we will drop the phony patina and let expertise enrich our land.