Prime Minister Wilson on the Crown (on leadership and appearances)

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I have been thinking of this clip a great deal since the Platner fiasco. We have become obsessed with the optics of candidates to the near exclusion of issues. The people who recruited Mr. Platner literally started with lobstermen and only when they couldn't find a single one they decided on oyster farmers and found Mr. Platner.

Most of our Presidents, even those who were poor, got where they were from brains not manual labor. And you know what, there is a good reason for that. Presidents don't muck stalls, reap crops, or sweep floors. They appoint good (one hopes) people who are (again one hopes) competent to do (yet again one hopes) good things. Biden, despite being old, excelled at that. They also (yes it is a pattern one hopes) gets good laws through Congress with whatever majority they might have (and Oh Lordy did Biden excel at that). Yes Biden's birth certificate was chiseled on stone but he was amaze balls at doing what we need Presidents to do.

Obama also wasn't known for manual labor. But he also was a pretty good President. He made life better for whole hosts of people.

In 2020, I was for Governor Inslee of Washington, who didn't even make the debate stage. Why one might ask? Because he was a good governor with a good record. That's why. No record of manual labor, not an oyster farmer. Just good at doing the job that is similar to that for which he was in the running.

So aside from maybe avoiding being ageist, we should maybe, just maybe, apply NC motto before we vote. Esse Quam Videri (to be, rather than to seem). Maybe we should focus on people who do their jobs well and promote them instead of searching for Oyster farmers. Just a thought.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Interesting point in the OP

Other politicians have tried to ride their working creds. Sarah Palin, turkey farmer. Maybe even Tom Harken, though I didn't follow his resume closely enough to know how much he was a farmer.

Harold Wilson, btw, was under a lot of suspicion of being a lefty. Thatcherites worked against him for 6 years.

Operation Clockwork Orange - Secret Military Coup Against British Prime Minister
In June 1974, British troops suddenly took over Heathrow Airport in London. Prime Minister Harold Wilson was not informed. Wilson suspected that this was the latest action in a plot against him by a shadowy conspiracy of intelligence agents, retired senior military officers and right-wing journalists including such famous figures as Lord Mountbatten, the current King Charles III's great-uncle. Many suspected that Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent. Was Wilson right to fear a military coup, something hitherto unheard of in modern Britain? Evidence suggests he may have been right.