When, somewhere in the early years of my political/constitutional education, I learned that there are virtually no requirements to run for and hold most public offices, such as president, senator, representative, I was appalled! What? No requirement that they even studied Constitutional Law, or have any combination of education/experience relevant to the job they seek? The only requirements are related to age, citizenship, and domicile, not to whether they have the necessary knowledge to do the job!
We have seen the results of this oversight lately in such congressional newbies as Margie Greene, and Lauren Boebert. Greene has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and her only career experience prior to winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives was as a gym owner and trainer. Boebert dropped out of high school and her career consists of working at McDonald’s and later owning a restaurant called Shooters, where the wait staff all carry guns. These two do not belong in Congress, but there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that prevents it. And now, we have on the horizon one who is equally unqualified and distasteful, a former athlete named Herschel Walker.
Herschel Walker did go to college, but it appears that his only goal was sports and to pursue a sports career, for he dropped out without graduating and went on to join the United States Football League, and later the NFL. I gather he was a very good athlete, and I give him kudos for that, but … he has absolutely nothing that would qualify him for a seat in the United States Senate! Yet that is exactly what he’s vying for, challenging the incumbent senator, Ralph Warnock, for his seat this November. From everything I’ve read, Walker is an arrogant man, believing that playing football, having a black belt in taekwondo, and having competed in the Olympic bobsled competition somehow mean he should be voted into a senate seat. This would be akin to me saying that I’m qualified to be the Queen of Poland because I can speak Spanish! (For the record, they speak Polish, not Spanish, in Poland, and they don’t have a Queen)
Now, not only is Mr. Walker highly unqualified for the senate, but he should be disqualified for some of his antics. He has been a staunch supporter of the Big Lie, even spreading numerous conspiracy theories about the election. He also said of the January 6th attempted coup that it was a “well planned” distraction from election fraud.
But Mr. Walker does have one qualification that is requisite for today’s Republican Party, and that is that he is a consummate liar. He falsely claimed that he had graduated from the University of Georgia, and in the top 1% of his class, when in fact he dropped out a year short of completion. He has a history of exaggerating the number of people employed by his companies and the assets held by his companies, and the failure of several business enterprises led to creditors bringing lawsuits. He has claimed that he was once a police officer for the Cobb County Police Department, and also that he was once an FBI agent. Neither one is true.
He also seems to have a very short fuse. In 2001, he took a gun to chase a man who was late delivering a car. Also in 2001 his wife filed for divorce, claiming he had been “physically abusive and extremely threatening.” She said that Walker pointed a pistol at her head and said, “I’m going to blow your f’ing brains out.” She also said he had used knives to threaten her. In 2005, a restraining order was imposed on Walker regarding his wife, after her sister stated in an affidavit that Walker told her “unequivocally that he was going to shoot my sister Cindy and her boyfriend in the head.”
Now for the real kicker … Herschel Walker and Senator Ralph Warnock are tied neck-in-neck in the race for the U.S. Senate seat representing Georgia. TIED!!! Ralph Warnock is a good man by all accounts, an honest man, a man of integrity. How can there be any question of who is best qualified? But then, this is Georgia, the state that also sent us the QAnon supporter, conspiracy theorist Margie Greene. 🙄
C’mon, people … is this really the kind of crap you want sitting in our Senate, making the decisions that will affect the lives of every person in this country??? Surely even the Republicans cannot condone a person like this … can they? Is this an example of the new Republican Party since they swore their oath of fealty to the former guy? Conservative columnist Michael Gerson was spot on when he said that the GOP is a party in decay. Herschel Walker is but one of the many examples that prove it.
Filosofa's Word 