"They mocked Reagan, didn't they?" goes the line, as though being mocked alone were a qualification for high office.
Why do we think excelling in this sort of verbal roughhouse is a qualification for the presidency?
Getting shot down over Vietnam may not be a qualification for president in 2008, but surely a rudimentary facility with a laptop is.
Jade Goody's life was not saint-like, but some might say she died a perfect Christian death, which is a qualification for sainthood.
To the Observer, Steinem insisted that "from George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people".
Why should three or four years studying classics or economics, in élite and antique corridors, be a qualification for, say, running an N.G.O. in Kabul, or talking authoritatively about radical Islamism or human rights in Pakistan?
Although they were intended to be a qualification for all, grades of less than a C soon came to be seen as a fail.
Escaping death by malaria seemed almost to be a qualification for America's early Presidents.
The Senator again raised concerns that Obama had said empathy would be a qualification for a potential Supreme Court appointee.
All of this despite the simple fact that the founders explicitly said they didn't want religion to be a qualification for the office.
