Two now-that-Biden's-election-is-official news items and LITD's take on them

 First up, Pete Buttigieg's nomination to be transportation secretary.

To begin with, nobody's claiming he's some kind of expert on transportation. It's pretty clear that this was a groom-the-next-generation-of-Democrat-up-and-comers move. Well, he did say that he enjoyed riding home from college on Amtrak and that he proposed to his fella in an airport terminal, so we have his generally favorable outlook about the transportation field as a plus of sorts.

The counter-argument is that cabinet-level positions are not the place for farm-team aspirants to the big leagues to hone their chops. You get a portfolio on that level, you're supposed to be ready to handle serious stuff. Oh, well, at least it's not a mega-serious post like Attorney General or National Security Advisor. 

What do we even have a Department of Transportation for, anyway? It strikes me as one of those federal behemoths like the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Commerce, Labor, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development that is fertile ground for pointy-heads who want to implement programs without their germinating in that pesky legislative branch. James Madison is having seizures in his grave.

But in the Biden vision of things that's shaping up, Transportation is going to be a useful tool. Central planning is going to be back on steroids and climate stuff is one of the main areas of focus. Pete did have a record as a guy for whom central planning and climate stuff were turn-ons, and that's no doubt a factor in his being selected. 

He'll definitely be on the same page as John Kerry, who is chomping at the bit to get post-America all involved in the Great Reset, a vision that is incrementally taking shape at meetings of the UN, the World Economic Forum, the Business Roundtable and other organizations of similar odor. Oh, and if you needed further indication of how determined this bunch is to push the utter fiction the the global climate is in some kind of trouble necessitating massive government intrusion into the free market and people's freedom to chose the energy forms that suit them, Gina McCarthy is going to be the "climate czar." (I'm not clear as of yet how that differs from Kerry's lane as "climate envoy.")

The second new item is the dust-up over Joseph Epstein's Wall Street Journal op-ed about Jill Biden's PhD.

Joseph Epstein is an essayist and short story writer of uncommon depth and insight. He's frequently contributed short stories to Commentary that are among the best I've ever read. In 2004, he wrote an essay for The Weekly Standard entitled "The Perpetual Adolescent" that has rightly figured into our ongoing national conversation about the decline of our collective maturity. 

Is it possible, in hindsight, that he would have been better advised to hold off on writing the piece on Mrs. Biden in the form and at the time that he did? Sure. The way he starts out is definitely not lacking in attitude:

"Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter," Joseph Epstein wrote. "Any chance you might drop the 'Dr.' before your name? 'Dr. Jill Biden' sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic."

But the inevitable cases of the vapors exploded on the scene immediately. And of course, the charge of misogyny the main point of the outrage.

The back-and-forth goes on. I'm particularly impressed with Kyle Smith's take at National Review. Smith doesn't mince words, and they're words I resonate with. 

There's this tidbit regarding her motivation for getting the degree:

Insisting on being called “Doctor” when you don’t heal people is, among most holders of doctorates, seen as a gauche, silly, cringey ego trip. Consider “Dr.” Jill Biden, who doesn’t even hold a Ph.D. but rather a lesser Ed.D., something of a joke in the academic world. President-elect Joe Biden once explained that his wife sought the degree purely for status reasons: “She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” Joe Biden has said.

Smith has taken the time to actually read Mrs. Biden's dissertation. He has come away underwhelmed and then some:

Jill Biden’s dissertation is not an addition to the sum total of human knowledge. It is not a demonstration of expertise in its specific topic or its broad field. It is a gasping, wheezing, frail little Disney forest creature that begs you to notice the effort it makes to be the thing it is imitating while failing so pathetically that any witnesses to its ineptitude must feel compelled, out of manners alone, to drag it to the nearest podium and give it a participation trophy. Which is more or less what an Ed.D. is. It’s a degree that only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of “Doctor.” People who are actually smart understand that being in possession of a credential is no proof of intelligence.

My friends, I have read this document in its entirety and it is so equally lacking in rhetorical force, boldness of conception, and original research that it amounts to a triple null set, a vacuum inside a blank inside an abyss. If Ingmar Bergman were alive and hired to make a film about this paper, he would say, “I can’t do it, there’s so much emptiness even I cannot grasp it,” and it would sound so much worse in Swedish that suicide hotlines would have to hire extra staff. Gene Simmons has a better claim to be a Doctor of Love than Jill Biden to be a Doctor of Education; after all, Simmons has spent a lifetime demonstrating mastery of his field. As for Biden, she has spent a lot of time teaching remedial English to slow learners in community colleges. Which is like being a rock musician who’s in a bar band. That plays covers. At mixers. Held in assisted-living facilities. Mrs. Biden’s dissertation emits so much noxious methane the EPA should regulate it, Greta Thunberg should denounce it, and Hollywood celebrities should hold a telethon to draw awareness to its dangers.

The point of those who have troubled themselves to get into this matter (and, again, I'm not sure I would have) is that lowering of standards is a major problem in general in our culture. If we kow-tow to those who argue that just  because she spent a lot of time banging away on the keyboard her credential is the equal of anyone else's bearing the honorific "doctor," we further dilute our sense of rigor and make room for a notion of equality that winds up extolling the mediocre.

Taken together, these two items give us a taste of the tone we can expect in media treatment of this new regime. 

Those with viewpoints outside the parameters of that tone had best give some thought to withstanding the slings and arrows that are certainly headed their way.