One mark of a declining civilization is an increasing tendency to value style over substance, awards over acumen, titles over triumphs. Enter “Dr.” Jill Biden, who sought her title for self-aggrandizement purposes but who, after scrutiny of her doctoral dissertation, may “wish she had stuck with ‘Mrs. Biden,’” as one commentator puts it.
Given that Whoopi Goldberg proved her style-over-substance status by recommending “Dr.” Jill for surgeon general on TV, it’s perhaps understandable why The Wall Street Journal ran a piece recommending that Mrs. Biden drop the “doctor” prefix. The article created quite a kerfuffle, too, with the EneMedia throwing a collective fit and accusing Journal writer Joseph Epstein of various and sundry isms starting with “sexism.”
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But these leftists — and particularly Biden herself — may now wish they’d just let the matter pass. Because the attention inspired scrutiny of her doctoral dissertation, and, well, the results aren’t pretty.
The criticism has been scathing. Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson quipped that Jill’s title was as meaningful as “Dr. Pepper.” It’s not just that everyone “wants to be a doctor, but nobody wants to go to medical school,” as a saying I heard goes; it’s also that Jill “doesn’t even hold a Ph.D. but rather a lesser Ed.D., something of a joke in the academic world,” writes National Review’s Kyle Smith.
Pointing out that “Mrs. Biden wanted the credential for its own sake” (His Fraudulency Joe Biden himself revealed this, do note), Smith was particularly unsparing, writing:
As for its [the doctorate’s] quality, well. She got it from the University of Delaware, whose ties to her husband, its most illustrious alumnus if you don’t count Joe Flacco, run so deep that it has a school of public policy named after him. That the University of Delaware would have rejected her 2006 dissertation as sloppy, poorly written, non-academic, and barely fit for a middle-school Social Studies classroom (all of which it is) when her husband had been representing its state in the U.S. Senate for more than three decades was about as likely as Tom Hagen telling Vito Corleone that his wife is a fat sow on payday. The only risk to the University of Delaware was that it might strain its collective wrist in its rush to rubber-stamp her doctoral paper. Mrs. Biden could have turned in a quarter-a**ed excuse for a magazine article written at the level of Simple English Wikipedia and been heartily congratulated by the university for her towering mastery. Which is exactly what happened.
If you think Smith exaggerates, you can read Jill’s dissertation yourself here. If not a glutton for punishment, you can just peruse the Twitter thread on the subject by Matt Bethlehemanti or the critique penned by RedState’s Nick Arama.
But here’s one representative excerpt, courtesy of Arama: “‘Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian; one quarter of the class will be African American; one seat will hold a Latino; and the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens.’ How many quarters is that, Dr. Biden?”
Note that Jill was 55-years-old when writing the above in pre-Common Core-math 2006.
Her dissertation is also ridden with spelling errors, such as “undeserved” instead of “underserved.” Remember here that Trump-boosting lawyer Sidney Powell has been mocked mercilessly for filing legal documents with misspellings, despite having a small team and little time to prepare the filings for major lawsuits. In contrast, 13 to 20 months are spent on the average doctoral dissertation; relentless editing is expected.
Yet more significant than what this story says about “Dr.” Jill is how it indicts our system, notes Tucker Carlson (video below). It further discredits the University of Delaware, for bestowing such a fraudulent degree; “higher education” in general; and again indicates how, increasingly, ours is a faux meritocracy.
For sure. Today the establishment has an Old Soy Boys network, where members parade around giving each other awards, degrees, accolades, honors, and pats on the back. (It’s part of an unwritten agreement among “royalty” that also includes, “I won’t bring charges against you, and you don’t bring charges against me. Deal?”)
Thus do we see Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) kill thousands in nursing homes with a criminally negligent pandemic policy, but consequently receive an Emmy and the Edward M. Kennedy Award for Inspired Leadership (about as valid as naming an award after Kennedy in the first place). Thus did we see Barack Obama and Yasser Arafat “win” the Nobel Peace Prize. And now add to the list “‘The Dan Rather Medals for News and Guts,’ whose name honors the man most famous for the expression ‘fake but accurate,’” relates American Thinker.
Analyzing this phenomenon’s ubiquity, Carlson states it gets at the deeper reason the powers-that-be are so upset about the Jill Biden criticism:
Since our pseudo-elites are generally no more competent than she is, such scrutiny threatens their whole house-of-cards scam. Pharaohs and emperors of old might have justified their positions by claiming deific status, but this is impossible in a secular age and with elected officials. So our big-hat-no-cattle poseurs justify their positions with phony Ivy League degrees and other “credentials,” our version of the banana republic general with 28 medals pinned on his chicken chest.
Yet there’s another factor. A major reason various types of chauvinism (ethnic, racial, etc.) are so appealing is that they afford even the most lacking and unaccomplished a sense of special status. For no matter what, at least you’re not like those other people — you’re part of an elite group. Thus could Nazis revel in master race status.
As for our leftists, remember how they love to talk about how stupid conservatives are, about we’re knuckle-dragging Neanderthals? This is the same phenomenon. Leftists’ self-esteem is, often, largely based on fancying themselves members of an elite group: liberals.
In other words, part of the reason they can’t relinquish their leftism is that their self-image is wrapped up in it. And their credentialism helps them maintain their illusion of superiority.
Of course, more simply, this superficiality also just reflects the spiritual bankruptcy of worldly people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
And thus today are we governed by “intellectuals” and not wise men, people who may have more degrees than a thermometer but not a lick of common sense.
