Oh For Crayon Out Loud

You occasionally hear about art critics who laud works of art by unknown artists for their depth, emotion, nuance, and whatever else art critics look for in a work, only to find out that the artist was a juvenile elephant or a geriatric chimpanzee.  These reports are meant to be provocative inquiries into the objective value of art and the subjective tastes of critics.  Is art less appreciable when it is created by random acts of pachyderm than by tortured emotions of humans?  Another way of saying this might be, does the quality of the message depend on the quality of the messenger?

What if we found a story written in poorly formed letters of crayon:  Page after page of juvenile chicken scratch across countless pieces of construction paper that happened to be a work of Shakespearean quality?  Would the value of the work depend upon the value of the medium in which it was delivered?

I ask that in order to ponder this:  Do we emphasize the quality of the messenger and the clarity of the delivery too much in politics?



I found last night's GOP debate nearly insufferable.  Messrs Santorum and Romney spent so much time in the tall grass that some Congressional staffers were surely left scratching their heads.  In fact I only heard one question that received an answer worth considering.  John King asked about immigration--though the subject was unimportant.  Citing General Accounting Office estimates, he wondered whether $3 million* per mile of fence was a price worth paying to secure the U.S.-Mexico border given the budget deficit and other limiting factors.  It was a classic question meant to trap politicians in refusing to set priorities.

It fell to Mr. Gingrich--an imperfect messenger who's rambling, hyperbolic speaking style is an imperfect medium-- to deliver the perfect response: why do we accept a government that needs $3 million to build a mile of fence?

Upon reflection I realize Mr. Gingrich has said similar things before.  Yet in the midst of an increasingly desperate and pathetic race for the GOP nomination it hit me that this was the difference.  I have no doubt that Mr. Romney would be the best at optimizing the border fence and managing the process of building each $3 million stretch with reasonable judgement and careful consideration.  He would also excel at explaining his choices to the American people in perfect timbre and measured prose.

But I still hope for a president who doesn't accept an absurd premise and try to minimize the damage.  I still hope for a president who rejects the premise, fires the bureaucrat who suggested it, and solves the problem.  If the person willing to do that is a lout with a tendency toward loquaciousness, maybe we should roll with it.  And while we're at it, let's all go out and support our struggling simian savants.

*My own research shows the GAO estimate to be $2.8 million/mile.  The fact that $200,000 is so casually rounded off only suggests the depth of the dysfunction in federal budgeting.