"Qualified" is Not Enough

I like the Merriam-Webster definition of "qualified," especially on the (b) side:

a fitted (as by training or experience) for a given purpose : competent

b having complied with the specific requirements or precedent conditions (as for an office or employment) : eligible

By that definition, Pam Bondi certainly is qualified to be Attorney General.

CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig: "Pam Bondi is, without a question, qualified to be Attorney General. She's been a prosecutor for 20 years in Florida. For 8 of those, she was the Attorney General of the state. That's a very big, very complicated job‚ and that level of experience is… pic.twitter.com/61T4wEhCol

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 22, 2024

 

The otherwise sane, sensible, and somewhat shrewd (alliteration day!) Honig added

If we compare her to Matt Gaetz, she exceeds him on every level by far. But if we go back to sort of a normal curve, I think it's a closer call. One person who I thinkis an interesting historical comparison for Pam Bondi is Janet Reno. Now, I'm not saying P:am Bondi will be Janet Reno but Janet Reno had a similar background. She had been a state level prosecutor in Florida for about 15 years at the time when Bill Clinton nominated her to become attorney general.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this sounds anything like Janet Reno:

In March 2016, CREW discovered that the Trump Foundation had broken the law by giving an illegal $25,000 contribution to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Charitable foundations like the Trump Foundation are not allowed to engage in politics. Even more problematic was the fact that the contribution was given as Bondi’s office was deciding whether to take legal action related to Trump University.

In the little bit less corrupt category,  Democracy Docket notes

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bondi was one of several Trump lawyers who was spreading voting conspiracy theories and false allegations of election fraud. She was part of the Trump campaign’s legal effort to challenge ballots in Pennsylvania in 2020 and went on to spread false allegations of election cheating in the Keystone State.

“All the good residents who are all supporting us in Pennsylvania, their votes don’t count by these fake ballots that are coming in late,” she said on Fox News. “And they are not letting us watch the process.” 

Retired offensive tackle understands

She also ran around w nut job Guiliani spreading conspiracies & lies undermining democracy and cornerstone institution of America. Helped erode America's faith in elections. Pathetic https://t.co/NFwUdDLlzO

— Jumbo Elliott (@JumboElliott76) November 22, 2024

It shouldn't be too much to expect of an Attorney General that she accept the results of an election, at least to the point of not spreading scurrilous lies. Having done so, though, Bondi ought at a minimum to concede that she was wrong and that Joe Biden has been the legitimate President from January 20, 2021 through January 19, 2025.

This is setting the bar very low- necessary but not sufficient. If qualifications themselves were enough to catapult someone into an important government position, an individual who had served as District Attorney of a major city, Attorney General of our largest state, United States Senator, and vice president of the USA deserved to be annointed as President of the nation.  

It's ironic, then, that the individual who defeated that candidate is now appointing to the most important position in the entire Cabinet a person whose chief qualification is that she has served in a similar, lesser, position.  This year, the bar was set low for a Democratic nominee for President, and infinitely lower for her opponent. And now that President-elect, eager for a Justice Department to prosecute his political and personal enemies, is determined to set the bar as low as possible.

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