Reaching the top

Worth a look:

Early Obama Letter Confirms Inability to Write

I have no comment except to note an old distinction between "Contest Mobility" and "Sponsored Mobility."

Contest mobility occurs as individuals rise or fall in the education/occupation status system according to their individual performance in what is essentially a competition for positions. Society presumably is better off when the most competent and motivated man or woman wins. It is also widely believed a contest selection system is most fair to individuals being judged, because success is a matter of individual merit.

Sponsored mobility occurs to the extent that, instead of a free competition, elites select who will occupy favored positions in the status system, and do so according to criteria other than, or in addition to, individual performance.  Traditionally, sponsored mobility was seen, for example, in preferred admissions to elite universities for the children of alumni, and in quota systems that restrict admissions to elite colleges, law firms, etc.  Call it rigging the contest in favor of some (those receiving sponsorship) to the disadvantage of the rest.

Affirmative action was originally conceived as a way to increase equality of opportunity, to allow the previously disadvantaged to compete more successfully in an unbiased contest for more desirable positions in the status structure. But as goals were replaced by quotas, affirmative action rather quickly morphed into a system of sponsored mobility. If you read the American Thinker article above, and if you believe what it reports, it may seem difficult to imagine who could stand more fully as examples of sponsored mobility than Barack and Michelle Obama.

But George W. Bush was also a prime example of sponsored mobility.  And Al Gore would have been, had he won. Thinking about recent presidents, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton may be the biggest exceptions. We could argue about what the lesson in all this is, but I think it argues for President Perry.

Byron