Ah the identity politics drama is starting already. The wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, who goes by Jill, has herself a doctorate in educational leadership from the powerhouse University of Delaware and yes that is absolutely as unimpressive as it sounds. Her dissertation was apparently titled Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs and doesn’t that sound like an impressive work of academic achievement. Anyway, Jill apparently bristles when people don’t call her “Dr. Biden” and that makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.
By way of comparison, my father is a doctor. Like an actual, went to medical school, doctor. A medical doctor. I have known him for four dozen years. In all of that time, I never recall him even once introducing himself as “Dr. Sido”, rather he always simply introduced himself by his first and last name. I also have heard a ton of people who didn’t know he was a doctor addressing him as “Mr. Sido” and never once did he correct them. I was reminded of this scene from Game of Thrones when Tywin Lannister tells Joffrey: “Any man who must say, I am the king, is no true king.”
Someone who is so insecure that they need to remind everyone they meet that they are a “doctor” based on some bullshit credential mill granting them a doctorate degree in 2007, from the University of Delaware when her husband was the senior Senator from Delaware, is lacking any sort of academic standing.
Joseph Epstein writing in the Wall Street Journal scorches Jill for her pretentious insistence on being called “Dr. Biden”, Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.
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. Any chance you might drop the “Dr.” before your name? “Dr. Jill Biden ” sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.” A wise man once said that no one should call himself “Dr.” unless he has delivered a child. Think about it, Dr. Jill, and forthwith drop the doc.
That has the left all in a fury. Bitter old harpy Hillary Clinton weighed in….
When that hag is standing up for you, you are probably on the wrong side of the issue.
This is pretty typical of life in 2020. I have remarked before on the curious phenomenon of mostly women and minorities putting academic credentials in their social media user names and handles. I even saw a woman on Facebook add “RN” to her username to apparently seem more impressive when screeching about people wearing masks. If you think you need to add an academic honorific to your social media identity to give your statements more credence, it is pretty sure sign that you are an intellectual lightweight who is understandably insecure about your authority. Rightly so, as Steve Sailer pointed out:
In general, the Bidens seem like people of run-of-the-mill IQs (e.g., Beau, the late Good Son, failed the admittedly tough Delaware bar exam three times) who are insecure about their merely normal brainpower, and overreact embarrassingly.
Joe Biden is at best of average intelligence, even when he was not in the throes of dementia, and nothing I have seen of Jill indicates she is more intelligent. Thus the bragging and insistence at being called by titles, however meaningless they might be. A doctorate in education , again quoting Sailer, “which 95% of the time is just a way to pad your pay from the public school district” isn’t something to brag about. It is an employment credential and in the case of Jill was awarded after her husband had been the Senator from Delaware for decades. Does anyone think there was a chance in hell that she wasn’t going to be awarded that doctorate?
If you thought things were going to get better once Orange Man Bad was out of office, you are insane. Imagine every shitty thing about 2020 and then imagine those shitty things being given the full support of the President of the United States.
Welcome to hell.
I could get a degree nearly as valid in as fast as the mail could bring me a certificate.
In the article from the WSJ I linked, he pointed out that getting your doctorate was an incredibly difficult and stressful process. Now it is just another empty credential.
Got me a BS in Military Science, an MA in Comparative Religion and a DD, (Divinity) Don't see me floggin' that particular log eh? Cos it's all a heapin steamin pile of Bantha Poodo….
In general, the only people who are impressed with university credentials are people who didn't go to college. Those of us who went know better, other than maybe M.D.s and PhDs in the hard sciences.