Based on the Genius of the memo I decided to investigate

[malaise]

Nunes' educational background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devin_Nunes#Early_life,_education_and_career

He's way out of his depth - that is all.

[ProudLib72]

1. He was well thought of in high school

[malaise]

2. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Voted most likely to do really stupid things?

[tazkcmo]

3. Definitely

Definitely prime wedgie and swirly material.

[MineralMan]

11. Say! Isn't he pretty?

[ProudLib72]

24. Kind of makes you want a mullet, doesn't it?

[MineralMan]

25. Yeah...no.

I'm glad I wasn't young then. I'd have looked way out of place, I'm sure. But then, I looked way out of place when I was young, so I don't suppose it matters.

[ProudLib72]

27. Us kids of the 80s got up to some strange things

I have some very awkward pictures hidden somewhere, and they should never see the light of day!

[MineralMan]

30. Yah. My high school class was 1963, so crew cuts were

the standard hairstyle for guys. I don't think the local barber knew how to cut hair any other way, so, that was me, and everyone else.

I really don't have any pictures from that period, other than yearbook photos. Don't really want any, either.

[FakeNoose]

4. Nothing against farmers

He earned a degree in agriculture and it seems like he started out OK. It's what happened after he sold his soul to the devil, that's when it all went wrong.

[malaise]

5. Same here

but not sure how many of them would understand legal stuff like this - there were questions about his capacity to chair that committee.

[Ms. Toad]

7. I can guarantee both my father and grandfather could have. n/t

[Ms. Toad]

6. Thank you.

I was too close to it to respond politely, having a grandfather who was a respected state senator - after dropping out of school at 14 to run the family farm when his father was killed. And a father who has a degree in agriculture, who is currently a very well-respected member of a retirement community comprises largely of retired faculty of a prestigious private college.

Education, or early career, has little to do with depth.

[FakeNoose]

8. Yes I get it

My Grandpa was a self-educated man, and he was one of the smartest men I ever knew. Degrees aren't a sign of intelligence, but Malaise does have a good point.

The legal complexities of this situation are mind-boggling. I might also call it mind-numbing, but I'm really trying to keep up. The people on the House Judiciary are not constitutional experts, and neither are most of us. Let's hope they're getting good advice and paying attention to the right people.

[Ms. Toad]

9. Education doesn't really have anything to do with being out of one's league -

Lots of self-educated people know when they need assistance, and how to find it. That was one of my grandfather's greatest strengths - he was intensely curious in a way that he learned an incredible amount about you without you even recognizing he was "information gathering," and then when he needed assistance (1) he recognized it because he had spoken with people who knew lots more than he did about nearly every subject - and had asked enough questions to know when an expert was needed and (2) he knew who the experts were because he was familiar with the expertise of pretty much everyone he had ever met.

His Wikipedia entry would have looked far worse than Nunes's: Farmer. Dropped out of school at age 14. Then became a state senator. But based that portion of a wikipedia entry, Malaise would have said he was out of his depth. He was anything but out of his depth.

So no, when Malaise points to Nunes' education (including a Masters Degree - in a field it appears is not scholarly enough for a Senator - or his farming background - as indicators Nunes is out of his depth, Malaise doesn't have a good point. The former has nothing to do with the latter.

I'm just pretty fed up with the occupational/educational/geographical snobbery around DU. This post hit two of them.

[smirkymonkey]

12. The point is that his educational background has not qualified him for the position

he holds now. He is educated in one area only, but that does not qualify him to be in government. The man is an ignorant, small minded fool. There is a point to Malaise's OP.

[Ms. Toad]

20. Sorry, but no.

My grandfather, with his 9th grade education, was an extremely well respected state senator. My father, with his agricultural degree, was an extremely well respected and effective lobbyist on a wide range of social justice issues for one nationally recognized and a second internationally recognized social justice advocacy groups.

Looking at a degree and using that as the basis for declaring someone to be out of their depth is offensive. That assessment should be based on how they perform, not what their educational or occupational background is.

There have been quite a number of posts in recent months slamming Republicans because of their education or occupation. Would the same be said of Senator Tester from Montana, whose Bachelor's degree is in music who has a farming/meat-cutting background or Senator Murray from Washington whose degree is in Physical Education?).

Slam Nunes and other for their actions in Congress, not what you presume you know about them based on what degrees they hold or jobs they have done.

[anneboleyn]

33. So youd hire a lawyer without a degree or doctor w/no degree? If you had to seek out expert legal

advice would you ask a person with a good law degree who also had passed the bar or someone else you think might give good advice based on no degree and some random life experiences? Sorry but I am tired of the anti-degree and anti-intellectual tendency in this country. It happens on both sides. I’m a Ph.D. myself (not in any of these fields), and I know very well how much intensive and lifelong training goes into positions that require expertise.

Would you hire a “surgeon” who had never attended medical school and/or a general practice doctor without these basic credentials? An architect with no degree to design a major project in a city? Sure you would if they “knew what they were doing?” How would you determine that exactly without the standard criteria (degree, training, license or degree, training, publishing — etc?)? Where’s the guidance? Would someone like Nunes just “know” which books to read?

Yes, Nunes is way out of his depth. Of course his lack of education in this area is a serious and obvious impediment. He has demonstrated this abundantly himself.

[meadowlander]

22. It's not "educational snobbery" to suggest that someone

who doesn't have a degree in law, doesn't have military experience and doesn't have intelligence experience shouldn't be chairing the House Intelligence Committee.

He has shown over and over again that he is out of his depth, and one aspect of that is not having either the appropriate education or the appropriate life experience for the position he is in.

I'm fed up with people suggesting that high political office is an entry-level job that any Joe Schlub off the street could do. That's why we're in the mess we're in with candidates like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump being taken seriously.

My grandfather was self-taught, worked as a train conductor but had tens of thousands of poems memorized and read three newspapers every day. He wasn't stupid because he didn't have a degree but he wasn't qualified to chair the House Intelligence Committee either. At least he had military experience though, so he had a step up on Nunes.

[smirkymonkey]

23. Thank YOU!

Some people get it.

[Squinch]

31. Well said.

[anneboleyn]

34. I totally agree. Thank you for a reasonable response!

[malaise]

10. Valid point because education can be over-rated

but he's way out of his depth - and not for the first time

[smirkymonkey]

13. Completely agree malaise!

The man is so under-qualified for the position he holds now Not only that but despite whatever shabby education he received, he is basically a stupid, ignorant person. However, he seems to fit in well with the the rest of the Trump administration.

[Ms. Toad]

14. I absolutely agree he is out of his depth.

What set me off was one more apparent dig at farmers, people with "non-academic" degrees, etc.

Even though I'm the last person to discourage anyone from pursuing education (my spouse and I have 7 degree between us, I've spent more than half of my career in education, and my spouse serves on a school board), I cringe when I see posts on DU denigrating people because they are farmers, or ranchers, "only" have an ag degree (or one), or are from a "Red" state - rather than because they are just stupid, arrogant people (regardless of education/occupation/geography).

[malaise]

16. You've never seen posts from me making digs at people 'non-academic' degrees

Nunes is stupid, arrogant and out of his depth

[Ms. Toad]

21. What got me hot under the collar was this OP

(similar to others I have seen recently)

That point out education (ag degree) or occupation (farming - and I've seen pig farming) followed by a comment along the lines of "that explains it all."

You started with the comment about the genius of the memo
Pointed to his education and farming background
Then declared him out of his depth.

The same point could have been made without reference to his education or farming background. So if you were not making a dig at his ag degree or farming background, why bring it in?

[malaise]

35. I'd have no problem with anyone saying I was out of my depth if I was paradng as

an expert on medicine or quantum physics and producing earth-shattering memos that contradict the experts.
From day one, more than a few persons questioned his qualifications to be House Intel Chair.

I'm not saying there aren't folks who can't succeed in politics with training in other disciplines just that Nunes does not appear to ever have been the sharpest bulb in the room - and he does not have the intelligence to chair intelligence.

[canetoad]

15. Have a lookee at this video

When you have a few minutes. Nunes explains how water is made, with the help of graphic charts. Pure fucking genius!

Can't embed - it's on C-Span, 2014.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4483568/rep-devin-nunes-water-made-the-sun-melts-snow

[malaise]

17. Thanks

Off to look now

That was hilarious

[smirkymonkey]

26. OMG!

What an effing joke!

How is this guy even in congress? I don't want to know.

[Brother Buzz]

18. Injecting a bit of transparency into this, it turns out, the nimrod, Nunes didn't write the memo

The 'Nunes Memo' Ripping the Justice Department Was Written by Former Justice Department Lawyer. Kash Patel jumped from DOJ to the House intel committee where he turned the department's most-coveted intelligence against it.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-nunes-memo-ripping-the-justice-department-was-written-by-former-justice-department-lawyer

[malaise]

19. Thanks Brother Buzz

[FakeNoose]

32. It still doesn't explain how Carter Page knew about the memo in October

No matter who wrote the thing, Carter Page was talking about it on MSNBC 2 months before anyone else knew it existed. Something funny is going on here.

[sunonmars]

28. he's a post turtle, promoted way above his grade and basically what we in corporate call

a brownnose asslicker. Would basically turn everyone else in to get browny points.

[malaise]

41. I'm adding your thread

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210184554


F him

[Vinca]

29. Yikes - but if you ever need a "go to" guy about heifers, he's your man.

[malaise]

36. I'll pass

[mchill]

37. He went to the same college / same major as Scott Peterson

If they were in the same class, that was a bad year.

[malaise]

38. The murderer? n/t

[mchill]

39. Yes

[malaise]

40. Well this idiot

murdered his career

[mchill]

43. I looked it up

Scott Peterson born October 1972, Nunes October 1973.

[malaise]

45. Interesting

Thanks

[The Wielding Truth]

42. Could it be that he is being blackmailed so he can't refuse to so what Trump says?

[kwassa]

44. Whatever degree you have, you can't fix stupid.

I had a friend who was a lobbyist for a liberal organization in Washington, who never said a bad word about anyone. He did tell me in confidence, though, that some Congressmen were very stupid, and if they were stupid, their staffs were worse.

This might explain this memo written by Nune's staff.