Lawyers as presidents? Not a good idea, says Clint Eastwood.#ThomasJefferson #JohnAdams #AbeLincolnhttp://on.wsj.com/NGHpjX
10:27 AM - 31 Aug 12 · Details
Clint Eastwood: Lawyers as President? Not a ‘Good Idea’
By Joe Palazzolo
- Associated Press
- Actor Clint Eastwood addresses the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.
Listen up, LBers. Clint Eastwood doesn’t think you’re fit for the presidency. His speech at the RNC last night, an embarrassment of riches for late-night comedians, included an argument against attorneys leading the free world.
From the transcript (thanks, Politico):
I just think that there is so much to be done, and I think that Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are two guys that can come along. See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to the president, anyway.I think attorneys are so busy — you know they’re always taught to argue everything, always weigh everything, weigh both sides. They are always devil’s advocating this and bifurcating this and bifurcating that.You know all that stuff. But, I think it is maybe time — what do you think — for maybe a businessman. How about that?
Totally, right? Except Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, is a trained lawyer and a businessman. He earned both his J.D. and his MBA at Harvard University, in a dual-degree program.
But maybe Mr. Eastwood meant he can’t abide lawyer-presidents who actually taught or practiced law prior to their terms — including nobodies like John Adams and Abraham Lincoln. In all, 25 presidents have been lawyers.
#2 — John Adams (Harvard, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#3 — Thomas Jefferson (College of William & Mary, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#4 — James Madison (College of New Jersey — now Princeton — then read law)
#6 — John Quincy Adams (Harvard, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#7 — Andrew Jackson (self-taught lawyer)
#8 — Martin Van Buren (Kinderhook Academy, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#10 — John Tyler (College of William & Mary, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#11 — James Polk (University of North Carolina, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#13 — Millard Fillmore (clerked for and studied under New York Judge Walter Wood)
#14 — Franklin Pierce (Bowdoin College, then studied law)
#15 — James Buchanan (Dickinson College, then studied law)
#16 — Abraham Lincoln (No formal education, a self-taught lawyer)
#19 — Rutherford Hayes (Kenyon College, Harvard law)
#21 — Chester Arthur (Union College, then studied law)
#22 — Grover Cleveland (apprenticed as a lawyer)
#23 — Benjamin Harrison (Miami University in Ohio, then studied law)
#25 — William McKinley (Allegheny College, Albany law)
#27 — William Howard Taft (Yale, Cincinnati law)
#28 — Woodrow Wilson (College of New Jersey — now Princeton — then UVA law)
#30 — Calvin Coolidge (Amherst, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
#32 — Franklin Roosevelt (Harvard, Columbia law)
#37 — Richard Nixon (Whittier College, Duke law)
#38 — Gerald Ford (University of Michigan, Yale law)
#42 — Bill Clinton (Georgetown University, Yale law)
#44 — Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard law)
