Expertise

On This Week with ABC this morning in discussing the controversy whether the Christmas bomber should have been Mirandized John Podesta of the Center for American Progress asked somewhat derisively "Who would you rather trust - the experts or Sarah Palin?"

That really was not the question here. Whether or not to offer a Miranda warning to a terrorist is a matter of judgement not expertise. What is interesting to me is the dismissive way Podesta tried to square the circle. His attempt was to equate someone who the left hates (as ill-informed) with a position he disagrees with. In Podesta's view anyone who disagrees with the political judgment to apply Miranda rules to the Christmas bomber lacks expertise. That is the arrogance of Washington. I don't think Palin has a lot of expertise in this area but I also believe that Podesta has a similar limit on expertise. With what he said on ABC he also seems to lack judgment. An article about Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed up this problem pretty well "Experts” who think too highly of their own opinions and too little of what the rest of us think are a big part of the problem."