Ever since the Palin pick was announced, a friend of mine who just recently graduated from law school has been making that same point over and over: Palin isn’t qualified for her job, just as Myers wasn’t qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. But Palin, like Myers, was tapped for the job anyway for purely political reasons.

I heard another similar comparison today, of Palin to Monica Goodling, the young Justice Department official who was in charge of hiring U.S. attorneys and who later admitted in Congressional testimony that she “crossed the line,” in terms of politicizing these hires.

Goodling may have been smart, but she was put in a powerful position because she had a Christian right background and would follow orders. Palin is similarly hackish.

It’s wrong in several ways but, here’s one:

I will add that her case differs from Harriet Miers’s in a couple of important ways. There is a fundamental difference between a jurist and a political leader. You want in a jurist evidence of having a strong legal mind, and experience relevant to the job of making dispassionate decisions. The skills required to be a good Supreme Court justice are not the same ones required to be an effective political leader.

Hm. Does it matter that the qualifications are different when neither one had them?

Kaye Bailey Hutchison? Olympia Snow? I just can’t stop scratching my head.

The credential in this case is a piece of paper that identifies you as a certain type of person to the world. In the case of Columbia it marks you as “smart,” perhaps “cosmopolitan” from being in NYC, and maybe even “smart, but not Harvard material.” People don’t know you, but they think they know something about you because you have the credential. Idaho of course says different things to most people than Columbia does, but part of my point is that the credential itself says little about the quality of person or their actual capabilities. The crib sheet (read: stereotype) on a person that you get based on the reputation of their undergrad (or grad) institution just doesn’t always tell you much about the actual person in question. In a sense, it tells you more about your own value system than about a the student in question. And of course I’d add again that despite our cherished beliefs to the contrary, just as some really intelligent superstars go to lowly state schools, some real morons attend Ivies. Think Bush.

As for new admission policies at Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc. I think they’re better than nothing, but for a variety of reasons they don’t necessarily level the playing field as much as you’d think. But maybe that’s for another time.

But do we believe that an undergraduate degree from the University of Idaho is equal to a degree from Columbia? Do we believe that Columbia isn’t a “better” school from an educational standpoint, but merely “fancier and more expensive”? If so, then we have to acknowledge that when we, as a society, encourage high school students to achieve academically (or in athletics or arts) in order to gain admission to more “competitive” colleges, which will in turn make these students more competitive in the labor market or the graduate school market straight out of college, we are supporting a system that is absurd and possibly corrupt. Every time a Columbia graduate is picked for a job ahead of an Idaho State graduate (assuming they have roughly equal resumes otherwise), this choice may reinforce and perpetuate the lie that Columbia better prepares its students to succeed after college. Speaking as someone who attended a fancy and expensive boarding school where a large number of the students competed fiercely for admission at top-ranked colleges, I’m disturbed by the notion that all that competition wasn’t to obtain a higher-quality education, but merely to obtain a more fancy and expensive education that would bestow an unfair advantage in the labor market post-college.

Should a Columbia graduate feel entitled to the advantages he or she receives in the labor market? Or are those advantages inherently unfair because they are based on class and social standing? Is it unjust that a company is more likely to hire you if you have an Ivy League degree? Are graduates of lower-ranked schools discriminated against, and should anything be done to prevent this discrimination?

This could be a significant question for the economy, since state schools are often larger, less expensive, and therefore more affordable and open to people with socio-economic disadvantages, when compared to more competitive schools. But if Ivy League grads all get an unfair leg-up, which then puts them in a stronger position to perpetuate the discrimination by hiring Ivy League grads, then we’re just perpetuating a caste system designed to insulate a group of rich, connected “elites” against having to compete fairly against their state school peers.

I’ve heard that Harvard, Yale and Stanford have all changed their admissions policies so that students from middle class families who gain admission can essentially attend college for free — a huge incentive for students to achieve in high school.

Here’s a handy list of non-ivies for your enjoyment!

1. Richard Nixon–Whittier College
2. Jimmy Carter–Georgia Tech, Georgia Southwestern
3. Ronald Reagan–Eureka College
4. LBJ–Southwestern Texas State Teacher’s College
5. Harry Truman–no college

You’ll note that there are some real heavy hitters here president-wise and that the Harvard and Yale educated presidents weren’t necessarily better as a lot than these guys. I mean, George Bush is much better credentialed than every one on this list combined, but we all know that this hasn’t helped him be a great president or a great leader.

Of course, I can already hear Ian saying “But Julie, what about experience! These guys with non-ivy league education had experience beyond college!” Sure. For most, but not all of these presidents, that’s true. (I’m looking at you, Truman) But the point is, their intelligence and capability as leaders in fact had very little correlation to what they did in school or where they went, and to say that a Columbia grad is necessarily more impressive than a University of Idaho grad is not a given by any means.

Now, I personally think this particular Columbia grad is better, but if I were giving a job to someone, I hope I’d keep an open mind and pick the person best suited for the job, not the one with the fanciest and most expensive credentials.

We know so little about Palin that it seems like the few shreds of info we do have — like where she went to college — have to be taken very seriously. Ideally, we wouldn’t be considering where someone went to college when evaluating their qualifications to be president.

Back to Lee: What is more important is that you have a 72 year old cancer survivor who has left his successor as nonchalantly as one may order the steak over the chicken at a wedding. More importantly this isn’t some sort of decision you can change like National Security Adviser but you would have to wait until 2012 or convince the VP to resign. Neither option speaks to a well thought out decision.