Around the early 1990s, I took to viewing people by their resume. I would move into an office (those being my military years), and assess new people by what I saw them doing or achieving. In simple terms.....they were 'writing' a verbal resume, and I was 'reading' it.
Around twenty years ago, I branched out and looked at individuals beyond who I worked for. This meant looking at Senators, Governors, and journalists. At this point, I began to note one-star wonders.....people who felt they were qualified for 'something' but the truth was that they couldn't really achieve much of anything.
John McCain was one of those people. Once you went down his resume....he just wasn't that qualified or capable. He did make speeches, and blast people, but beyond that.....he wasn't an achiever-type.
Bill Clinton was at the positive end. He'd done various jobs, and accomplished enough at each level.....to prove his value on the resume.
Hillary Clinton? Even into 2016, she had a basic 7-line resume, without much to show except she was the wife of Bill Clinton. The Secretary of State job and the Senator routine for eight years? She was showing up for work but not achieving much of anything.
The resume for Mitt Romney? He was a die-hard road-kill artist....swooping down upon burned-out companies without much value.....casting off what was dead-weight, and then finding one or two gems in the whole mess....to repackage and resell. Beyond that, he did nothing to fix or resolve the mess....he was there to dissolve it.
I came to work for an officer one day, who'd had one single run-in with a junior officer who was sexual-assault player. At some point, he'd seen enough of the behavior, and dragged the guy into a bloom-closet and blackened the guy's eye. That single event set up a reputation....mostly as a guy who didn't take BS. His resume, I tended to stamp as a four-star situation.
Lately, I've taken to viewing journalists, and assigning values to their resumes. Most....I would suggest.....are not talented to stay in the field long-term. Yes, I'm suggesting that a fair number of people in the field of news are simple pretenders....who drifted through college and impressed a couple of people enough to gain a doorway situation. Beyond that.....they don't measure up to folks who were there in the 1960s or 1970s.
I would suggest that people sit and view people and their 'resume'.....asking themselves, what exactly has the guy or gal accomplished in the past ten to twenty years. If this 'resume' is fewer than seven lines, maybe they aren't that impressive, and you should just pass on their significance.
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