Imagination and Scholarly Presidents

[11 February 2008 - OpEdNews.com - By Mark C. Eades] Thomas Jefferson, Barack Obama, and the Case for Putting a Scholar in the White House ... In a time of such sweeping global change as today we would be well served by a president as willing and able as Jefferson to think outside the box of conventional wisdom and politics as usual. As important as kitchen-table issues are, the compelling importance also of the larger questions of the day and the need for new ideas on how we might seek to address them constitutes much of what has drawn so many in the academic community and beyond to the Obama campaign. A true scholar possesses not just knowledge but also - even more importantly as Albert Einstein suggests - imagination. While I have no doubts as to Hillary Clinton's extensive knowledge and capability, I believe it is Barack Obama who truly possesses the intellectual depth and imaginative vision to lead America and the world into a new era. More