Monday, February 20, 2017

Transcripts-- Are They Academic?

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-by Michael Wolkowitz



No not Flynn’s conversations with the Russians. Not Manafort’s with the Russian clients in Ukraine. Or anything else from this century.

Remember, earlier this century, when the current President (hereinafter referred to as “T”) took a side-trip from his crusade to prove that the prior President (hereinafter referred to as “0”) was not an American citizen? The one where T pointed out that O first went to Occidental before going to Columbia, and then on to Harvard Law? The trip that implied, in case after case after case, it proved the perverse privilege that is known as affirmative action? You know, the kind black people get?  If T had been able to learn and pronounce Punahou he would have added High School in Hawaii. Remember how T dared O to release his transcripts from Columbia because they would be a bombshell? OK, maybe you did, certainly you do now.

Let’s flash back to those days in the ‘60s when our T was going to college. He was a mere handful of years ahead of me and I remember. We can skip the part when some would ask: if he went to New York Military Academy and graduated, bone spurs and all, why wasn’t he a ROTC guy in college? Let’s go straight to Freshman and Sophomore Years. At Fordham. Yep, just like O, the current President did not start at an Ivy League school. While a fine university, Fordham was no Occidental. T did not start at the undergraduate program of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School until he was a junior. That Ivy League education of his was only two years long. By the way, the Fordham University of today, unlike Occidental, does not like to be known as a school that was attended by a President of the United States; darn Jesuits!

Back then, the undergraduate school at Wharton was no Columbia. No Columbia? I distinctly remember kids in those days needing more than anything to go to an Ivy, any Ivy. When 100% of the envelopes were rejections, they raced to the guidance counselor’s office (at my privileged public school in a privileged NY suburb). Here was the advice they got and mostly it worked:  there are two other places we can still try to get you into (yes it was April but I told you we were privileged). The School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell-- no it’s not the College of Arts and Sciences but the diploma says “Cornell” or the Wharton School of Economics, no, it’s not the College of Arts and Sciences but the diploma says “University of Pennsylvania.”

Fordham and Wharton. Not Occidental and Columbia let alone Harvard Law and its Review. All the more reason for the biggest genius in the world to:

SHOW US THE TRANSCRIPTS. Will it change anything, no. But it could be fun! And by mistake maybe they will send the tax returns . . .



UPDATE from Howie

Trump planted stories-- I mean #Alt-Facts-- as early as 1973 that he graduated first in his class. Records show that he wasn't even on the honor roll nor the recipient of any graduating honors. He couldn't have graduated "first in his class" when 15 of his classmates graduated cum laude from Wharton (1968), 4 magna cum laude and 2 summa cum laude, unlike Trump who... graduated... from something. What he graduated from was always in question. After left-- possibly flunked out of-- Fordham, his father bribed Wharton into taking his unqualified son into a "special" real estate program that apparently didn't even exist except for him. He made no impression on anyone for anything and has carefully hidden his academic records and prohibited Wharton from allowing anyone to see them after he was repeatedly caught lying about being a top student.


UPDATE II: The Organization Man

A note from a long-time DWT reader included the page from William H. Whyte's 1956 classic, The Organization Man. Whyte quoted a very interesting passage from the Daily Pennsylvanian about the less than salutary effects of Wharton on intellectual life at Penn.



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3 Comments:

At 12:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The transcripts are academic only in the sense that they function as a receipt for Herr Hair's baby sitting bills for whatever time he was there. He wasn't really expected to actually DO anything, nor to actually LEARN anything. I'm thinking that the colleges he attended were more than happy to take Fred's money to house and feed this worthless scion, and put up with him until Fred decided that he'd thrown enough good money after bad and removed him.

 
At 5:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To augment 12:13's salient comment, we don't really need his transcripts... if they exist (maybe he dropped/flunked out and just had a diploma printed).

Just listen to the pos try to speak English, form sentences and count the distinct words he uses. Count all his business failures/bankruptcies and factor in how many people of great inherited wealth have that many failures (and factor in that he has armies of lawyers and other experts doing all the work).

And there is proof that even an ivy education can be bought. W did yale, was refused entry to UT law and settled for Harvard. And he has a mid 2-digit IQ himself.

This is a great country isn't it? When we elect Rs, we elect legitimate morons (since 1980 anyway -- maybe not poppy bush so much, but the rest). When we elect Ds we get far above average intellect... but also far above average corruption and a laundry list of other evils.

And the good people that might be available don't run or are defrauded from winning (EW, BS, AG)... which is bad enough. We used to kill them (JFK, RFK, MLK).

 
At 5:41 AM, Anonymous Hone said...

Reporters have not so far done their job of thoroughly investigating Trump's educational background, which would surely expose more of his inexhaustible and (fatal) flaws. This is appearing more and more like an understatement! His frequent preening about his graduation from Wharton is looking like another one of his big whopping lies.

Just think about it. Here is a man who has not read a book for a very long time (if ever), does not read newspaper articles, only the headlines, writes only in short tweets using the language of a twelve year old, has extremely limited attention and stamina for listening, and insists that his briefings are no longer than one page (and to include visuals, e.g., graphs, charts, as he does not a lot of words).

Is this possibly a man who read text books of boring material (e.g., business and economic treatises), sat and listened to his professors' lectures, absorbed the information and retained the facts (that's a laugh), studied for tests and demonstrated his knowledge and higher level comprehension of the material by correctly answering short answer questions and writing coherent, analytical responses to essay questions? I don't think so! Anyone who has actually gone through a decent college program would be mystified about how Trump could have passed any/all of those courses. Hey, maybe he didn't! Maybe he was given a free ride in college, like most everything else in his life.

Where are the interviews with his classmates from Wharton? Does anyone remember being in a class with him? The press thus far has apparently been unable to dig anyone up. And why not? What is his degree in? What program was he actually in? Does anyone recall the real estate program? Shouldn't the college have a brochure or other information on this program? How many students were in it with Trump? Shouldn't there be public records of this?

And what about Fordham? Why did he leave there? Any classmate from there have anything to say?

Let's bring on his transcripts - hey, you must show them to apply for any job, but not for the Oval Office? This is insane, as is everything else about the Orangeman.

This should all have been investigated BEFORE the election, let alone now. But it is never too late to expose his cheating and lies. The potential dishonesty and lack of integrity in his academic history must be uncovered, as part of the package of his unfitness for office. The case for his removal needs to be broad based and there is fodder in so many areas. His college background is only one of them; his history of sexual exploits also must be delved into much further.

Perhaps his whole college degree is a sham, just like everything else about this con man from New York - yes, New Yorkers do know a con man when they see one! How has this man gotten away with so much from right under our noses? Americans are looking more and more like a bunch of fools, and I guess we are, as a whole, though a majority of us did see this coming like a freight train. And the press is looking pretty bad; they have let the country down big time. But they can still make this up to us!

 

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