Candidates' grades are latest smear target
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-06-02-0159.html
This story is worth posting only as an example of the utter ridiculousness and depravity of academic mudslinging, which mostly occurs between school principals and superintendents discovered to be lacking in certification. Outgoing Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe has been hit with the allegation that the bachelor's degree he received last year was not fully credited, a challenge emailed in by an "anonymous tip".*
My question is, if an institution that wrote its own merits hands you a diploma with its seal and signatures, and it turns out you had 49 brownie points instead of 50, why would that seal become meaningless unless it had none in the first place? (Albeit its value may be no more than a piece of paper, the person who receives it at least attributes personal value to it and takes pride in getting it.) He won an important office which unless I am mistaken is a binding decision and accomplishment, having completed what was presumably a prerequisite by transferring from a previous academic institution to Richmond. These institutions don't always honor the pride and faith people put in them, because the purpose of these paper merits is to reduce the citizen and set him on a controlled path. "I continue to treasure my degree and take great honor in achieving a personal and professional goal in my life." says Monroe.* What if those who awarded him this degree suddenly decided it, and him, are bupkus and cost him his new job? (Monroe is 51 years old and Chief of Police may be his final goal.)
This trend of doubting the credibility of things like state primaries, superdelegates and even job appointments that have already been made, takes on new irony when competitors are pulling up each others academic records, a fight that can only reveal these have no credibility at all.
*http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-06-02-0159.html