The Wall Street Journal kicked off a hot topic of debate over the weekend with an op-ed piece titled “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.”, which made the argument that the incoming First Lady, Jill Biden, should not be addressed as a “Doctor” because she did not get a medical doctorate.
Biden has a doctorate of education (or Ed.D.), which she earned at the University of Delaware. I have known several Ed.D.’s in my life, and have always addressed them as “Doctor” whenever I have spoken to them. It’s just something I was raised to do and a habit I kept (I still address friends of my parents as either “Mr.” or “Mrs.”, or in some cases, “Uncle” and “Aunt” if they were close friends) all my life.
Now, leading up to the WSJ piece, there have been several arguments on Twitter about Biden claiming the title on social media profiles, in feature pieces, etc. Then, in the op-ed itself, the writer starts off sneeringly questioning her use of the title and then gives his own background and explains why she shouldn’t be using it.
It was rather irritating to read, much like the responses to it.
Naturally, across all social media, journalists and supporters of the Biden family pushed back aggressively, and it has not stopped since. Also as expected, this became a question of sexism, among other things.
It’s all very stupid.
For conservatives, on the list of concerns you should have about the incoming Biden presidency, what title Jill Biden goes by is at best on page 24 - somewhere behind Joe Biden’s fiber intake and what his new cat, Winston, is actually plotting.
It is frankly stupid to be picking this fight right now, when there is so much that we should be fighting right now - from the Georgia Senate races to several of the selections for his cabinet, we can’t be getting bogged down in the stupid fights.
That is exactly the type of behavior that helped Trump lose in 2020. His inability to pick the right battles led him to just picking all the battles, and people got tired of it and sought less drama. If there is any lesson we need to learn from Trump, it’s that messaging does still matter, and attacking Jill Biden over what title she uses in public is some dumb form of “stolen valor” that doesn’t help any political cause whatsoever. It just makes things chaotic.
If you’re on a plane with Jill Biden and someone has a heart attack, when you ask for a doctor, she’s not going to pretend to know medicine and try to save the guy’s life. She isn’t pretending to be something she’s not. She’s using the title her degree awarded her. I’m sorry if you feel like this is a hill to die on, but it’s not. It’s a stupid hill.