"ignorance is not a virtue"

In a commencement address at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama was quoted:

"In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue,” he said. “It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about. That’s not keeping it real or telling it like it is. That’s not challenging political correctness. That’s just not knowing what you’re talking about."

Imagine that -- a president of the most powerful nation on earth finds himself apparently constrained by current social and political circumstances to underscore what any half-decent educational arena might consider an axiom ... and yet the axiom appears withered and wan: This is a time -- and I don't just mean Donald Trump -- when ignorance is a virtue ... perhaps because it is so much more comforting.