The final remark about America's youth falls into an old rhetoric trap, that of disqualifying good advice due to a lack of personal experience on the part of the person giving it. If Obama or McCain recommends (or "gets sanctimonious about") teaching more science and math in American schools they aren't hypocrites just because they don't have physics degrees. While there's a tiny bit of "do as I say, not as I do" to it, it's hardly enough for more than light irony.

For it to be relevant to a politician's job description it would take much more than just knowing a second language competently. While having a command of a second language always seems to inspire near awe in Americans, unless there is an element of cultural understanding it's as relevant as that physics degree. (As warming a thought as it is to imagine Bush browsing Mexican newspapers online before a meeting with Calderon, he has people who do this for him. Or could.) A politician who lived abroad for a considerable time but never mastered another language would have gained far more applicable insight than one who stayed home learning fluent Spanish in school.

It's not the ability to speak a second language that should impress; the desire that inspired one to learn it should. Being able to read Borges in the original isn't the point. Wanting to read Borges is.

Saludos, Mig

Editor,
http://www.theotherrussia.org

scorad, I do not know if your comment was actually trying to generate a response, but here it is anyway.

According to Wikipedia there are 76 million native French-speakers and a further 280 million people with French as their second or third language.

That same source gives 17 million native speaker for Bahasa Indonesia, with 200 million total speakers.

Needless to say, mastery of any language broadens one's view. To call either 'useless' is not very insightful.