[getoutofherefly]

I agree it is sad that people are making a big deal about a politician seeming to have a basic grasp of a science that is not well understood, but at the same time a high level understanding is really all he should have.

I think that ideally politicians should be working at a high level of abstraction (like any manager/executive in any field, especially technical). This means having a high level, big picture understanding of a field and the major benefits and hurdles to overcome.

Having a deep understanding of one area like this would make people in that field happy maybe, but it would not necessarily make him better at making big policy decisions and balancing the needs of the quantum computing industry with the other industries and the needs of the country.

The problem is that politicians generally tend to only be good at one thing: politics. A good leader would strive to understand at a high level all of the topics that involve policy decisions, with the intelligence to dive deeper if need be or be able to understand and verify the advice of an expert in that field and make educated decisions. This is usually not the case, but when it is we shouldn't deride someone for only having a topical knowledge of our own fields.