Opinion: What a world it would be

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Barack Obama finally paid up all the parking tickets he got while a student at Harvard Law School -- only 17 years late -- just before he declared he would run for president.

Kudos to the Somerville (Mass.) News for breaking the story Wednesday.

The sums of Obama’s parking transgressions were puny -- $140 in fines. That’s chump change in Boston, where there hasn’t actually been a legal parking space since circa 1959. As is the tradition in Beantown, Obama’s late fees ($260) far outstripped his parking fines. But now the slate is clear. Obama is now officially no longer a scofflaw. Therefore, presumably, he must be fit to run for president.

What would the world would be like if more people assumed that one day they too would be subject to the presidential candidate-caliber scrutiny? Better? Or totally unlivable?