Posted on 03/08/2012 1:16:40 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
As a card-carrying member of the media elite, it’s hard for me to say something nice about Newt Gingrich. But here it is: He doesn’t wear blue jeans in public.
[SNIP of SNARK due to excerpt limit]
For many Republican primary voters, the only thing worse than a regular elite is an intellectual elite or a media elite or especially a liberal intellectual media elite.
[SNIP]
More to the point, does the fact that a guy reads books and deals in ideas disqualify him?
For many Americans, it does. Anti-intellectualism has been a consistent theme throughout American history. The political scientist Richard Hofstadter won a Pulitzer Prize for “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.”
This was in 1964, and Hofstadter was writing about the 1950s, in the wake of McCarthyism and Adlai Stevenson’s “egghead” campaign. Hofstadter noted “hostility to intellectuals expressed on the far right wing, a categorical and folkish dislike of the educated classes and of anything respectable, established, pedigreed or cultivated.”
Now it’s back. The most prominent American conservative is not the erudite William F. Buckley but the seething Rush Limbaugh.
.....If ideas and knowledge are elitist, if you have to pretend to be ignorant to be elected president, then the country is in more trouble that we thought it was.
(Excerpt) Read more at hanfordsentinel.com ...
Now it’s back. ....
Kevin Horrigan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
a liberal intellectual media elite.
Talk about storing your head where the sun don't shine! They really need to get out more.
Education obviously does not guarantee possessing knowledge or leaving you with the ability to THINK critically.
Liar. Americans simply want a world class liar to occupy their White House.
There is no hostility towards smart, educated people.
The hostility is towards those self defined “intellectuals” who are elitists and think they are entitled to make our decisions for everyone else.
Those are the bastards we despise.
INTELLECT
1a : the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledge
Elite EDUCATION:
Remove God and insert socialism
John Stuart Mill? Even better, Plato.
Ever notice how Democrat presidential nominees are referred to as brilliant? Carter, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama....
And Republican presidential nominees are called stupid? ...Reagan, Bush....
Education obviously does not guarantee possessing knowledge or leaving you with the ability to THINK critically.
Exactly, and having an above average intellect doesn’t mean you have any worthwhile ideas to share.
perhaps if such a large percentage of the intellectual community were not made up of pundits and professors who were total d-——bags...
Since academia was taken over by leftist radicals, the western canon was replaced by multicultural gobbledygook, the English language was replaced by Newspeak, free thinking was replaced by political correctness, and education was replaced with indoctrination.
I read that during the 1956 presidential campaign Adlai Stevenson’s Harvard transcripts were kept in a locked drawer in the office of the President of Harvard. And in the 1950’s it was probably easier to get into Harvard, if you had the money, and definitely easier to graduate from Harvard than West Point.
Perhaps the biggest reason behind Newt's popularity is that despite his flaws, he's recognized as being extremely bright, and excels in the world of ideas. And it is conservatives who are valuing that. So how can so many conservatiuves like a guy who is clearly an intellectual if they hate intellectuals?
The answer is that what conservatives dislike and mistrust are those left-wing intellectuals who believe they are smart enough to tell other people how to live their lives. Someone who considers themselves your intellectual equal or lesser isn't going to tell you that they could live your life better than you could. But intellectuals who think regular people aren't competent enough to win their own lives? Oh yeah, we conservatives despise them.
Many folks these days are in fact, educated beyond their intelligence. A few of them even show up here from time to time.
Oh look! It’s a sweater vest!
Hillary doesn’t wear mini-skirts, either. I like Gingrich in a suit and I love the mans mind. I would feel very proud to have intellectual Newt representing us!
Go Gingrich!
The hostility is towards those self defined “intellectuals” who are elitists and think they are entitled to make our decisions for everyone else.
Those are the bastards we despise.
That post was so on the friggin money I had to repost it. Thanks. And your prize is this delightful destruction of the elites: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/palin_v_pundits.html
Bush was clearly more academically accomplished than that moron Al Gore.
Let me re-post it without the grammatical problem...
There is no hostility towards smart, educated people.
The hostility is towards those self defined “intellectuals” who are elitists and think they are entitled to make decisions for everyone else.
Those are the bastards we despise.
If memory serves me, propaganda media lauded Clinton for being such a great liar. Obama’s buyers-remorse malaise may come from feelings that Obama needs to become a better liar.
Well, actually Kevin, education became a bad thing when it gradually changed from teaching people things—science, history, literature, religion, excellence all around—to brainwashing them to be good little lying, liberal elite scum like you.
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