Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
Posted on 09/07/2004 6:36:51 AM PDT by Tolik
The greatest criticism of George Bush comes from the artistic and intellectual world. Alfred A. Knopf just published a novel by a prize-winning author about killing the President. The same theme of assassination is the stuff of off-Broadway comedies and stand-up comics.
Michael Moore is an icon in France precisely because he alleges the President is ill-informed and stupid. Billy Crystal suggested that 9-11 is really George Bush’s combined SAT score, while Howell Raines, former editor of the New York Times, writes in the Guardian that he is shocked at Bush’s impoverished intellect. At various times the President’s mauling of “nucular,” his contorted syntax, his NASCAR slang (“smoke ‘em out”), and his apparent contempt for the National Public Radio-New York Times nexus are adduced as proof of his simplicity.
There are a number of things wrong with all this hysteria—quite apart from the morality of even discussing the killing of the President, to the conventional wisdom that it is easy to obtain undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale and Harvard, even if admitted as a legacy. Brainy Al Gore, we should remember, dropped out of both graduate and law schools; George Bush received an MBA from Harvard.
Our elite talkers and thinkers should first ponder how well they have accomplished their own tasks. Howell Raines, for example, was forced out from the New York Times for ethical lapses that were a direct result of his own silly policies. Rather than caricaturing Fox News and the Drudge Report, intellectuals might cross-exam themselves why fewer now trust the credibility of the New York Times or the ostensible impartiality of Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. It is really not a sign of intelligence to distort the news and drive away an audience.
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
Nicholson Baker is only a "prize-winning author" because he regurgitates leftist themes on command. New York literary circles have become frighteningly similar to Ellsworth Toohey's band of malcontent and talentless pseudo-artistes in The Fountainhead.
Note to those reading the NYT: "Intellectuals" only exist if you let them.
It is really not a sign of intelligence to distort the news and drive away an audience.
Amen!
The left can't ridicule the President for that one; Jimmah Cahtah says it the same way and he served in the nuclear navy!!
Course, Curley couldn't tell Billy Crystal what that "one thing" was, but Bush can tell any of us (like we need him to) what the "one thing" is that we need to be most concerned about now.
But in case you forgot, check out the Russian funerals today.
Excellent. Thanks for this!
Great article!
If I may I'd suggest "The Soul Of Battle", and "Carnage and Culture".
I believe truth-in-advertising would point out that Gore FLUNKED out of grad school. (But then it was divinity school...something he obviously does not hold in high enough esteem to bother studying.)
It doesn't matter if one graduates (e.g., George Bush with Yale BA and Harvard MBA). All one must do is attend, be it ever so briefly (e.g., algore's divinity school stint, Kerry's Vietnam "tours" and Senatorial committee meetings).
Not to mention the textbook racket that rips students off. This would be another liberal-tongue-clucker if the institutions were monopolized by conservtives rather than liberals.
Excellent insights...and ability to convey them, which, as the author states, is not as high a priority for many of our professors as having the correct view of the world.
If conservative thought can survive the mayhem of the next 8 years, the time of the self-righteous visceral Baby Boomer subversive will have passed into history. Then less noisy but better prepared among our young people who are actually finding ways, despite their professors, to learn critical thinking and effective communication will have distinct advantage of over the ill-equipped masses who take greater pride in their tatoos than their knowledge.
They are on my list:-) I think what I particularly like about him is that he seems not only knowledgeable and well read but obviously has a great understanding of this country and its people... Something that can't be said about a lot of our intelligentsia.
As this President contiunes to demonstate his courage and leadership his expressive challenges become increasingly endearing to many...another thing that is backlashing on the Party that pretends to be "compassionate" and instead is being acknowledged as heartless toward anyone who is not lock step with their Socialist ideology.
Yeah, folks have gotten used to the way he talks and know instinctively what he means to say, because he IS such a open man, and they know what he believes.
Oh for crying out loud. The press made a huge fuss in 2000 about how Gore scored higher on the SAT than Bush. But the fact remained that Bush scored a full standard deviation above the mean. And the mean on the SAT is not the average for the population as a whole but of a select group--the college bound. What this means is that Bush's intelligence is actually high when considered in the context of the full population. As if this is news to any of us.
The problem with Crystal and his ilk is that they are confusing articulation with intelligence. They are also forgetting that outside of Hollyweird, people want their president to have leadership ability and integrity.
The SAT doesn't claim to measure these qualities. But polls ask people's perceptions about who has them. Bush is the hands-down winner.
Also anything by John Keegan
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