Bush and Palin anti-intellectualism

[Joanne98]

Radley Balko on Palin's performance in the VP debate:

Palin was rambling, didn’t answer the questions she was asked, and the folksy stuff felt contrived. I suppose Palin did okay in that she didn’t come off like the train wreck she was in her Katie Couric interview, but Jesus, is that the standard? Is the bar that low for vice president of the United States? That seems to be the way the conventional wisdom is playing out. Oddly, the Couric interview may have actually helped her, then.

Palin seems to have crammed just enough so she could toss out key phrases here and there to give the veneer that she’s informed. But it’s pretty clear she was in way over her head for most of the debate. Pick her apart with follow-up questions, as Couric and Gibson did, and she falls to pieces.

This growing anti-intellectualism on the right is alarming. It isn’t that Palin is dumb. I don’t think she is. It’s that she has no interest in learning, no interest in reading or experiencing anything that might challenge what she already knows she believes. She thinks with her gut, as Steven Colbert might put it. She’s a female W. And they seem to love her for it. The GOP has gone populist. Knowledge, worldliness, and learning are to be shunned, swept aside as East Coast elitism. It’s all about insularity, earthy values, and simpleness. Remember the beating John Kerry took in 2004 for daring to use the word “nuance?” There’s no room for complexity on the right anymore. It’s good and evil. Black and white. Us and them.

Maybe a good butt-kicking this November will bring about some soul searching.


And Ed Brayton on Bush, quoting this ABC News story:

After some more give and take, Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, presents a five-page list of 192 economists and business school professors who oppose the plan. Bush isn't impressed. "I don't care what somebody on some college campus says," Bush says.
He might as well have said, "I ain't never had no need for book learnin'."


I agree with Balko--Palin seems exactly like a female "W" in this respect.

http://lippard.blogspot.com/2008/10/bush-and-palin-anti-intellectualism.html

[groovedaddy]

1. It's endemic on that side of the political spectrum...soundbites - 24x7 n.t

[Name removed]

2. Deleted sub-thread

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[RufusEarl]

3. Just like Bu$h, no intellectual curiosity.

Peace!

[Hellataz]

4. I want an articule and intelligent leader, not joe six pack..AGAIN!

Enough with thinking we need another "joe six pack" to led this country. I am proud to stand up and say i want a leader who is smarter then me, that knows how washington works and still has a connection to "main street" america. The last thing we need is some folksy hockey Mom showing up toting her experience as a parent and her diversity of her family as her credentials to lead this country. We need more that that, we need at least someone with the basic knowledge of foreign and domestic polices, not just what what she's done in which she tried to separate it from the USA. We've had 8 years of "joe six pack" and look where that's gotten us.

Side note: Kudos to Biden for throwing it right back at her saying he too is a parent and understands what concerns parent shave for their kids.

Enough, with the "Folksy talk", This does not make her enduring to me, in fact it annoys the shit out of me, all the "you betcha!" and "darn toot'in", Sorry but I want my leaders to not just be intelligent but to also sound professional and articulate. I can't see many people in her profession taking this women seriously, which makes me think...is this "folksy talk" an act? Or is she just amping up her normal dialect to appeal to the heartland. I personally think it's a bit of both, just because i don't give her credit enough to come up with such manipulation, though i know 100% that her republican advisors would...that's what they do.

[EnviroBat]

5. Here' what's happening to us...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyVNlvzzSFA

[protect our future]

6. Republicans talked about de-emphasizing education

when they were discussing their party platform last month. C-SPAN carried it.

[Overseas]

7. And Johnny signed on with them.

While he was more open than some Republicans to acknowledging man's impact on global warming and supporting some legislation for environmental protection, he's tried to up his anti-intellectual creds with the Palin choice and statements like disparaging the study of bear DNA in the state of the union address.

Joining the anti-intellectual front also helps in his desire to promote rapid expansion of nuclear power and the building of 45 plants. Don't want smart people around talking back.

[jazzjunkysue]

8. Just call it lazy and stupid. That's what it is. n/t.