Maureen Dowd: The rise of the know-nothing candidates

[highplainsdem]

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110919/WIRE/110919435/1042/

There are two American archetypes that were sometimes played against each other in old Westerns. The egghead Eastern lawyer who lacks the skills or stomach for a gunfight is contrasted with the tough Western rancher and ace shot who has no patience for book learnin'.

-snip-

Our education system is going to hell. Average SAT scores are falling, and America is slipping down the list of nations for college completion. And Rick Perry stands up with a smirk to talk to students about how you can get C's, D's and F's and still run for president.

-snip-

Sarah Palin, who got outraged at a “gotcha” question about what newspapers and magazines she read, is the mother of stupid conservatism. Another “Don't Know Much About History” tea party heroine, Michele Bachmann, seems rather proud of not knowing anything, simply repeating nutty, inflammatory medical claims that somebody in the crowd tells her.

So we're choosing between the overintellectualized professor and blockheads boasting about their vacuity? The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters. It shouldn't be know-nothing candidates.

[DirkGently]

1. Sometimes I think our entire culture is taken from bad movies. (nt)

[Lost-in-FL]

3. Are you thinking about "Idiocracy"? nt

[DirkGently]

9. That's a funny movie that describes the culture. Our leaders are all wannabe Rambos & John Waynes.

The piece cited in the OP is right. America seems unable to think in any terms more subtle than "Weak, wily intellectual vs. tough, know-nothing He-Man." That kind of idiocy. Thus, this weird pride in willful ignorance and pig-headed belligerance. We don't need no book-learnin' 'cause we got shotguns.

We laugh at the W.'s and the Palins and the religious right, and we should. But we need to laugh them clear off the stage at some point. Ignorance is not actually a virtue. Blind, violent retaliation against every perceived slight is not really strength. Scientists and teachers and journalists and thinkers are not really the people who are lying to our children.

Dumb is not smart.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. Speaking of "know-nothing voters",

Maureen exposed her own "know-nothingness" by writing some really bullshit hit pieces on Al Gore before the 2000 election, like this piece of utter dreck:

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/11/opinion/liberties-his-lyin-sighin-heart.html

[Canuckistanian]

4. This, from a woman who repeatedly trashed Al Gore

She's part of the problem in the first place.

[WCGreen]

5. And repeating shit over and over again that was not true...

Fucking ***t you can fill in the missing letters...

[tblue37]

6. This is the kind of BS that encourages people to look down on intelligence

and education:

So we're choosing between the overintellectualized professor and blockheads boasting about their vacuity?

Why does being an intelligent, educated person and a professor add up to being "overintellectualized" and therefore a problem as a candidate? She is just sounding the same "pointy-headed intellectual" BS we've heard so often before, and it one of the reasons is why Americans feel so comfortable voting for people who know nothing and are proud of it.

[Kahuna]

7. I doubt that anyone told bachmann that the drug caused a 12 year

old be become retarded. I think Michelle made the whole thing up. But she is so stupid she didn't realize how outlandish that claim would be.

[hatrack]

8. And you helped to make it happen, Maureen, with your Al Gore snarkathon.

You did your bit to usher in the Age Of Dumb, and got paid for it, too!

You must be very proud!

[TwilightGardener]

10. Maybe Obama isn't "overintellectualized"--maybe he's simply smart enough to be President.

But that wouldn't make a good column.