Peter Beinart: Revenge of the Nerds

[babylonsister]

Revenge of the Nerds

by Peter Beinart

Obama

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP


As Obama stocks his administration with eggheads, both right and left are backing away from the anti-intellectualism that has dominated politics for 50 years.

By electing Barack Obama, the American people have proved a lot of political clichés wrong: that Americans wouldn’t elect a black man, or a northern Democrat, or a senator, or someone without extensive national security experience in a time of war. But there’s another cliché that has also bitten the dust, even though it hasn’t received much attention. By electing Barack Obama, Americans have showed that you can win the presidency without appearing dumb.

For more than a half-century, anti-intellectualism has had a pretty good run in presidential politics. In fact, Republicans would never have gotten where they are without it. In the 1950s, when the modern conservative movement was born, the right had a problem: It was seen as elitist, a hangover from the depression years, when Thomas Nast-style plutocrats opposed social security, labor unions and federal aid to the poor. Conservatives needed a way to turn the tables, to show that liberals—those self-proclaimed tribunes of the common man—were the real elitists. That’s where anti-intellectualism came in. If FDR had practiced class warfare, the Cold War right turned to brain warfare instead. William F. Buckley, founder of the right’s flagship publication, National Review, began going around saying that “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

Unlike Bill Clinton, Obama doesn’t temper his intellectualism by embracing his inner Bubba.

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-12-08/revenge-of-the-nerds/

[Cha]

1. Interesting and about time!

Like Obama's fond of saying..we don't need a bigger or a smaller government..we need a smarter government.

I can't believe those bozos got away with this for 50 years! How about the republicans getting back to standing for something instead the bamboozle and the hoodwink?

[bemildred]

2. I gotta ask, what sort of person thinks being stupid or uninformed is a good thing? nt

[babylonsister]

3. About half the country who voted for incurious george in 04? nt

[bemildred]

4. I know there's a lot of them, I asked what sort of persons are they?

:-)

[babylonsister]

5. Boxes of roxes?

:D