The Lowest Common Candidate (Leonard Pitts)

[struggle4progress]

... Sarah Six Pack is nothing new. The "g" droppin', moose shootin', eye-winkin' hockey mom has plenty of antecedents. But there's a difference. Those antecedents were smart, wonkish people pretending to be one of us. Sarah Palin "is" one of us.

And by "us," I don't mean you, necessarily, or me. I mean the lowest common denominator us, the us of myth and narrative, the us of simple mind, the reactionary, ill-informed, impatient with complexity, utterly shallow us.

You think that's mean? Go back and look at the Katie Couric interviews again. Or the Charlie Gibson interview. I don't know about you, but I want a vice president who can identify Supreme Court rulings she disagrees with. Or define the Bush Doctrine. Or name a newspaper. Or — heck, I'm not picky — construct an intelligible English language sentence ...

You're left to wonder when intellectuals — thinking people, for goodness sake! — became the enemy. Are we to regard unthinking conservatives (will that adjective soon be superfluous?) as the only true conservatives? Indeed, the only true Americans? ...

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-webpitts1012oct12-1,0,6073221.column

[Captain Hilts]

1. Sorry, Leonard. GWBush is not smart. Anti-intellectualism goes waaay back...

This is why FDR's political guru, Louis Howe, taught FDR - and Eleanor - to actively avoid being the smartest guy in the room, because NO ONE likes the smartest guy in the room. To this day, people underestimate both their intellects. But he laughed all the way to four terms.

The same smear was used, successfully, against Stevenson.