Slate: Nothing will make * fight harder than attacks from "intellectuals"

[atommom]

... even intellectual Republicans. I think they're on to something here...

In this battle, the White House has clearly sided with the churchgoing masses against the Republican Party's own whiny Beltway intellectuals. The Bushies have always mistrusted their own bow-tied secularists, but the rift has never before been so public. "This is classic elitism," says a senior administration official of the GOP opposition to the Miers nomination. "We often blame the left for it, but we have it in our own ranks. Just because she wasn't on a shortlist of conservatives who prepared their whole life for this moment doesn't make her any less conservative … and just because she hasn't penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal doesn't mean she hasn't formed a judicial philosophy."

Left-wing bloggers may see the Bush administration and its allies as a uniform mass, but like all successful political teams, it's actually a coalition. At the heart of the coalition is an uncomfortable mix between, on the one hand, right-wing intellectuals, including the neoconservatives whose backing for the Iraq invasion has been so important, and, on the other, the evangelicals who turned out in such numbers to vote for a man who boasted that he was one of them. The Bible-thumbing armies may carry the elections, but they sometimes make the elites in the Republican Party as uncomfortable as they make Maureen Dowd and Michael Moore. In return, the mega-church attendees are mistrustful of the party's often secular, often not-Christian pundits and wizards.

Beyond the religious ties, there's nothing that will make Bush fight harder for his nominee than an attack by the intellectuals—even if they are from his own party. Those who put others down as second-rate minds with weak credentials get relegated to that class of snobs he first learned to hate at Yale, when he walked through their Vietnam protests in his leather bomber jacket. Those who lack skill in what Will called "constitutional reasoning" are already pressing the president's anti-intellectual buttons. Bush loves the idea, say aides, that Miers strikes a blow for real-world simplicity.

Wednesday morning, administration envoys Ed Gillespie, the former head of the RNC, and Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society appeared before anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist's weekly off-the-record gathering of conservative leaders to discuss the Miers nomination. According to my sources, there was yelling. Sparks flew. Miers was not qualified; her pick was a capitulation to the left; Bush is not a true conservative. The White House listens to these outraged voices but considers them more a nuisance than genuine problem. Norquist would not talk about the meeting but did describe the sweaty feeling among disenchanted conservatives. "This is a hard time for the right," he says. "There's the frustration that comes from impotence, because there's nothing they can do. She's going to get confirmed. And they don't know what she'll do when she is. If you're the president, all you can say is 'trust me,' but 'trust me' me is borderline insulting."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2127492/fr/rss/

[bullimiami]

1. but since compared to bush everyone else is a potential 'intelectchal"

i guess he responds viciously to ALL attacks.

[atommom]

2. Good point! Makes his appointments even MORE scary,

since the bar for "intellectual" is set so very low. Appointees must be not too bright, AND/OR completely in his pocket.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Ann Coulter must be brilliant as far as right-wing intellectuals go.

She's even written a few books AND she's against the Meiers nomination. I hope Bush takes her down first.

[MaineYooper]

4. Bush loves the idea that Miers strikes a blow for real-world simplicity

In one phrase, so much of what is wrong with * and his ilk.

<sarcasm>
Who needs experts when you've got your gut and "real world simplicity"?

Evolution? not simple enough for me!

Global Warming? we had snow last winter- must be wrong!
</sarcasm>

The dime-store psychologist in me says this is a window into *'s empty core. He knows that in any real measure, he falls spectacularly short, so he's going to make damn sure that there's none of them "experts" around to compare himself against.

The mock Time cover had it right: We are f***ed.

[atommom]

5. You hit it right on the snout.

And this is one of the traits I hate and fear the most.... the scorn for people who know what they're talking about! :crazy: