Comments on: Political ignorance

By: Tom Hurka

Tom Hurka — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:20:59 +0000

David Frum didn’t go to UCC. He went to the University of Toronto Schools, a (then) much less expensive and more intellectually than socially elitist school.

By: Valuethinker

Valuethinker — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:49:04 +0000

The irony of the most affluent voters in America aligning themselves as ‘anti elitist’ is manifold and funny if it weren’t so tragic.

It’s particularly funny from David Frum, the son of Canada’s most prominent newscaster at the time (the late Barbara Frum) and a millionaire property developer (Murray Frum). I’m not sure if David Frum is an alumnus of Upper Canada College (the most elite private school in Canada) but I suspect so.

There’s something galling about these children of the affluent and the influential, pretending they like Nascar racing and are really populists at heart.

As Kevin Drum (or Mark Kleiman?) pointed out, the conservative distaste for Mike Huckabee comes down to the discovery that a real conservative, with real conservative values, and inconsistencies, and the logical consequences of not believing in the Theory of Evolution, (as opposed to pretending you don’t), is suddenly popular with the Primary season electorate. Ron Paul could be dismissed as an aberration—but Huckabee?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2007/12/why_do_the_moneycons_hate_huckabee.php

I am reminded of all those German conservatives who thought that Herr Hitler could be ‘controlled’. I know, I know, Godwin’s Law: just to be clear, I’m not calling the conservatives ‘fascists’: I am just noting the similarity of thought process—you cannot hold ‘your base’ in contempt forever, and you cannot pretend you are what you are not.

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:12:44 +0000

“Well-informed” = reads Wall Street Journal editorials. That’s the problem.

By: engels

engels — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:50:53 +0000

For example, well-informed conservatives in the 2002 and 2004 NES surveys were significantly more likely than less-informed conservatives to deny that differences in income between rich people and poor people in the United States had increased over the past 20 years—a denial “grossly out of kilter with available evidence.” Here, as in many other instances, better-informed people seem mostly to have grasped the biased world-view of “their” political elites rather than an accurate perception of real social conditions.

Another way of putting this might be: the more intelligent American conservatives are, the more stupid they are.

By: Robin Green

Robin Green — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:48:25 +0000

Inconsistency is an essential trait of the modern politician / political advisor, without a doubt.

From Gordon Brown’s advocating “prudence” but blowing millions on inefficient PFI schemes and rigging the figures to make them look better, to George W. Bush’s famous “opposition to nation building” ( http://zfacts.com/p/136.html ), examples abound.

(Ron Paul is probably less inconsistent than most, but he has no chance of winning the presidency, so he can afford to be.)

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:54:47 +0000

It’s funny how Frum, Peggy Noonan, and the rest of them are acting like this all something new.

Anti-intellectualism was, of course, an enormous part of Reagan’s appeal—he personified the triumph of aw-shucks, good ol’ fashioned horse sense over the “expertise” of effete eggheads. But of course neither Frum, nor Noonan, nor any of the others will ever, ever cop to that. No…everything was going just wonderfully until that damn cracker Huckabee showed up.

Even funnier is this from Frum’s piece:

Here’s the lesson to learn: It’s always important to respect the values and principles of the voters. But politicians who want to deliver effective government and positive results

BZZZZT. Let me stop you right there. “Effective government” is an oxymoron, David. Government can only be the problem, never the solution. St. Ronnie taught us that. Or have you forgotten?

Sounds like somebody needs to reacquaint himself with the Sacred Texts, and pronto.

By: bbartlog

bbartlog — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:44:59 +0000

Frum trying to cite Paul as an example of anti-intellectualism is also off the mark. If he wanted to argue that Paul was a faux intellectual, who appeared to know something about monetary policy but was wrong, that would make sense. But in the context of his argument the only reason I can see for him to mention Paul is that Frum just really, really doesn’t like Paul and can’t resist an opportunity to slam him.