I bet your mom just loves Murtha…

That was what I hated about academia and why I didn’t want to teach for the rest of my life in some university. It is an extremely sheltered place and the loudest activists on campus live in Columbia, MD. Meanwhile my White mother from the hills of Pennsylvania has been an inner city school teacher for 20 years. The best professors I had in college all had extensive work experience and gave great perspectives on both the theory and the practical application of that theory. It’s like talk radio too…Ed Norris has the best show, hands down.

One of my favorite quotes, which pertains to this discussion, is from (an extremely intellectually charged) movie called ‘Waking Life’. Three college students are walking down the street talking about some philosophical theory and a homeless guy starts doing something crazy. At this point in time one of the wise students observes “At least that guy has action. We’re all theory and no action. I guess he’s all action and no theory.”

Balance is key.

No Budweiser or Maxwell House for you eh?

I think it’s quite possible to be a highly intelligent and possess superior leadership skills and still have a grasp on reality. These ‘think-tankers’ like Obama, as I like to call them, come up with all this great theory that works on a white board in a class room but will fail miserably in reality.

No, I admit, I’m a coffee and beer elitist.

Surgery: Do you want an ‘C’ student surgeon slicing into you or the best?

Mechanics: Do you want a an average mechanic working on your car or do you the best?

Pilots: Do you want a guy who landed the plane without incident 50% of the time or one with a 99% success rate.

Listen…

I don’t WANT a president or a politician I can have a beer with, I have friends for that. I want our best and our brightest in leadership roles. I’m sorry if that does not translate well to ‘gun-toting misanthropes’ from Pennsylvania, New Hampshire or even from my home state of which we have many. I want guys or gals with new ideas who are willing to go down a new road. Were I presented with the opportunity to have a drink with my President or Senator I’d let him or her choose the drink and I would graciously accept and I’d discuss many worldly topics with them.

I want a candidate to project superiority, he’s trying to win the job of leader of the free-world and he or she should damned well KNOW something about that world.

Has our republic sunk so low that we see deep understanding and intelligence as elitist? Weren’t Jefferson or Adams or Franklin elites? You’re damned tootin’ they were. The average American in their times could barely read, so someone had the bright idea that maybe we ought to send people who KNOW a little history and philosophy to the continental congress in Philly. And rightly so, or perhaps this would have become some kind of Christian theocracy.

But maybe that’s not what’s supposed to happen.

As Mencken said: “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

–H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Well we’ve certainly achieved that over the last eight years.

I don’t know what sort of job Obama will do if he is elected… but I’m willing to give him that chance. He couldn’t possibly do any worse than the chimp sitting in the Whitehouse right now.

PS Also…there is NOTHING elitist about liking GOOD coffee! I am a well read engineer and I buy my whole bean coffee at Starbucks and brew it myself at home. I don’t see this coffee as some sort of crass status symbol I drink it because it’s what my French and Italian DNA call for.

R.

My biggest problem is that he’s one of those academic “think-tankers” who sit around in the seclusion of universities (where he has spent most of his adult life till entering politics) and come up with all these theoretical policies and ideas. Meanwhile these theories have no practical value in the real world, yet he presents them with this air of superiority.

Elitism isn’t about money, materialism or economics. It’s about a superficial intellectualism coupled with a sense of superiority and condescension.

McCain; doesn’t know how many homes he has, member of a party whose systematic method has been to cut the taxes of the wealthiest.

Remind me again who the elitist is?

R.