MAUREEN DOWD
There are two American archetypes that were sometimes played against each other in old Westerns. The egghead Eastern lawyer who lacks the skills or stomach for a gunfight is contrasted with the tough Western rancher and ace shot who has no patience for book learnin. The duality of Americas creation story was vividly illustrated in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,the 1962 John Ford Western. At the cusp of the 2012 race,we have a classic cultural collision between a skinny Eastern egghead lawyer whos inept in Washington gunfights and a pistol-totin,lethal-injectin,square-shouldered cowboy who has no patience for book learnin.
Travelling to Lynchburg,Virginia,to speak to students at Liberty University,Perry made light of his bad grades at Texas A&M. Studying to be a veterinarian,he stumbled on chemistry and made a D one semester and an F in another. Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me, said Perry,who went on to join the Air Force. His other Ds, Richard Oppel wrote in The Times,included courses in the principles of economics,Shakespeare,Feeds & Feeding, veterinary anatomy and what appears to be a course called Meats. He even got a C in gym.
Perry conceded that he struggled with college,and told the 13,000 young people in Lynchburg that in high school,he had graduated in the top 10 of my graduating class of 13. Its enough to make you long for Ws Gentlemans Cs. At least he was a mediocre student at Yale. Even Newt Gingrichs pseudo-intellectualism is a relief at this point.
Our education system is going to hell. Average SAT scores are falling,and America is slipping down the list of nations for college completion. And Rick Perry stands up with a smirk to talk to students about how you can get Cs,Ds and Fs and still run for president. Perry told the students,God uses broken people to reach a broken world. What does that even mean?
The Republicans are now the How great is it to be stupid? party. In perpetrating the idea that theres no intellectual requirement for the office of the presidency,the right wing of the party offers a Farrelly Brothers Dumb and Dumber primary in which evolution is avant-garde. Having grown up with a crush on William F. Buckley Jr for his sesquipedalian facility,its hard for me to watch the right wing of the GOP revel in anti-intellectualism and anti-science cant.
Sarah Palin,who got outraged at a gotcha question about what newspapers and magazines she read,is the mother of stupid conservatism. Another Dont Know Much About History Tea Party heroine,Michele Bachmann,seems rather proud of not knowing anything,simply repeating nutty,inflammatory medical claims that somebody in the crowd tells her. So were choosing between the overintellectualised professor and blockheads boasting about their vacuity?
The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters. It shouldnt be know-nothing candidates.
