David Brooks Straightens Things Out . . .

I have frequently complained about the media’s regular treatment of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as if they were the major spokepersons for evangelical Christians. In an excellent NYT column, David Brooks makes the point that John Stott of England has probably been more influential for evangelicals. I don’t totally agree with Mr. Brooks. He’s right that Falwell and Robertson don’t have nearly the influence many reporters and pundits believe they do, but John Stott is not the right person to peg as the go-to guy. I think the twin pillars of the evangelical community are James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship. The best candidate for a predecessor and inspiration for the two men would probably be Francis Schaeffer, some of whose books are knock your socks off brilliant, particularly The God Who Is There. Both Dobson and Colson founded their respective organizations and are of advanced age. I often wonder who will step into their shoes. Right now, there are no obvious contenders.

Learning from Lewis

Evangelical Christian leader Chuck Colson presents an insightful view of the great author, critic, philosopher, and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis on the 106th anniversary of the latter’s birth, in an excellent column on today’s TownHall.

Colson offers an unusual but quite correct and astute explanation of what made Lewis such a great thinker: Lewis was not an evangelical—

“Why was Lewis so uncannily prophetic? At first glance he seems an unlikely candidate. He was not a theologian; he was an English professor. What was it that made him such a keen observer of cultural and intellectual trends?

“The answer may be somewhat discomfiting to modern evangelicals: One reason is precisely that Lewis was not an evangelical. He was a professor in the academy, with a specialty in medieval literature, which gave him a mental framework shaped by the whole scope of intellectual history and Christian thought. As a result, he was liberated from the narrow confines of the religious views of the day—which meant he was able to analyze and critique them. . . .

“The problem is not that modern evangelicals are less intelligent than Lewis. As Mark Noll explains in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, the problem is that our sharpest intellects have been channeled into biblical scholarship, exegesis, and hermeneutics. While that is a vital enterprise, we rarely give the same scholarly attention to history, literature, politics, philosophy, economics, or the arts. As a result, we are less aware of the culture than we should be, less equipped to defend a biblical worldview, and less capable of being a redemptive force in our postmodern society—less aware, as well, of the threats headed our way from cultural elites.”

American Evangelical Christians have been unsurpassed in their enthusiasm for C. S. Lewis, and they are to be commended for that. However, as Colson points out, they still have a lot to learn from him. For starters, I should like to point the evangelicals to Martin Luther’s Two Kingdoms theology for a very reliable way out of the labyrinth.

Reader Alert!

The cultured and good-looking readers of the Reform Club weblog will notice that we now have two top drawer economists providing comment. Ben Zycher and Alan Reynolds are tag-teaming the silliness that often passes for economic reporting and speculation in the media.

The Many Magnificent Wonders of the Current Account Deficit

Our favorite economist (and Reform Club coeditor), Alan Reynolds, has promised to write soon about Alan Greenspan’s recent comments worrying about the current account deficit, and in the meantime he sends us the following brief note:

“Mr. Greenspan’s assumed two-way link between current account deficit and the dollar bothers me most (aside from the stubbornly silly ‘twin deficit’ and ‘hard landing’ fables).

“In this story, the trade deficit makes the dollar go down, and the falling dollar then cures the trade deficit which, presumably, must make the dollar go back up — thus causing a trade deficit which makes the dollar go down again, and so on. I once described this as voodoo economics in the Wall Street Journal.

“In the early ’80s, however, Alan Greenspan and Marty Feldstein accused President Reagan of causing the current account deficit because budget deficits made the dollar (and interest rates) go UP! Now the same devilish budget deficit is said to make the dollar go DOWN. Up, down, who cares? The main thing is to fret and gripe about something. The solution, of course, is always the same — higher taxes. Only the problems change.”

We look forward to Alan’s full analysis of the varying accounts of the causes and effects of the current account deficit.

A Reason to be Thankful!

We can all be thankful the Presidential election is over and that it wasn’t too close. Over the break, I watched my father carefully scanning the internet for NASCAR (or as I affectionately call it, NECKCAR) racing news. Now that the season for Dales and Darrells is over for at least ten weeks, there are rabid race fans yearning for a way to unleash pent-up energies. If Kerry were pulling legal strings and manipulating recounts, the assembled frustrated fans of NASCAR might be rioting in numbers that would make Watts look like a picnic of fancy lads and lasses.

Trailing Edge Film Review: THE INCREDIBLES

Thanks to a visit from the boy’s grandparents, the wife and I got our first opportunity in a VERY long time to see a movie together. We chose the much lauded box office megalith, THE INCREDIBLES. The film was directed and written by Brad Bird, who was the primary mover behind THE IRON GIANT, which was a fabulous animated feature. (If you haven’t seen it, go rent it. It’s superb for adults and children grade school and older. I plan to add it to the permanent collection in the near future.)

The Incredibles is a compelling action-driven story with a better portrayal of super powers than I’ve ever seen. Mr. Incredible’s super strength, ElastiGirl’s super-flexibility, Dash’s super-speed, and Violet’s invisibility and force fields are all played to maximum effect. At the same time, the personalities, family roles, and ages of the different characters are also well-utilized to involve the viewer. This film has pace, depth, and delivers a satisfying conclusion. In short, it is a virtual can’t miss for the movie fan looking for a diverting way to spend a couple of hours.

For those who like to examine a film for message, there is also much to be explored here. The first main theme is the importance of accepting excellence and the benefits and drawbacks that arise from it. The superheroes have been put out of business through a combination of envy and lawsuit harassment that put me much in mind of the plight of physicians in America. The second theme is family. Director/writer Bird shows great concern for the enduring value of the intact family with married mother and father.

Given that I’m no great shakes as a film critic, here’s hoping our true expert, Mr. S.T. Karnick will step in with his analysis at some point.

An Unscientific Observation . . .

One gets the sense there is blood in the water with regard to the debate over evolution as the be-all, end-all explanatory theory of origins. As many of you know, I wrote a favorable review of Uncommon Dissent, a new ISI book featuring essays by intellectuals who doubt Darwin. One of the critical emails I received came from an MIT-affiliated gent who is part of Project Steve. The purpose of Project Steve is to show that a large number of scientists named Steve support the dominant theory of origins. This is what passes for a response to an invitation to debate for the evolutionary biology community. Instead of facing down guys like Michael Behe, Bill Dembski, David Berlinski, and many others who poke provocative holes in the neo-Darwinian synthesis, we see the evolutionary biologists turn into rhetoricians giving answers like:

1. These guys are fundamentalists!

2. They’re sneaking God inside a Trojan Horse!

3. We’re right because we have to be right!

I’m just an observer in all of this. Would I be pleased to see a materialist shibboleth like hard-core evolutionary theory cut down a peg? Sure. Is it that big of a deal to me? No. What really interests me is the degree of repression and intimidation that is directed against anyone who disputes the party line. Like I say, I think there’s blood in the water.

Welcome American Spectator Readers . . .

Glad to have you back at the Reform Club. Take a look around. Posting may be a bit light over the holiday, but we’ll pop our heads in from time to time.

Hope you found the book review of Uncommon Dissent challenging and uplifting. The debate over the neo-Darwinian synthesis is heating up. The itinerant pastors who once debated scientists are being replaced by, well, scientists. If you’re really interested in following current developments, I recommend you visit the Discovery Institute online.

Terry Mattingly Gets Religion . . .

And he’s pretty much always gotten it. Mattingly is a graduate of my program (Church-State or Religion, Politics, and Society) at Baylor and is the only syndicated religion columnist in America of whom I am aware. You can also read his stream of consciousness at getreligion.org. This week’s column has an excellent bit from a self-confessed “alienated journalist”:

Nevertheless, it’s time to face the facts, said Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“I am now taking seriously the theory that we mainstream journalists are different from mainstream America. ‘Different’ is too pale a word. We are alienated. We may live in the same country, but we treat each other like aliens,” he said, in an essay called “Confessions of an Alienated Journalist.”

“The churched people who embrace Bush, in spite of a bumbling war and a stumbling economy, are more than alien to me. They are invisible. … My blind spots blot out half of America. And that makes me less of a citizen, and less of a journalist.”

As a Catholic progressive, Clark said he finds it hard to hear “moral values” without thinking of “showy piety and patriotism, with more than a dash of racism and homophobia.” He knows all about “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and Bubba the Love Sponge. How come so many other Americans know what it means to be “evangelical,” “charismatic” and “born again” and feel at home at church suppers?

Right now, there needs to be “more self-doubt in the journalistic system, as opposed to arrogance,” said Clark, reached at his office. “We need to be able to say that we don’t know it all and that we need to learn. We need to take a step back.”



As one of my old co-laborers in the computer board manufacturing plant used to say, “Ain’t dat da dayumn truth?”

The Terrible State of Bioethics

You read something like this and you thank God for a source of values like the Bible and the Church:

“The most radical experiment, still not conducted, would be to inject human stem cells into an animal embryo and then transfer that chimeric embryo into an animal’s womb. Scientists suspect the proliferating human cells would spread throughout the animal embryo as it matured into a fetus and integrate themselves into every organ.

Such “humanized” animals could have countless uses. They would almost certainly provide better ways to test a new drug’s efficacy and toxicity, for example, than the ordinary mice typically used today.

But few scientists are eager to do that experiment. The risk, they say, is that some human cells will find their way to the developing testes or ovaries, where they might grow into human sperm and eggs. If two such chimeras — say, mice — were to mate, a human embryo might form, trapped in a mouse.

Not everyone agrees that this would be a terrible result.

“What would be so dreadful?” asked Ann McLaren, a renowned developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge in England. After all, she said, no human embryo could develop successfully in a mouse womb. It would simply die, she told the academy. No harm done.”

You can read the full story about animals infused with human cells at MSNBC.

Atkins and South Beach Are Krispy Kreeming Me!

About a year ago, my sister and I made the decision to purchase 100 shares of stock. I wanted Microsoft, but she was in favor of Krispy Kreme. As a southerner, I liked her choice. Besides, I figured their aggressive expansion would get them into the Starbucks neighborhood in the near future. Why eat vile pastries and cakes from Starbucks when you could have your coffee with the best hot donuts on the planet? Unfortunately, we bought right at the high point. Earnings have been down since then and I suspect the low-carb craze is what’s killing us. The poor folks in the bagel business seem to be taking a bath, too. Our local bagel shop just shut its doors a couple of months ago.

It’s time for a budding Ralph Nader to come out with the definitive expose’ on Atkins and South Beach. I can see it now. This young crusader will report being followed by women munching on slices of sandwich meat and broccoli bits. Eventually, he’ll bring the whole sordid enterprise down around their ears and my poor Krispy Kreme shares will surge forward as waves of good feeling wash over the pasta and donut-starved masses.

Friday Afternoon DVD Recommendation

I strongly recommend our faithful readers see Gattaca, which stars Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, and Uma Thurman. I’ve never understood why this movie wasn’t a huge hit. The film presents a brilliant dystopian future (perhaps only a decade away) where the genetically engineered constitute a privileged class. Your DNA is your resume’ in this world. Hawke plays a young man who dreams of space, but is not the product of laboratory enhancement and will likely only get into a space ship “if he’s cleaning it,” as his father says. Gattaca explores Hawke’s character’s plight and the implications for the society at the same time. Check it out.

Getting the Christian Right, Right.

Part of my life as a doctoral student in religion and politics is that I have endure presentations like the one I attended yesterday. A German professor came to one of my seminars and explained the Christian Right’s position on Israel and Palestine. In the course of her remarks, she claimed the Christian Coalition is the largest and most effective Christian political organization in America. If you read this blog, you probably follow politics enough to know that the Christian Coalition has not been a significant factor in about 5-7 years. The weight of Christian influence, particularly among evangelicals, is exerted by James Dobson and Chuck Colson, not Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Nevertheless, liberals continue to get it wrong. Listening to this professor speak, I couldn’t help but wonder if my feelings were similar to those a black student might have while listening to a white person inform him about his culture.

Easterbrook Helps Secular Lefties Take a Breath

Gregg Easterbrook is my favorite lefty. Though he usually goes along with the left-wing program for America, he is also a devout Christian who seems to “get it” when it comes to people of faith. Here’s a paragraph from his excellent column on the popular misperceptions of religious activism in America:

“Many John Kerry supporters or George W. Bush opponents are angry about the results of the election and want to pin the blame on some sinister force. Politically conservative Christianity seems a good scapegoat because most of the media doesn’t understand it. But politically conservative Christianity is not some unstoppable force–my guess would be that in today’s United States, there are two politically moderate or liberal Christians for every one politically conservative Christian. Surely it has been bad for American political debate that, on September 11, the nation was attacked by an enemy issuing religious threats; this now seems to cause us to see the world in terms of religious threats. God-fearing conservative Christians are no threat, though some of them can, I’ll admit, be pretty exasperating.”

Self-Congratulation in Political Defeat

If I could ban one type of writing or speechmaking, I think my choice would be simple. I would do away with the “why I lost” message. Brad Carson, who lost his Senate race to Republican Tom Coburn has a column on that topic up at New Republic (subscription required). Former Georgia governor Roy Barnes still glories in the reason for his loss back in 2002. The “official” reason for his defeat was that he took the Confederate-style state flag off the capitol dome and replaced it with something less offensive. Better reasons would be that he governed dictatorially, presided over some really bitter redistricting (not covered by the national press because Republicans were getting nailed), pissed off the teacher’s unions (which I liked), and was running in the same party as Max Cleland. He won a Profiles in Courage Award for giving up his seat as a consequence of changing the flag.

Then again, maybe those “why I lost” speeches and columns aren’t so bad. I’d certainly rather have Roy Barnes and Brad Carson justifying themselves in courageous defeat than standing in the well at the state or federal capitol justifying legislation.

Continuing the Specter Meme

For those who don’t know, I’m a law school grad who immediately went to work in public policy and then on to academia. Never wanted to sue anybody, don’t you know? Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am an avid court watcher.

In the controversy over what to do about Arlen Specter, I have to side with Hugh Hewitt. Specter is not a conservative’s conservative, but he has been willing to support conservative appointees to the court. Having him as the judiciary chairman will make it easier to avoid protracted battles over Supreme Court nominees. To some extent, Senators in the middle will feel that nominees okay with Specter are okay with them. Conversely, if Specter is removed, prepare to hear about how the process is now illegitimate. That’s the last thing we want to hear, especially when shaping an institution like the court.

The way to go is to leave Specter in and nominate conservative legal giants like Michael McConnell and Alex Kosinzki. They are too prominent to fail the process and have avoided any excessive rhetoric.

Great Line from Walker Percy

Writing in The Thanatos Syndrome, the unmatchable (in my view) Percy delivered this pithy statement that perfectly sums up the problem with the cultural left:

“There’s Hawkeye and Trapper John back in Korea. I never did like those guys. They fancied themselves super-decent and super-tolerant, but actually had no use for anyone who was not exactly like them. What they were was super-pleased with themselves. In truth, they were the real bigots, and phony at that.”

The Vacuity of the Fundamentalist Label

Click here to read an excellent article that provides much needed perspective on the issue of religious fundamentalism and its adherents. We need to see about fifty articles like this one to correct the sea of misperceptions that exist among our religiously illiterate opinion journalists of the left.

Speaking of film and religion . . .

Those of you interested in the intersection of faith and film should hurry to Barbara Nicolosi’s weblog Church of the Masses. Ms. Nicolosi knows an awful lot about Hollywood, screenwriting, and developing professionalism while pursuing a vocation in the arts. Her project has a lot to do with the notion that it’s time for Christians to break out of their segregated markets and address the mainstream culture with their work. Check it out.

Religion in Films

A very interesting article about a very interesting phenomenon—Hollywood’s burgeoning interest in religious ideas as expressed in various films—in Friday’s Opinion Journal, here. The most important observation in the piece, to my mind, is the author’s recognition that motion pictures (like other works of art) often present quite serious ideas under seemingly unrelated or even trivial surfaces. That, of course, is the premise behind this author’s own writings about the arts, and it is pleasing to see this understanding gaining some adherents.

GOP Voter Fraud? Uh, No.

Look here for a pretty thorough debunking of the “voting irregularities” disappointed Dems wish were legit. I’ve been taken aback by the persistent Democrat concern with voter fraud performed by Republicans. The GOP is the party of fair process, as opposed to fair outcomes, remember? If anybody were to rig the results to achieve some sort of “equity,” I suspect it would be the Donkeys.

Cut Flower Civilization: An Explanation

One of my astute co-bloggers asked me to define “cut flower civilization.” Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood, who published a number of great books with the famed Harper publishing house mid-century, wrote and spoke of the idea frequently. In a nutshell, the metaphor places civilization in the place of a flower. Modernity/the Enlightenment/secularization represents the cutting of the flower at the stem and then placing it in a vase, or perhaps more appropriately, a beaker. For a while, the flower will continue to live and will maintain its beauty. After all, at least some of the citizens of the new order are the same as those of the old order. But over time, its untimely divorce with the soil (tradition, religous belief, etc.) will result in withering and ultimately, death. Advocates of the cut flower civilization hypothesis would point to the dissolution of the nuclear family, sexual promiscuity/sexual disease epidemics, and greater need for prisons/security measures as indicators that the hypothesis is true and the flower is indeed quite wilted.

Novak Gives More Perspective

One of the problems with today’s lefties is that they are religiously illiterate. In other words, they have no clue that the civilization they now enjoy is largely built on premises and foundations they claim to despise. Here’s a nice bit from Michael Novak (who does know a thing or two about religion):

“For instance, La Repubblica (Nov.7), which I read on the plane, carries a front-page jump column by Eugenio Scalfari, its founder and publisher, under the title “Why We Cannot Call Ourselves Laicists.” After confessing his own secular creed — the creed of the Enlightenment and the great principles of liberty, fraternity, and equality — he writes that this does not end the matter. He notes how the Christian idea of a duty to the most needy and vulnerable has undeniably influenced his creed, and how the Christian idea of giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s, is a necessary barrier to totalitarianism both Left and Right. The history of the European secular mind cannot be described simply as laicist, he insists, for it also includes a crucial source of light absorbed from Christian faith.”

If you need help decoding, “Laicist” means uber secular. There are a few who realize that Christianity is deep in the mix of Western civilization and that Elton Trueblood’s Cut Flower Civilization thesis may well be in danger of fully manifesting itself.

How the Enlightenment Really Dies . . .

Andrew Stuttaford has a nice corrective to the gas pains one might experience when reading the ridiculous wailing of earnest American liberals who fear fundamentalist theocracy stands ready to crash over them like a wave:

“In a last attempt to save his life, a desperate Van Gogh reportedly pleaded with his attacker: “We can,” he said, “still talk about it.” Talk. Dialog. Reason. In response, savagery. The murderer sawed through Van Gogh’s neck and spinal column with a butcher knife, almost severing his head. And that, Mr. Wills, is how Enlightenment dies.”



Hopefully, the Van Gogh incident will help overwrought liberals understand the differences between murderers and those who might wish to employ democratic processes to reduce the number of abortions in the United States or have some say in the way marriage is defined.

Welcome Tech Central Station Readers!

We’re glad to have you on board. Wander the halls a bit, won’t you?

Secession city by city . . .

At American Spectator today, Lawrence Henry makes an important point about the blue state secession talk, which is that all the red portions of the blue states (which are substantial) would never agree to the deal. Those folks who draw up the United States of Canada and Jesusland graphics are looking at the state electoral map instead of the county one. What they fail to realize is that Jesusland is lapping right up against their own city limits.

My favorite part is the conclusion:

“No, the interesting thing about all the current secession talk is its similarity to the pre-Civil War era. At that time, an area of the country felt itself threatened by the impending loss of a key portion of its agrarian livelihood. Kicking and yelling, it resisted being dragged into the new industrial age.



“So what are the blue confederates kicking and screaming about? What well-nigh irresistible movement toward modernity do they refuse to recognize? Oh, I could name a few things.”

The Righteousness of Action in Iraq

Now that Sam has brought the war up again, it seems like a good time to share my political sense of the thing. Smart people on both sides have their questions about the war in Iraq, but there is one point of discussion that I think has eluded most. Think carefully for a second. If you wanted to manage the aftermath of 9-11 politically instead of strategically, what would you do? My answer is that the President could have looked very good by hitting Afghanistan, knocking out the Taliban, and calling it a day. Americans would have felt the flush of victory and would feel they had a measure of revenge for the loss of life and property endured in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. The fact that he didn’t settle for a fairly easy victory over the Taliban tells me something. I think the security team and the President believed more was required to secure America’s safety and that they decided to pursue that course without regard for political consequences. If that is the case, the adventure in Iraq has been thoroughly righteous.

Liberals and War

In response to my piece on the New York Times and John Aschroft, which is currently appearing in The Daily Standard, a writer friend of mine asked, “Dear me, am I of the Far Right? I insist I’m a Jeffersonian of the Real Right; I think he’d be with me, as would Madison. Btw, I am not against a war on terrorists, and I did not object to going after OBL in Afghanistan, but … Iraq…?”

I think this an excellent question, and will offer a couple of points in answer. My Daily Standard piece was actually meant as a critique of the New York Times’s approach to news analysis, not as a defense of Ashcroft. Note that I wrote “however much one might disagree with Ashcroft’s actions as attorney general”; I am in fact one of those “one”s. My own position–which I published on www.vdare.com just a week after the September 11 attacks–is that the essential element in any internal U.S. measures against terrorism must start by recognizing the difference between citizens and noncitizens: the former have civil rights, and the latter absolutely do not. That, in my view, would still be a very good guide in how to approach these matters, and would have the advantage of being constitutional.

As to my friend’s possibly being on the far Right, consider that by my own calculus I am a liberal. I am a liberal of the Right, aka a classical liberal. Another person on the Right could be either a conservative of the Right or a radical of the Right. See my first post for this site, “Why the Reform Club…”, in the October archive, for a more detailed explanation.

I recognize that most modern-day libertarians classify themselves as classical liberals, but I don’t think that most of them are exactly that–they would part from Burke and Smith and the other original Whigs in several important ways. For example, Smith was perfectly happy with lots of government intervention in the economy for national-defense purposes (and might very well have approved of the War in Iraq), and Burke’s Catholic activism would horrify the Reason crowd, the Randians, and many others on the more-radical Right.

Consider, if you would, the following handy reference point:

Conservatives are primarily concerned about preserving civilization.

Radicals are primarily concerned about transforming civilization.

Liberals are primarily concerned about extending civilization.

As to the War in Iraq, we Reform Club Whigs are catholic on the issue: Hunter and I supported it, and Alan opposed it (see Alan’s recent posting, “One Antiwar Zealot for Bush,” on this). But all three of us approached the issue from the same premises–U.S. national security as the first priority for our federal government, pursued under any rational and appropriate means the Constitution allows. My position is that the Constitution allows a War on Terror but does not require it; hence I have fundamental assumptions in common with those who oppoosed the War in Iraq for national security reasons. Those who opposed it for economic or ideological reasons (especially pacifism) or because of simple fear of casualties, however, cannot really be considered liberals in my view.

Controversial Ashcroft

The New York Times article on Attorney General John Ashcroft’s resignation describes him, rather hyperbolically in my view, as “one of the most powerful and divisive figures ever to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official.” That’s a particularly weird statement when one considers that compared to his immediate predecessor, Janet Reno, Ashcroft was downright obscure.

The article goes to great lengths to persuade us that Ashcroft held bizarre, “extremist” beliefs that made him naturally controversial, in the paper’s rather sad attempt to distract readers from the fact that the controversies to which the New York Times alludes were largely a creation of that newspaper and its political allies, who disagreed strongly with the entire thrust of his policies. In fact, the present NYT “analysis” inadvertently proves the point, as I demonstrate in today’s issue of The Daily Standard (the online edition of The Weekly Standard), here.

To the extent that Ashcroft had a “tumultuous tenure,” as the caption of the photo accompanying the article puts it, the tumult was very much a creation of the New York Times itself and the rest of the radical Left (aided by a good many on the radical Right). The fact is, the New York Times and the rest of the far Left despised Ashcroft for his openly religious views on politics. It is a pity that these partisans seem unable to admit or even recognize that little bit of extremism on their own part.

A little honesty in this regard and similar situations would go a long way toward restoring the credibility of the New York Times. That, however, seems far too much to hope for.

Ted Rall and the Disease of Dumb

The far, far left’s favorite op-ed writer Ted Rall has bravely confessed his cultural elitism. Rall, you see, knows that the folks in the blue states are much smarter, cooler, fashionable, etc. than the folks in the red states. Here’s a paragraph:

“Maps showing Kerry’s blue states appended to the “United States of Canada” separated from Bush’s red “Jesusland” are circulating by email. Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?” asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.”

Rall continues the bloviating for several hundred words. What I’ve always wondered is how the left can maintain their intellectual superiority when they don’t even understand economics and basic human incentives. Their public policy program has always struck me as a big bouquet of “wishing makes it so” and “it is because I say it is” proposals. By their standard, Fidel Castro is terribly, terribly bright. Ditto Mao. I’ll take mine mediocre, thanks.