JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 29, 2011
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When assessing Rick Perry and the anti-intellectualism issue, here's one thing to keep in mind. Conservatives generally believe not only that George W. Bush was a true intellectual, but that this question has been settled by history, and awaits only the apologies of those who questioned the 43rd president's intellectual curiosity. Jonah Goldberg, in a column on Rick Perry, makes a glancing reference to this interpretation, not bothering to even substantiate what he apparently regards as obvious:
It’s already a cliché among liberals to describe [Perry] as the sort of cartoonish, ignorant cowboy they thought George W. Bush was (though to date, nobody feels the need to apologize to Bush for misinterpreting him).
Jennifer Rubin does bother to substantiate it, regarding the fact that Bush read history books, and that his administration had policies, as sufficient proof of his intellectual prowess:
The knock on George W. Bush that he was an anti-intellectual and uninterested in policy turned out to be dead wrong. He was an avid history reader and championed (unsuccessfully in some cases) detailed policies on stem cell research, Medicare Part D, education, immigration reform, Social Security and tax reform. And he went outside the Pentagon bureaucracy to redesign the Iraq war policy and implement the surge.
Conservatives have expressed the fear that Perry's knucklehead ways could amount to a perception problem in the general election. But, if he wins the nomination, don't expect many of them to concede the substance of the point.
3 comments
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62214.html add to today's reading list: Jonathan Martin asks "Is Rick Perry Dumb?" "...Trained as an Air Force pilot right out of A&M, Perry was “taught to trust your information,” Johnson said. And associates say the same lessons that Perry learned when he was flying C-130s apply now. “Pilots execute flight plans,” Miller said. “They have a plan, they fly a certain pattern and that’s the way he’s always operated — he has a flight plan for what he’s trying to do and he executes.” Mike Baselice, Perry’s longtime pollster, said his client is of the Ronald Reagan school of management: “Trust people and manage well.” ..." I read a post recently that went through the favorite leisure reading of the various GOP candidates. I prefer Perry's preference for military history and war memoirs to Romney's preference for science fiction. Harry S Truman loved to read military history and the lives of great leaders in his youth. My question for today is "which candidate would you prefer to be stuck in an elevator with during a major blackout?" followed by, anyone who is smart enough to fly a C-130 obviously believes in physics as science, knows how to trust the extensive support/technical/maintenance team, and is smart enough to be president.
- K2K
August 29, 2011 at 11:18am
K2K: "anyone who is smart enough to fly a C-130 obviously believes in physics as science, knows how to trust the extensive support/technical/maintenance team, and is smart enough to be president." Using this same absurd standard, you could just as easily say that any naturally-born NASCAR or Indy Car driver is qualified to be president. Are you ready to take that logical step? And what does being stuck in an elevator have to do with who one would vote for?
- appleton
August 29, 2011 at 12:10pm
I think the overriding question is whether it matters if the President is an intellectual? The implication of the conservative defenders is that it does matter. Clearly Bush was not an intellectual in the sense that he approached a problem from various studied angles and surmised a new way. Instead, he might look into the eyes of a foreign leader and pronounce that that foreign leader could be trusted. Or, he would announce that he has good instincts and, therefore, did not need to engage in a detailed analysis of anything. Treas Secretary Paul O'Neill said cabinet meetings were scripted because, apparently, that was all Bush could handle. Perry seems the same.
- Nusholtz
August 29, 2011 at 1:27pm