America's Standards

For some time now, to get elected in America a Presidential candidate needs to strongly connect with the average person. Even more than that, they seem to need to convince average Americans that they are "one of them"; that the candidate loves God, beer and Nascar and would rather watch American Idol than read a book. President Bush is the ultimate example of this, even now near the end of his Presidency projecting a persona of "Ah, shucks, I'm just an average guy making the tough decisions." That most of the public seems to buy this image of a privileged multimillionaire who vacations at his powerful family's multimillion dollar estate on the ocean with his former President father speaks to the success of the tactic.

To be fair, this image of the President is also helped by his obvious anti-intellectual leanings. His advisers often opine that Bush is a "brilliant" man, but he is apparently not intellectually curious, ignores reality, and refuses to change his mind or admit mistakes. None of these are traits of true intellect.

When we've had obviously intelligent, even professorial, candidates, like Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry, they've been attacked as being "elitist" "boring" and "out of touch" with the common person. That's not to say this is the sole reason they lost, but it was a common method of attack and certainly contributed to their defeat.

As the recent charges against Barack Obama demonstrate, in America today, the notion that a candidate is "elite" or "intelligent" has become a liability.

I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple of weeks, when the Daily Show beat me to it. On last night's show, Jon Stewart addressed this very point.

"Doesn't elite mean good? If you don't think you're better than us, then what the f*** are you doing? I want a president who's embarrassingly superior to me, speaks 16 languages and sleeps two hours a night in a chamber they themselves designed."

Right on. The last eight years have utterly refuted the idea that an anti-intellectual President is a good thing. I want an "elite" President who's smarter than I am. One who asks questions, considers alternatives, makes decisions based on reality and information, and is willing to change his or her mind. I'd prefer a great deal less of the "god" talk and a great deal more of the "reason" talk.

What the heck kind of country are we when we've lost sight of this?

It takes intellectual courage to admit you're wrong but when you are wrong, it's the right thing to do. And we'd all be better off if our President knew that.