barack obama, intellectual-american

Of course the biggest focus on Barack Obama has been that he is the first African American to win election to the Presidency. But Nicholas Kristof points out correctly that Obama is also the first openly intellectual American to even win a major party Presidential nomination since Adlai Stevenson back in the 1950s.

Writes Kristof, Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

I hope so. No, you don't need a PhD or university teaching experience to be a good politician or policy maker, not at all. But this whole practice of pretending to be dumb - which de facto President George W. Bush has honed to a fine art - is so annoying. Look, who do YOU want to be in charge of making decisions about the economy or national security or the environment that could be life or death for us or for our children and grandchildren - Joe the Plumber? Or somebody who is smarter than the average bear?

Fact is, most of the major party Presidential candidates this year were pretty smart people (Tom Tancredo possibly excepted). It's just too bad they have to play dumb.

And I imagine the Obama Administation will have fewer graduates from Regent University than the current bunch. That, too, will be a step up in intellectual capacity.