At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I have decided to throw in my own two cents
worth about a much mentioned phenomenon. Actually two phenomena and to compare
and contrast the two. And that is this: the GOP is referred to as the "Stupid
Party" and the Democrats are said to be condescending. Let's just call the Dems
are bit arrogant. You can say the Democrat party is the Arrogant Party. So let's
compare and contrast the stupidity and the arrogance of the two major parties.
No better way to do this than to look at some of the most infamous examples of the
two phenomena in action. Let's start with the Quayle-Bentsen VP debate in 1988.
It was pretty well commonly accepted wisdom that Bentsen "won" that debate. Yet,
at the time, I recall that Quayle got in his shots. But what everyone remembers
is the putdown "You are no Jack Kennedy", and Quayle's lame response. The arrogance
was that Kennedy was so superior and Quayle was so inferior that it was an outrage
for Quayle to make any comparison at all between himself and Kennedy. But Kennedy
had his faults. But liberals don't care about his moral failings with women, he
is just so much smarter, and therefore superior. Yet Kennedy failed in protecting
his own security and that failure put the nation at risk. His failings mattered
to the future of the country whether the liberals care to admit that or not.
Quayle on the other hand could not parry the thrust. He could only offer a lame
"that was uncalled for, Senator" which cemented his ineptitude for all time. It
is perhaps unfair to fault Quayle for being
dumbstruck by Bentsen's rudeness, but
he could have been better prepared.
Evidently, the Republicans haven't learned much. In the most recent election, it
can be observed once again. People compare Palin with Quayle, and not without
good reason. Palin floundered badly in her interview with Couric. Couric's
arrogance was in how condescending she was in how she asked about Palins'
reading habits. She
asked: "But what ones specifically?"... "Can you name any of them?"
The arrogance just reeks off the written page. She might as well said "Don't
you know how to read, you moron?!" Don't you backwoods country hicks in Alaska
do any reading at all?! Palin didn't have much of a response. Just a lot of
hemming and hawing. She might have done better and got up and left like Whoopi
Goldberg and Joy Behar did on the View last week. At least protest the arrogant
tone of the question. Again, the preparation for a possible "gotcha" type
question was nowhere to be found.
Sometimes the liberals' superiority complex seems a bit pathological. George
W. Bush was said to be dumb, yet they seem to give him almost diabolical powers.
Bush lied and people died, they said. Yet, in order to lie, one has to know the
truth, and conciously attempt to deceive someone. In the matter of WMD in Iraq,
how could anyone, save someone with supernatural powers, ever know for sure about
the WMD issue? In order to lie, Bush had to know one way or another. Otherwise,
how could he lie? The liberals belief in the own moral superority allows them
to believe the improbable and contradictory charge. If Bush was so dumb, how is
he capable of telling such a monstrous lie? For Bush's part, why did he put
himself in that position in the first place? To go into Iraq, at the risk of being
wrong about WMD, exposed him to great political risk. Yet he trusted the liberals
and it could have cost him personally. There are those who wanted to
criminally
prosecute Bush. He could have gone to jail or even been executed for that.
Stupidity and arrogance is a dangerous mixture. There's gotta be a better way.
