A PRESIDENT WHO CAN SPEAK WELL PLUS ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN THE USA

I think that President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech set exactly the right tone going forward….This isn’t going to be easy, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and sacrifice will be required from every one….It was sober and mature although a drastic departure from his we can do anything rhetoric from the campaign which to be brutally honest I occasionally found hollow.
But any improvement in speaking abilities would be any improvement because the president of the United States should be an articulate, intelligent and quick-witted spokesman as he is the public face, the spokesman for the country.

The last eight years we have seen a president who could barely string two sentences together and whose gaffes were a constant source of embarrassment and ridicule for America.

The newspaper recently ran a list of George W. Bush’s almost endless stream of verbal errors….A lot of them were reversing the order of a sentence (I recall a rumor that Bush is dyslexic), not having memorized what he was supposed to have said (a sign of mental laziness) or just plain stupidity (there’s a lot of blue blood inbreeding on Barbara Bush’s side of the family).

But there is a side to America that likes this….Much as there are many Americans who don’t believe in the dinosaurs and believe the earth is only 10,000 years old as well as still believing that Global Warming is some kind of hoax and smoking is not bad for you, this is only a symptom for a greater anti-intellectualism that has deep roots in the USA.

While not as overt as the days people mocked Charles Darwin and “pointy-headed” types, there’s still a deep strain of resentment for those who cure diseases, invent things, and otherwise make life better for the world as well as art (books, movies etc.) that is not just car crashes and explosions but requires some kind of thought

One can recall Adlai Stevenson, Michael Dukakis, and other losing presidential candidates criticized as being too intellectual….In my most sarcastic tone, YEAH YOU WOULDN’T WANT A PRESIDENT WHO’S TOO INTELLIGENT NOW WOULD YOU?

The funny thing is that those people who loved the fact that George Bush was/is dumb as they viewed it as some sort of poke in the eye of the establishment were themselves ignorant of who George Bush is….He’s from a mega-wealthy family, attended one of the most exclusive prep schools in the country, has degrees from Harvard and Yale (bought with donations from the Bush family)….He’s hardly an everyman.

George Bush always reminded more of one of those idiots children of royalty who are a source constant of humor with their buffoonery….Unfortunately, having a president who is borderline mentally retarded the last eight years was not really that funny as it led to the destruction of the economy not to mention mass murder and torture in Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere.