Sept. 7

PALIN FIRE

By UD

The fiery debates about Sarah Palin’s capacity to lead — the quality of her intellect, the nature of her academic and political preparation — focus national attention on a theme dear to UD: Higher education. Why do we call it higher? Does it matter whether one has this rather obscure, somehow elevated, experience?

Does Palin’s spotty, undistinguished college career matter? A communications major, she probably had little exposure to history, philosophy, languages (Obama doesn’t speak any language besides English, but UD assumes that as a political science major at Columbia University, specializing in international relations, he had at least to study one for a few years), and what we used to call civics. Communications, after all, is radically present-oriented: It’s about public relations, television, advertising, radio ...

Here are a couple of course descriptions from Idaho’s current catalog:

JAMM 468 The Advertising Agency (3 cr). Functioning of an advertising agency, including management, accounting, creative and media buying systems, government regulation, account management, and creative strategies in the marketplace. Field trips. Recommended preparation: JAMM 466.

JAMM 376 Digital Animation in Mass Media (3 cr). Creation and animation of both video and graphics in the digital realm for television, film, and interactive multi-media. Production fundamentals through individual projects will be emphasized as a means to help stimulate viewer attention and to improve the processing of information and content. Prereq: JAMM 275.

I put the link to the University of Idaho page over “a means to help stimulate viewer attention” in order to highlight the point of a lot of these courses. They’re about very helpfully keeping us awake while we stare at screens. Or, as the first example suggests, they’re vocational.

Obama’s course of study (here’s the current political science course list for Columbia University) incorporated history, theory, global politics. Many of the courses (Classical and Medieval Political Thought) are almost purely intellectual, having no immediate vocational utility. Recall, too, Columbia’s Great Books undergraduate curriculum, which would have given Obama an exceptional exposure to general civilization courses.

Like a lot of people whose lives are changed by excellent educations, Obama describes himself — a wild kid — finding mental focus at Columbia: “I decided to buckle down and get serious. I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much. I was like a monk.”
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Does it matter? Does it matter that unlike Obama — who seems to have had a transformative intellectual experience at Columbia — Palin completed an undistinguished vocational undergraduate degree?

No. In the scheme of things, if a politician has a lively, curious intellect anyway, and a lot of political experience, and good political judgment, a substandard college experience, while a pity, isn’t a campaign-ender.

We won’t know whether Palin possesses these qualities on a presidential level until she has her first serious press conference. Until then, it’s worth reminding ourselves why all over the world people cherish a good education. It’s not just about jobs. It’s about expanding your consciousness in a way that profoundly enhances the quality of your life.
But that’s still pretty obscure, isn’t it? Consider this excerpt from Errata, George Steiner’s account of his undergraduate years at the University of Chicago:

A worthwhile university of college is quite simply one in which the student is brought into personal contact with, is made vulnerable to, the aura and the threat of the first-class. In the most direct sense, this is a matter of proximity, of sight and hearing. The institution, particularly in the humanities, should not be too large. The scholar, the significant teacher ought to be readily visible. We cross his or her daily path. The consequence, as in the Periclean polis, in medieval Bologna, or nineteenth-century Tubingen, is one of implosive and cumulative contamination. The whole is energized beyond its eminent parts. By unforced contiguity, the student, the young researcher will (or should be) infected. He will catch the scent of the real thing. I resort to sensory terms because the impact can be physical. Thinkers, the erudite, mathematicians, or theoretical and natural scientists are beings possessed. They are in the grip of a mastering unreason.

What could, by the lights of the utilitarian or hedonistic commonwealth, be more irrational, more against the grain of common sense than to devote one’s existence to, say, the conservation and classification of archaic Chinese bronzes, to the solution of Fermat’s last theorem, to the comparative syntax of Altaic languages (many now defunct), or the hairs-breadth nuances in modal logic? The requisite abstentions from distraction, the imperative labors, the tightening of nerve and brain to a constancy and pitch far beyond the ordinary, entail a pathological stress. The ‘mad professor’ is the caricature, as ancient as Thales falling into the well, of a certain truth. There is something of a cancer, of autism in the necessary negations of common life, with its disheveled inconsequence and waste motion.

In the critical mass of a successful academic community, the orbits of individual obsessions will cross and re-cross. Once he has collided with them, the student will forget neither their luminosity nor their menace to complacency.

...Once a young man or woman has been exposed to the virus of the absolute, once she or he has seen, heard, ’smelt’ the fever in those who hunt after disinterested truth, something of the afterglow will persist. For the remainder of their, perhaps, quite normal, albeit undistinguished careers and private lives, such men and women will be equipped with some safeguard against emptiness.

The aura and the threat of the first-class. Americans, with their complacent preferences for politicians who are just like them, are particularly keen on the threat part ...

But Steiner has in mind a different sense of threat: When you’ve been, at some point in your life, seriously inside higher ed (to coin a phrase), you’re forever unsettled by the possibility you’ve glimpsed of existence pitched very high, dedicated daily to as much lucidity about the world within and without as humanly possible.

Comments

Education

I may get banned for this, but I have to say, what hubris!

When you’ve been, at some point in your life, seriously inside higher ed (to coin a phrase), you’re forever unsettled by the possibility you’ve glimpsed of existence pitched very high, dedicated daily to as much lucidity about the world within and without as humanly possible.

Why is it, then, that about the only place where the Marxist philosophy still thrives is academia? Lucidity about the world within and without? Sorry, no.

Let’s look at the first myth from the WaPo piece:

(B)y every measure social scientists have devised, voters are spectacularly uninformed. They don’t follow politics, and they don’t know how their government works. According to an August 2006 Zogby poll, only two in five Americans know that we have three branches of government and can name them. A 2006 National Geographic poll showed that six in ten young people (aged 18 to 24) could not find Iraq on the map. The political scientists Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, surveying a wide variety of polls measuring knowledge of history, report that fewer than half of all Americans know who Karl Marx was or which war the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought in. Worse, they found that just 49 percent of Americans know that the only country ever to use a nuclear weapon in a war is their own.

What does that say to you? Americans are ignorant, no? But why?

Because the present population is the product of the last 100 years of the American education system — a system designed by people supposedly “serously inside higher ed” and run by people taught by them. And the result? At the turn of the 20th Century our high schools taught Greek and philosophy. At the turn of the 21st Century our Universities teach remedial English and mathematics.

The failure isn’t the American people who haven’t learned, it’s the products of higher education who have systematically failed to teach them.

The question I have is “WHY?”. As someone whose opinion I respect once wrote, “it is difficult to conclude that incompetence is the reason why our public schools have deteriorated. There comes a point where you have to suspect sabotage, or a conspiracy.”

Someone else I read put it very well:

One of the problems is with our elites. We are wrong to think that the difficulty lies in the uneducated and unsophisticated masses—as if inadequate education, in and of itself, is the problem. As a matter of fact, no one is more prone to illusions than the intellectual. It has been said that philosophy is simply personal error on a grandiose scale. Complicating matters is the fact that intellectuals are hardly immune to a deep emotional investment in their ideas, no less than the religious individual. The word “belief” is etymologically linked to the word “beloved,” and it is easy to see how certain ideas, no matter how dysfunctional—for example, some of the undeniably appealing ideas underpinning contemporary liberalism—are beloved by those who believe them. Thus, many liberal ideas are believed not because they are true, but because they are beautiful. Then, the intellectual simply marshals their intelligence in service of legitimizing the beliefs that they already hold. It has long been understood by psychoanalysts that for most people, reason is the slave of the passions.

Thus far too many in academia are not “dedicated daily to as much lucidity about the world within and without as humanly possible,” they are dedicated daily to defending their beloved ideas — regardless of their lucidity (or lack thereof.) The education system of our nation illustrates this quite lucidly.

Kevin Baker, Hubris, at 5:30 pm EDT on September 7, 2008

Idealism

Kevin’s comments remind me of “Civilization and Its Enemies", by Lee Harris. He discusses the terrible errors of Idealism (essentially, falling in love with an idea and then trying to force it to work in the real world).

James Smolen, at 12:35 am EDT on September 8, 2008

Really, really enjoyed this.

Thanks for posting it.

Mary Wilson, at 8:50 am EDT on September 8, 2008

Looking at Governor Palin’s current catalog shows a sort of academic bias. First off, the second course most likely doesn’t even relate to Palin’s experience as I’m sure this wasn’t offered when she received her degree (1987). Furthermore although looking at current curriculum may give an idea of past policy this is no substitute for understanding the true past policy. Multilingualism may not even have been required for either of the two candidates during their college careers. Even more so Palin may have learned as much about a language as Senator Obama could have during high school. This does not even begin to scratch the possibility that either of the candidates may have taken courses outside of the required curriculum. Many students have been known do such things simply due to a piqued interest, taking courses as electives.

Second, there seems to be an underlying fallacy here in the idea that a proper education involves being well rounded in other non-essential subjects to the core curriculum (e.g. language study). While I fully agree it’s only for the better that people expand their horizons and become a well rounded intellectually, as the article suggests it is not a deal breaker. Not to mention I know quite a few people who’s “well rounded” education contained many classes that they did not even care about, only fulfilling the role of student because of the necessity to graduate.

Furthermore there seems to be a new mystique that higher education makes one a better candidate for President (or in this case Vice President). Although these may be helpful in understanding a candidate, what is more important is the candidate’s sense of conviction and a clear understanding of what the candidate finds to be right or wrong. Should we blame great Presidents of the past like Franklin D. Roosevelt for his lack of college education even if he is the champion of many now socialist programs such as Social Security? Clearly a higher education doesn’t necessarily make a person a better candidate.

But perhaps we are missing an even more important point here. Is it fair to compare Sarah Palin’s experience, a candidate for Vice President, to that of Barack Obama, a candidate for President? Perhaps if we believe John McCain may die during his time in office then it may be necessary to worry. However we don’t care if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi were to become president (assuming both the President and Vice President were died). Granted the latter event is a bit more contrived it does make one think.

Matt Knowles, at 9:20 am EDT on September 8, 2008

vocational education

I have my concerns about the decline in educational expectations and standards—but picking a couple of classes out of University of Idaho’s current catalog tells us nothing about what education Gov. Palin received their almost 30 years ago. I can point to a number of pretty stupid offering that would doubtless make the professor proud.

Occidental College’s Critical Theory and Social Justice Program:

“342. THE PHALLUS.

“A survey of theories of the phallus from Freud and Lacan through feminist and queer takings-on of the phallus. Topics include the relation between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Queer Studies.

“344. QUEER PERFORMATIVITY.

“A critical examination of theories of performance and performativity with a focus on their contribution to gay and lesbian studies. We trace the history of performativity from speech act theory, through deconstruction, to the queer theories of Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. We also consider lesbian feminist critiques of queer performativity by Sue-Ellen Case and Teresa de Lauretis. We consider ethnographic accounts of cross-gender performances across cultures, including texts by Roger Lancaster, Don Kulick, and Susan Seizer. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Queer Studies.”

I’m not sure that it is fair to judge the quality of all serious academic programs at Occidental College based on this fashionable trash.

One of the motivators for declining standards is that higher education is intentionally no longer elite. I understand that 70% of high school graduates are now going to college—which would imply that large numbers of people of only average intelligence, and some number who are below normal in intelligence, are going to college. How elite can a system be that is intended for people who are below average in intelligence?

Making assumptions about Gov. Palin’s education based on getting a degree in communications suggests a lack of trust in the University of Idaho’s general education requirements. Or does it simply reflect someone’s assumption that a Republican must be poorly educated?

Clayton E. Cramer, at 10:11 am EDT on September 8, 2008

Holy smokes... so we should make sure to only elect those who went to elite universities? Please keep up the good work... the more you ridicule her for being like an average American, the worse for your cause.

John in MA, at 11:10 am EDT on September 8, 2008

“Holy smokes... so we should make sure to only elect those who went to elite universities?”

Yes, like both Presidents Bush, both Yalies. Or is Yale no longer an elite university because of that?

This whole argument against Palin just smells of desperate ad hoc justification for why she shouldn’t be elected. If Barack Obama had grown up poor, and had graduated from San Jose State, or one of the historically black colleges (few of whom would even qualify as being at the level of the University of Idaho), and McCain had picked another Yalie like our current president, the argument would be that Obama’s non-elite education was “authentic” to being black.

Clayton E. Cramer, at 12:25 pm EDT on September 8, 2008

If it’s not too much to ask...

I’d like a candidate who knows how science works, so he/she could ask insightful questions when confronted with questions like, say anthropogenic global warming. A good understanding of how money and banking work, history, geography, um...a foreign language, decent math skills, and knows basically how a computer network works. I’m sure you can add to the list, but I doubt there are many people who care what candidates think about current post-modern theory, which is entertaining to poke fun at, but comprises a small part of most major curricula. We live in a technological age, and should have a president who knows how the stuff works. Maybe Secretary Spellings can come up with a standardized test on it? Oh, and finally, the candidate should be able to pronounce ‘nuclear’ properly. In a nation of 300,000,000 people, is that really too much to ask?

Stanislav, at 12:40 pm EDT on September 8, 2008

“I’d like a candidate who knows how science works, so he/she could ask insightful questions when confronted with questions like, say anthropogenic global warming. A good understanding of how money and banking work, history, geography, um...a foreign language, decent math skills, and knows basically how a computer network works.”

Well that describes me perfectly. (I know a lot more than “basically” how a computer network works. My engineering resume is at http://www.claytoncramer.com/personal/RESUME.pdf; my academic C.V. is at http://www.claytoncramer.com/personal/CV.pdf.) Heck, I couldn’t even win the Republican state senate primary a couple of months ago. I was running against someone who only graduated high school, and was well to the left of his constituents.

Clayton E. Cramer, at 3:10 pm EDT on September 8, 2008

Palin Fire

Schools are for education, for providing a foundation of knowledge and mental tools so that the graduate can do better in (and for) the world. If this is true, than what exactly makes a school ‘elite’? One would expect that the education would be better, that the knowledge and mental toolbox would be of higher quality. Graduates of an elite school would naturally rise to the top. Alas, what is being more often seen is the networking and name prestige the ‘elite’ school provides, not increased skill or ability. It looks that ‘elite’ schools aren’t so elite anymore. Why would this be? Perhaps the vast increase in information exchange, the ease of gathering knowledge on any subject, has leveled the field. Perhaps some of the information taught, the mental tools provided, are bad, the product of an education faculty increasingly divorced from reality. Grade school and high school are failing their students in their mission, in spite of being provided more resources than ever before. Colleges have to apply more resources to students that are not at the level once expected for a college freshman. A homeschooled youth is consistently better educated than a public or private school student taught by educated professionals. Given this trend and the relative ease that knowledge is available today, I would be worried about the future of higher education if I was a professor. Networking contacts are extremely valuable. Senator Obama has risen high and fast with his skillful use of his contacts, and now contends for the highest office in the land. However, he has done very little on his own, be it lawsuits, bills, laws or even written papers.Governor Palin has succeeded without the networking and contacts. Does this call in question the status of the elite schools that she did not attend? If so, perhaps it should.

Justin Bischel, at 3:10 pm EDT on September 8, 2008

Why?

Well, we call it higher education as a relic of a bygone age when it was the norm to make a living without the benefit of such an education. While a small percentage were climbing the ladder of their career others were still climbing the ladder of education. This is currently in transition to something completely different, for better or worse.

Or that could be utter bullshit and it’s as simple as the fact that it comes after high school.

ravenshrike, at 3:45 pm EDT on September 8, 2008

I was intrigued by the unreferenced quotation in Kevin Baker’s post [first one, here]. It seems to be from a self-described “clinical psychologist, retail clerk” who has a site called One Cosmos (if anyone is interested, it’s quite a hoot).I was intrigued because of the error of thinking etymology tells us anything other than the derivation of a word and the clever but fallacious device of ‘it is/has been said’ to derogate philosophy [my field].

Going beyond these forays into the distinction between good and bad reasoning, I am wondering if I read the same piece as many of the commenters seem to have read. My surmise was that David took an opportunity to talk about the difference[s] between a vocational and liberal arts [’transformative’] education. Tying it to some guesses about the differences in Palin’s and Obama’s educations may have been a stretch, but I did not think he was trying to discredit Palin as a candidate. Nor can I find David talking aout ‘elite’ insitutions as contrasted with others — which seems to have become a topic among the commenters.But, then, all this may be due to naught but my pointy-headed, philosophical tendency to fairly address what an author has written. Silly intellectual that I am.

cts, at 11:45 am EDT on September 9, 2008

This is just silly

I’m not a big fan of Ms. Palin but this is ridiculous.

So Palin actually completed a degree in a professional field and took a couple courses on some of the professional skills and knowledge required. I would think it is safe to assume that she also had “exposure to history, philosophy, languages, ... civics” as part of her general education.

She might also have had courses like: JAMM 340 Cultural Diversity and the Media, and JAMM 341 Mass Media Ethics

Political Science also involves some courses in “practical” knowledge about political systems. Should we discount Obama’s education on that basis?

Faculty Person, at 1:05 pm EDT on September 9, 2008

If only the elites were elite

As a Columbia grad, I can tell you that the courses Obama took there were not much different than Palin’s except they had the right shade of academic lipstick on them for the writer of this piece and others obviously. The height of hubris is American academic “elites” who actually think they are elite rather than Swiftian yahoos ...smugged and entitled (the hallmarks of elite graduates) are why we are winning the race to the bottom. Listen to grocho marx on country clubs when it comes time to cast your vote

Vinnie Dummerino, at 10:55 am EDT on September 10, 2008

Hubris

Kevin Baker is right about the article’s hubris. It is disturbing for two main reasons:

First, and primarily, it’s bad scholarship and poor logic. The article extrapolates far beyond the facts, clothing an essentially emotional argument in pseudo-academic garb. It includes no research or even interviews with the candidates, only assumption and extrapolation. It has examined no transcripts of either candidate. Rather, it says that IF they attended their institutions TODAY their current programs PROBABLY would have included courses such as these. It made no attempt to determine what coursework either candidate ACTUALLY completed, or what their grades were. From extrapolations such as these, it attempted to draw conclusions about suitability for a job. This is not scholarship, research, or logic, it’s simple political opinion — to which everyone has a right, but which should not be dressed up as something which it is not.

This leads to the second problem with the article: It does not belong in a forum such as this, even in the opinion blogs. I read this forum to find out what is happening in higher education and hopefully to glean some tips on becoming better at teaching the students — which, after all, is what higher education is all about. I don’t care what your political opinion is one way or the other, but this is not the forum in which to air it.

I hope everyone has their political opinions; I hope everyone studies the candidates and the issues and makes an informed, reasonable, and supportable decision; I hope even more that everyone expresses their political opininons where it counts most by getting out to vote. But let’s not twist logic and scholarship by specious reasoning without facts and by airing our opinions in the sheep’s clothing of pseudo-academic argument when that isn’t what it is. Let’s leave this forum for its primary purpose higher education and express our political opinions in the political fora where they belong.

That’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.

Disturbed, Prof, at 11:10 am EDT on September 12, 2008

A quick overview of the history of public education in the US might help myopics like Kevin Baker: The phrase “drop out” didn’t enter the American lexicon until the early 50s. Only the children of the relatively well-off graduated from high school when my parents (I’m 60) were growing up. At that time, only the sons and daughters of the rich went to college. A generation before that, college stuents were the sons and daughters of the elite. A generation before that, only the sons of the elite went to college.

That seems like progress to me. And if you think college students at some (unnamed)previous time could all read and write well, then you need to do some more checking. In 1870, the dean of the Harvard medical school declared that “written examinations could not be given because ost of the students could not write well enough.” In 1873, Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University, wrote, “Bad spelling, incorrectness as well as inelegance of expression in writing, ignorance of the simplest rules of punctuation. . . are far from rare among young men of eighteen. . . .”

Sound familiar?

Philip, at 1:40 pm EDT on September 12, 2008

I find the focus on academic status interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it appears a little inconsistent (not UD, but in general). We had Bill Clinton (lots of academic credentials) then Gore (flunked divinity school), then Kerry (Ivy league, lower GPA than Bush) running for the liberal side. Now we have Obama (again lots of credentials) and Biden (bottom of his law school class, failed a course for plagiarism) against McCain (bottom at the Academy, which I presume he got into as a legacy) and Palin (degree from an ok state school). Now education is important? It wasn’t when Gore was running. The second is my own experience. Personally, I went to public high school and, if you wanted a college prep education, it was there if you worked for it. If not, almost anyone could graduate. Then I went to a state school in the same ranking as U of Idaho and found the same thing. Lots more there to learn than any one person could manage, some good profs and courses, some BS, too. I went to a low ranked state law school after that and, in fifteen years of professional life, have noticed no particular correlation in alma mater and ability, though a huge correlation between alma mater and ego, as well as between alma mater and expectations. Ivy League types frequently get miffed if you don’t kiss their ring. Consequently, I’m not very troubled by Palin’s education, especially if she reveals herself to be articulate and thoughtful.

mdmnm, at 3:50 pm EDT on September 12, 2008

Anecdote =/= data

Phillip: You may be correct, but we don’t know. A couple of quotes about ill-prepared college students in the nineteenth century does not lend any factual support to your argument. It is equally possible that some students were unprepared for college in a day when college was truly elite (i.e., for the rich and well-connected only) *because* “rich and/or well-connected” was a primary qualification, (public education as you and I think of it)was rare and the quality of primary education was uneven.

On the other hand, the failure of the current public education system to prepare the majority of students for college is very well documented. Further, business and industry tell us that unacceptably high numbers of college graduates have to be trained in basics like written communication and arithmetic before they can do their jobs.

More people getting an education is *not* progress when that education is demonstrably inferior to what was available in the past and does not equip them to be productive workers and responsible citizens.

rocinante, at 5:30 pm EDT on September 12, 2008

What about Barack’s transcript?

The interesting thing is that nobody posting here has the slightest clue about what Barack actually did at Columbia, aside from the name of his major. We don’t know what courses he took, who he studied with, or what his grades were. Of course, we would know all that if he released his transcripts (after all, we got to see the Bush and Kerry Yale transcripts). But the Obama campaign has refused to release the transcripts or anything of substance about his career at Columbia or Occidental. Hmmm. Perhaps there is something to hide? I wonder what it could be...

Telematique, at 5:05 am EDT on September 13, 2008

rocinante:

If we “really don’t know” how public schools were performing ‘way back when, then how can you say that today’s public schools are “demonstrably inferior"?

Here’s another fact for you: In 1963, at a time when SAT scores were approaching their all-time high, Admiral Hyman Rickover’s “American Education: A National Failure” cited a University of Pittsburg study which concluded that only one American high school student in 100 was able to write a five-minute compostition without numerous mechanica mistakes in English.

One thing we DO know is that folks have AlWAYS complained about Johnny and Susie’s ability to read and write.

Philip, at 2:10 pm EDT on September 13, 2008

Education

Phillip:

Good points, but it seems apparent that since the formation of the federal Department of Education, there has been only further decline.

Please read this:

http://tinyurl.com/4kcgoo

And feel free to comment there. It’s my blog, and the comments are still open.

Kevin Baker, Please Read This, at 9:45 pm EDT on September 14, 2008

One of the most brilliant engineers I know, my father in law, never got past, I believe, the eighth grade. If he had, I’m sure the he would have been running NASA and the space shuttles never would have blown up.

Mike Landry, at 9:20 am EDT on September 17, 2008

Obama’s foreign languages

What you’re saying about Obama’s command of foreign languages, is actually not correct. Cf. the discussion on languagelog: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=345

Chris, at 9:10 am EDT on September 19, 2008

Perfectly Reasonable

I think that UD has a perfectly reasonable point, which is that Sarah Palin has not had an education that would be considered the equal of that received by Barack Obama, for the job of being president. Whether or not this makes her or him any more of an ‘average American’ is surely not the point. The idea that we would want an average American to be president is ridiculous. If all we knew about two candidates is that one studied advertising and the other international relations, then we would be justified in thinking that the latter would be more qualified to make judgments on foreign policy.

What makes things worse for those who are trying to accuse UD of partisanship is that Obama also went to Harvard law school. UD also says, “if a politician has a lively, curious intellect anyway, and a lot of political experience, and good political judgment, a substandard college experience, while a pity, isn’t a campaign-ender.” Palin’s bio and her performances on tv recently do not indicate that she has any of these qualities.

The question of would one rather have an intelligent and knowledgeable president with a respect for the practical benefits of a good argument than a stupid, ignorant president who acts on the basis of faith or ideology, is, to use an anti-intellectual phrase, a no-brainer.

JO, at 12:05 pm EDT on September 29, 2008