What is with the Republican obsession with intellectual lightweights? From Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush, Republicans have not just tolerated a decided lack of brainpower in their political icons, they've actually embraced these characters precisely because they're so "regular guy." The problem, of course, is that regular guys are great fun at a kegger, but not so great at running the free world.
Look at the GOP presidential candidates. Not all of them, but Reagan and Bush come to mind as recent candidates who weren't particularly bright, and weren't particularly adept at the day-to-day running of the country (let's face it, in his second term Reagan's lack of attention to detail unraveled much of his presidency). But Republicans loved them. They loved them because of their lack of qualifications, lack of smarts - euphemistically known as "outsider status." Same thing with our female Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin. Not just unqualified, but like W. Bush (and Quayle), kind of dumb too. But the GOP loved her, partly, it seems, because she's not quite all there. Then there's Joe the Plumber. Again - tough guy, regular guy, but not particularly bright (and politically damaged to boot). They love him too. Joe is even off being a "war correspondent" in Israel, even though he doesn't think there should be any war correspondents anywhere. Let's let the Republican hero speak for himself:
Citizens of Sderot [Israel[ "can't do normal things day to day" like wash their hair, because of the fear of Hamas' rockets, the former plumber said.Yeah. This is the guy some Republicans want on a ticket with Sarah Palin in 2012.
"I'm sure they're taking quick showers," he said. "I know I would."
While touring a facility of spent rockets with the head of the Government Press Office, Danny Seaman, and an official government photographer, Wurzelbacher provided smiles for the veteran journalists watching him at work.
"I have thousands of questions but I can't think of the right one," he said at the start of his interview with Seaman.
The irony, of course, is that the Republican party is nowadays mostly composed of blue collar evangelicals and filthy rich businessmen. And while it's understandable that religious right voters would embrace someone like themselves (e.g., light on smarts and heavy on anger), you'd think the more educated, more cultivated, wing of the GOP would finally get fed up with being served a steady diet of dumb. At some point, these mascots of mediocrity actually have to run a country. And as we've witnessed the past eight years, dumb-and-dumber is not an effective strategy for moving America into the 21st century.
