Quote of the day
posted at 10:42 pm on September 25, 2008 by Allahpundit
“Now a natural woman has burst onto the political stage, eliciting the same tropes of authenticity—shootin’, skinnin’, ridin’ (in this case, a snowmobile), and, for the first time, jumpin’. And, as the tradition requires, the glorification of Sarah Palin’s status as ‘ordinary mom’ is accompanied by contempt for the sissified products of an elite education. The conservative commentariat hangs prestigious college degrees around the necks of the media and political liberals like so many dead coons. Charlie Gibson? ‘Princeton ’65,’ sneered one Wall Street Journal columnist. Barack Obama? ‘Columbia and Harvard Law,’ guffaws Ralph Peters in the New York Post. Many of those heaping scorn on the hypereducated elites have a Yale or Cornell degree in their own closet, as was the case in that first burst of Jacksonian populism…
Obviously, learning needs to be merged with experience and common sense to result in political wisdom. The Palin populists are right to point out that many highly educated people make idiotic decisions. Political wisdom can derive from everyday experience and common sense alone. But the populist message at times seems to carry a subtle implication that learning is itself a disqualifier. At a time when historical and literary ignorance is at such a high, an occasional hint of the value of serious study would be most welcome.”
Blowback
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Heather has been hit with the shock-and-awe of 2008: Picture perfect Palin.
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:16 AM
Heather has learned all the wrong things from the Ivy league colleges…
Move along here.. nothing to see.
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:18 AM
Obviously Heather hasn’t had any experience with smart people like Palin.
Go figure.
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:20 AM
Great story.
petunia on September 26, 2008 at 1:20 AM
Did I mention that Heather is just jealous?
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:21 AM
Her writing style sounds like someone who has constant neck pains. Maybe she should try some therapy. I think if she just lowered her nose a bit everything would be better.
dominigan on September 26, 2008 at 1:21 AM
People like Ms. MacDonald forget that the Founding Fathers never put in an educational requirement for running for President. In their infinite wisdom, they understood that the best measure of a man (or woman) is their deeds, not their pedigree or college degrees. It’d be worth pointing out to this woman that 2 of our countries greatest presidents had no college education: Washington and Lincoln.
Dagnar on September 26, 2008 at 1:27 AM
I’m afraid Alaska is going to be populated with nitwits like Heather and the team of thirty (30) investigators who have flocked there and will eventually fall in love with the last frontier.
I just hope they stay up there long enough investigating, to be forced to stay through the winter and get there asses frozen and get cold feet.
I have fond and great memories of Alaska and the thought of these nitwit turds spoiling the landscape is just more than I can bear!!
Damn!!! I hate the thought of them spoiling my image of Alaska!!
May 700 trillion mosquitoes bite their butts and tickle their ears!!
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:29 AM
And to think that Heather probably didn’t even learn this in college!!
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:32 AM
Moose burgers would be good food for Heather’s brain.
God! I hope Alaska doesn’t run out of moose burgers, due to a higher demand from the Palimania!
Because otherwise brainiacs like Heather will become extinct!!
Oh.. my bad, they don’t have any brains except that which has vegetated.
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:37 AM
Stand up Heather so everybody can see you.. oh what am I saying.. God love ya woman. You stand up for everybody…Everybody stand up for Heather!!
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 2:01 AM
Is this the Heather of “Heather has two mommies”?
landlines on September 26, 2008 at 2:02 AM
learningstudying how best to ruin the lives of others is itself a disqualifier.When learning is used to torture, that disqualifies the learned from public trust.
Time and again Nobel awards, though handsomely regarded, are used as ploys to garner world opinion towards the recipient who by his own lack of merit is disqualified. Yet the disqualified is awarded. That is itself a disqualifier of the Nobel reputation.
maverick muse on September 26, 2008 at 2:11 AM
Again……………….. what are they being “taught”?
Seven Percent Solution on September 26, 2008 at 2:30 AM
I am pretty sure I have heard Ms. McDonald on Bill Bennett’s show. I guarantee that she and Peggy Noonan hang out together. Just so above it all.
Cindy Munford on September 26, 2008 at 2:32 AM
The smugness wafts through the air. They aren’t elite, they’re just better than us.
billypaintbrush on September 26, 2008 at 2:47 AM
The best of the Ivy League has brought us to this precipice. We have a tradition in America of faith in the common sense of the American People. It has worked for over 200 years and we must rely on it once more.
ronsfi on September 26, 2008 at 3:37 AM
That’s right. We need someone who has demonstrated she can organize and implement changes in government. Not some person who got an A on a paper he wrote in college. Remember: Jimmy Carter – worse president ever. Reagan – best.
Blake on September 26, 2008 at 3:59 AM
Oh, Miss Smartypants, who do you think is going to implement such programs? The Palins of the world or the Obamas?
How many hit pieces has Heather penned against Palin so far? Come on, MacDonald! Just admit, you’re threatened by her, you hate her, you’re angry that people don’t agree with your hatred, and you’re voting for Obama.
Blake on September 26, 2008 at 4:06 AM
I keep imagining these full fledge tantrums going on — on both the right and the left by the “pundits”:
I’m important!
I’m important!
I’m important!
I’m important!
Say, it: I’m important!
Wah! You wont’ say it!
Blake on September 26, 2008 at 4:08 AM
Ms. MacDonald is correct. Those men would be appalled at the lack of coherent thought by a summa cum laude graduate of America’s most prestigious university, Barack Obama.
Nichevo on September 26, 2008 at 4:13 AM
Well said. Liberals have debased education the same way they debased common sense imortgage lending practices with Carter’s CRA. The question now is whether five weeks is enough time to get these points across to a sufficient number of American voters to start the process of slowing and eventually reversing this insanity.
Regarding Obama and Harvard. Did he graduate summa cum laude or magna cum laude(or was it magna cum latte)? What do these terms mean at Harvard. If Obama is the genius the media portrays him to be why hasn’t he released his LSAT scores and Columbia and Harvard transcripts?
Basilsbest on September 26, 2008 at 5:04 AM
Actually, certain kind of “learning” is a disqualifier. I think Americans would respect people who have real degrees, such as engineering or turf grass management. You know, the kinds of degrees where you can do something useful coming out of college.
As opposed to the various X studies degrees that are all the rage in the overpriced colleges now. And the B.S. BAs started well before 20 years ago. I think it’s right to be skeptical of a Yale, Harvard, Princeton, or Columbia degree. The liberal arts and humanities made themselves laughable in the last half of the 20th century (if not before), and why I should count gazing at one’s own navel and calling it the world as “learning”, I don’t see.
meep on September 26, 2008 at 5:11 AM
It’s not the learning that’s the problem. It’s what they choose to study that’s the problem.
Too many of our educated betters spend their time in school studying Saul Alinsky and leftist political theory, and not enough studying real-world economics and the sciences. What they learn in school is actually counterproductive, so it would be better if they remained unschooled.
If a candidate had a degree in Engineering or Medicine, I would be much more inclined to support him, because these require some intelligence and a tremendous amount of effort.
gridlock2 on September 26, 2008 at 6:31 AM
Many people seem to be confirming MacDonald’s point: That among conservatives, there are many who almost automatically dismiss intellectual pursuits, as if good sense and education are mutually exclusive. As MacDonald points out, much of the academic world deserves the scorn that is heaped on it, but rather than limit this derision to narcissistic navel-gazing, many conservatives seem indiscriminately dismiss all academic pursuits as useless self-indulgence.
Ivy League schools, while still holding much “prestige,” are losing their elan because they are hotbeds of leftist indoctrination. Our founders would be horrified at what passes for education, but that doesn’t mean they would believe education lacks value (Washington was embarrassed about his lack of education; Jefferson was brilliant and highly educated). Wouldn’t conservatives be better off applauding a return to the Great Books tradition, while mocking the pseudo-education and nonsense degrees one finds at many universities? This would dismiss neither Palin (whom, I presume, people support because they believe she is smart enough for the job), nor those who want to pursue greater levels of education.
The Left doesn’t support true intellectual development, because an understanding of the tenets of Western Civilization destroys acceptance of the tenets of leftism. True intellectual development strengthens conservatism, something I would think all of us would find worthwhile.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 6:51 AM
I would have thought Ms. MacDonald would have learned something of the history of our country and the Presidents in her education.
George Washington
A Virginia farmer who’s authority was repeatedly rebuffed by British officers while acting as a commander of Virginia Militia during the French and Indian War. They considered his status as a colonial officer to be below their notice. This was proven to be an arrogance later in the war for American independence.
Thomas Jefferson
Another Virginia farmer who was constantly in financial distress because of mismanagement of his personal life. Yet he still stands of one of the most influential political philosophers in American history.
Abraham Lincoln
Born in the backwoods and a frontier life, he was an itinerant lawyer. He had only about one year of formal education prior to holding office. All of his college degrees were honorary. Yet he was “educated” enough to lead America through one of its most difficult times.
Harry Truman
He never obtained a college degree. He slept in “hobo camps” while working for the Santa Fe railroad. He owned a haberdashery (sold hats) in Kansas City. He also oversaw the final parts of World War II as President.
Ronald Reagan
He attended Eureka College (that world renowned school of higher learning). He was an actor for much of his life, but learned enough to lead America to victory in the Cold War without firing a shot.
You know what all of these men had though? They had life experiences to teach them how to lead. If experience is the key here over education, then please explain the qualifications of Barack Obama as President?
Hawthorne on September 26, 2008 at 7:00 AM
Poor Heather. Some of us don’t stop learning in college.
Jim Treacher on September 26, 2008 at 7:15 AM
Hilarious how when Bush was running for Prez, all we heard was that one could graduate from Yale and Harvard and still be a blithering idiot. Now, it is THE mark of acceptability.
RegularJoe on September 26, 2008 at 7:17 AM
Presidents like Lincoln and Truman didn’t have much formal learning. Neither did my grandfather, who only made it to the 6th grade because that was as far as the schools went where he grew up. But my grandfather was a very learned man, he never stopped learning. All his life, and he lived to be 95, he read on all kinds of subjects. My grandfather was a life long learner.
I work in academia. I know lots of PhDs who know every thing there is to know about their small area of expertise, but nothing about anything else. I know librarians with several master’s degrees who don’t read anymore.
I have a lot of respect for educated men and women. It’s just that they are very hard to find in an academic setting.
Ellen on September 26, 2008 at 7:24 AM
My Grandfather used to have a saying for these types:
Educated Idiot.
HornetSting on September 26, 2008 at 7:29 AM
Heather…. such a classic display of ignorance and arrogance in such a small mind, combined with such a big mouth.
Better that one remains quiet and some people think you are dumb, than to open your mouth and prove you are dumb.
DVPTexFla on September 26, 2008 at 7:30 AM
The MBA case studies from Harvard often have an amusing flaw – the real-life “answer” to the case is often not related to business principles or information in the case, but based on decisions by those in charge. It’s who you [they] know, not what you know [and written like the ending of a bad mystery novel].
Although some Harvard classes actually financed major new businesses during discussion of class presentations, I got a better education at the top of a Big Ten MBA class.
These failing businesses often
value where you studied over what you learned.
Right_of_Attila on September 26, 2008 at 7:38 AM
I’ve got a question. If an education from Harvard, Yale and Columbia is such a big deal to the MSM and the political elite and unassailable proof of being smart, why do we need a $700 Billion bailout in the first place?
.
GT on September 26, 2008 at 7:40 AM
I have a PhD, I’m in an academic setting, and I completely agree. One does not have to attend college to learn, and many of the students I have in college have below-average intelligence and/or no interest in education. They should be doing what they are capable of and what they enjoy–neither of which are college. This notion that everyone should go to college is part of a dangerous “educational romanticism” that Charles Murray eloquently writes about. Human value does not come from intelligence, something lost on the Left.
What I am disturbed by in this thread, however, is the hostility some seem to have toward higher education and/or intellectual pursuits. Many of our founders lacked formal education, but many of them were highly educated–to dismiss any of them based on one or the other would be obscene. To disagree with MacDonald, to argue against the points she makes, requires more than name-calling or mocking the left (both of which are leftist tactics). Conservatives should value and encourage conservative intellectuals–and there are many, in a wide variety of fields–every bit as much as they value conservatives who have other strengths and interests.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 7:51 AM
In the Marines, many an “educated” 2nd LT would find themselves humbly seeking advise from a salty E-5 – who may or may not have graduated high school- on such mundane things as land navigation, hasty ambushes, most likely avenues of approach etc.
Book smart is impressive at cocktail parties and ballroom functions, but once I strapped on the 782 gear and had to step outside the wire I’ll take street smart and ‘paid my dues” experienced every time.
I prefer my leaders to have a solid combination of both, someone who can articulate complicated matters in a simple manner but has also been in a real fight, has taken a few shots on the chin and isn’t afraid to muss up his coif.
Palin’s smart enough.. plus I’d pick her in a knife fight over Obama.
Alden Pyle on September 26, 2008 at 8:11 AM
I just have to laugh. While listing the values of education, Ms. McDonald managed to set up a new class of victims- Ivy Leaguers who are being picked on by Palin Populists.
highhopes on September 26, 2008 at 8:36 AM
PA just probably quadrupled her readership, whoever she is.
Back to obscurity tomorrow.
Akzed on September 26, 2008 at 8:51 AM
Um, that would be AP. Or HA. Take your pick.
Akzed on September 26, 2008 at 8:52 AM
Michael Moore had better go finish college if he ever wants the left to take him seriously.
saint kansas on September 26, 2008 at 9:30 AM
The mistake many tend to make is confusing education with intelligence. Education does not automatically equate to intelligence and lack of a certain type of education does not equate to lack of intelligence.
Some tend to make – as alluded to earlier – their education their shield, their built-in appeal to authority and their primary qualification. I have a very good friend who is a college professor. I was at an English department faculty party – surrounded by PhDs in lit, etc. In a political discussion in which I was disagreeing with one of her colleagues he invoked his PhD. In English Lit. My JD of course was meaningless, his has more letters.
RDuke on September 26, 2008 at 10:19 AM
During the primaries, I was stunned by the number of votes Obama was getting from “educated” people with graduate degrees–what did they ever see in him when ordinary people can see right through him as a hollow, empty suit who has never done anything? But in some universities, there’s an emphasis on teaching “transcendental, transformative” ideas that never work, but they tell their students that those ideas haven’t had the chance because the nasty Republicans never let them. They look into emptiness and believe it to be profound.
I plead guilty to being “educated” with an Engineering degree. But in Engineering school, numbers need to add up and balance, theories need to be backed up by facts (otherwise people poke holes in them), new devices need to work, and technology is good, not evil. Back in the 1970s, we had a “Humanities” professor that kept trying to teach us that technology was evil, but for students planning to make careers out of technology, such views made him the laughing stock of the entire class! But then, there are “educated” people whose entire education consists of Humanities, and they can’t figure out why the “stupid”, non-transcendent people with their “evil” technology are laughing at them.
Such is the stuff from which Obama dreams are made.
Sarah Palin is a different kind of success story that the “elites” can never understand. She didn’t grow up with wild ambitions and an inflated ego, but simply wanting to make a difference through her service, even if it was only to her husband’s fishing business. She saw the effects of corruption on her town and her state, and decided that the strongest way to fight it is through political power. She didn’t seek the Vice Presidency, but when McCain recognized her talent and asked her to serve, she bravely stepped forward and “didn’t blink”. She said that she wanted to go to Washington “with a servant’s heart”. If she can keep her “servant’s heart” through the maelstrom of national politics, she could be a great Vice President.
Steve Z on September 26, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Just because someone has an education doesn’t mean that they are smart. JMHO.
cjs1943 on September 26, 2008 at 10:49 AM
That would be because there are no smart people like Palin. That’s the problem with adjectives, they narrow the scope of your noun.
LevStrauss on September 26, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Point well made. But conservatives already do value real educated and smart decisions that work for the common good.
Don’t step in it here.
What they are mocking is not true education. What they are mocking is arrogance and idiocy.
And the Ivy league stamped degree recipients in general, have no one else to blame except themselves.
You should be the one to criticize such arrogance, since of course, the uneducated don’t have the authority to do so…
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 11:06 AM
I’m afraid I don’t understand your “step in it” comment, so I can’t address it, but I will certainly call “nonsense” on your remark about arrogance. Anyone is free to criticize arrogance. Arrogance should be criticized–and MacDonald does so in her argument, after a fashion, by acknowledging that the contemporary academy deserves derision. As someone who endures the academy, I second her belief; however, it is equally tiresome to encounter conservatives who assume that past a certain point of education, one automatically adopts an attitude of superiority (hence, lest you think it was lost on me, you give yourself permission to make snide and baseless comments like your closing remark to me).
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 11:31 AM
Actually, Heather, I think the disdain is for what so much of the academy has become since the infamous Late Sixties. More than one university has turned down fully-funded American Studies programs, saying – in one case – that the program would “threaten” the university’s core role of teaching “critical analysis”. That’s become academyspeak for Marxist analysis. “Threatened” by a different point of view.
I raise my nose and *humph* in their general direction.
eeyore on September 26, 2008 at 12:11 PM
Thanks for confirming that you are a closet effete elitist who has to come in here – because it offends your pious and snobbish opinions of yourself – and try to act like you are being fair.
I wasn’t assuming in my earlier post that you are acting superior, rather, I was simply warning you to not step into the manure pile in front of you, vis a vi offending a common person’s intelligence to know the difference between true wisdom and elite snobbery.
You happily did step into my trap, which I regularly do for anyone who is a pretender or hypocrite here.
If you have anything to contribute further here, then please do so.
But since you have demonstrated a lack of comprehension regarding my earlier description, that, the revolt of the educated elites is not about their Ivy league stamped degrees, but about their stupid ideas that any common person can see doesn’t work.
You didn’t catch that or comment on it.
Instead you bemoan being derided as an academic, thereby furthering confirming the common persons’ suspicion that you cannot take criticism, therefore selfish and lacking humility.
And humility behooves us all.
You elites have set the rules of snide comments and I gave you a chance to see the real issue here (as highlighted in bold above).
Instead you have further eroded the common person’s respect of your profession. Whether that matters to you, is up to you.
If you think that I have been snide, well then…. touche!
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 12:21 PM
I ask your pardon for my lack of knowledge about the phrase “step in it”–I am not accustomed to speaking in vulgarities. As for the rest of your self-satisfied screed, it entirely missed my points. Whatever you believe yourself to be, a critical thinker you are not. That, of course, does not make you morally inferior–it simply makes your posts tiresome.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 12:33 PM
Did I address that post to you, DrMagnolias?
You elitist posts are more than tiresome, they are bovine scatology.
I’m sure that you never use vulgarities in your private life to described things as they really are, because you are better and polished to a spit shine.
Consider this a private conversation, in where we really say what we feel, because it really clears things up and doesn’t beat-around-the-bush, (I hope you understand that phrase).
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 12:45 PM
It is not terribly difficult to identify to whom you addressed a follow-up post, when your first post was addressed to me.
I don’t use vulgarities in my private life because I am a lady. That may bother you, but there you have it.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Well, knock me over with a feather!! You sounded so much more like a man talking with your snobbery.
I guess that’s kinda like the feminists saying that Palin is more like a man than a woman….
I rest my case.
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:10 PM
I thought the “Magnolias” in my moniker was clear enough, but I suppose there was room for misunderstanding in there, somewhere. For the record, I am not a tree surgeon.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 1:17 PM
Aaaaah! That explains.
I don’t analyze monikers for a living. I simply read what the writer has written. Monikers could mean anything.
Are you assuming that I’m a man?
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 1:41 PM
Actually, I am assuming you are Richard Dean Anderson, that you have forgotten how to spell your alias, and that you are posting to HA using nothing more than a stick of chewing gum and two paper clips.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 1:47 PM
Aaah! You are getting warm Madam Doctor…..
Actually, I never saw the movie series, not interested. I heard about them, found the name interesting for a moniker only and changed it slightly for obvious reasons.
I do chew gum, but only on rare occasions and never have enough paper clips around. Rather I use my Homosapian grey matter and digits to do my job.
Gotta go….
Mcguyver on September 26, 2008 at 2:04 PM
I understand the instinct to lash out, better than most. But Heather MacDonald is no fool, she is not ignorant or arrogant, and does not suffer from a “small mind”.
Stay focused, here.
I agree that she has this wrong. Someone used the word contempt, and that I think is the right word. Many here are simply expressing contempt for what goes on in these institutions, and the arrogant belief that people from the Ivy League schools are somehow just “better” than others.
Some of us know better from personal experience.
Jaibones on September 26, 2008 at 4:46 PM
Funny, Washington would disagree, as would every President ever elected until FDR. The Fathers assumed that elected representatives would see public office as a duty (not a career), and thus would limit themselves. The current swamp which is Washington, D.C., and all of its political careerism, would have been anathema to the Fathers.
Kindly do not attribute to the Founding Fathers opinions they never had.
spmat on September 26, 2008 at 6:24 PM
But the founders didn’t have to consider term limits, because Congress didn’t meet year-round–rather, they met to do the business sanctioned by the Constitution, which meant they met briefly then went home, to their real livelihoods–term limits were not necessary. If we would return to our Constitutional form of government, they still wouldn’t be.
DrMagnolias on September 26, 2008 at 10:24 PM
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