Quote of the day
posted at 10:00 pm on September 4, 2009 by Allahpundit
“As a pretty down-the-line conservative, I don’t believe I am alone in noting with disappointment the trivialization, excessive sloganeering, and pettiness that has overtaken the movement of late. In ‘The Joe the Plumberization of the GOP,’ I argued that conservatives have grown too comfortable with wearing scorn as a badge of honor, content to play sarcastic second fiddle to the dominant culture of academia and Hollywood with second-rate knock-off institutions. A side effect of this has been a tendency to accept conspiracy nuts as a slightly cranky edge case within the broad continuum of conservatism, rather than as a threat to the movement itself…
Within my relatively short lifetime, I still remember a time when success and intellectual achievement were more often than not conservative virtues, and I remember WFB looming large in this framework. Recent Democratic gains within the creative and educated classes have eroded this image, creating a media dynamic where intelligence is seen as aligning with the left within the Democratic Party, and the center within the Republican Party…
This is why there is a unique urgency now to cast out the obscurantists and the conspiracy nuts. We don’t have a Buckley anymore. Our intellectual giants have died off and not being replaced. And preventing the lowest common denominator from filling the void is a constant daily struggle.”
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 3 … 8 Next »
Are they (intellectual giants) not being replaced or can we just not see them?
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Eh…
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Excuse me? Did he just say ‘ keeping the common people in their place is a constant struggle’?
Skandia Recluse on September 4, 2009 at 10:04 PM
…Or is true “intellectualism” just unfashionable?
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Err err..
thomasaur on September 4, 2009 at 10:07 PM
I challenge the dominant culture of academia and Hollywood. A group of insular ivory towered ‘intellectuals’ who give credence to such academic pursuits as ‘Wymyn’s Studies’ and Gay and Lesbian Studies, while denouncing Western Civilization at every turn, added to a group of undereducated scriptreaders does not in my estimation make even a credible challenge to my esteem or intellect, much less dominate it.
Vashta.Nerada on September 4, 2009 at 10:07 PM
I am dying for one of our “newwave” ‘conservative’ self-appointed intellectual giants like Frum to show me the geniuses on the other side…
I’ll take 16 gallons of passion over a single ounce of Frummian manure.
sven10077 on September 4, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Well, when we do have one, they always seem to go Krauthammer on us.
Or is that go ‘Wellstone’?
I forget.
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:08 PM
ah yes Captain Eloquence is in the house….
it is tough enough to overcome the false idol worship of the M$M but add in our Piggy Noonan, K-Pa, Frummy, and Sully types and it becomes darn near impossible.
sven10077 on September 4, 2009 at 10:09 PM
What gains? Who exactly?
Media dynamic? You mean when the leftist media refers to anyone who harbors so much as a single conservative trait as a slack-jawed, Bible-thumping, shotgun caressing hillbilly?
Please. Supreme intellects such as Clarence Thomas are ridiculed and denied, precisely because they aren’t liberals.
Bishop on September 4, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Hmmmm I wounder why we need those dumb butts like Reagan, after all wasn’t he just an actor? Snobs really suck.
david kumbera on September 4, 2009 at 10:09 PM
What did our now dead intellectual giants manage to accomplish? We have been on a slow slide to socialism during their watch, so despite being smart what did they manage to get done? Lets give the average Joe a go at this and see what he can do, and I would be surprised if he could do any worse.
DFCtomm on September 4, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Ruffini is correct in one sense: I’ve actually seen commenters on this site scoff at education. I’ve not been able to make sense of that attitude.
jaime on September 4, 2009 at 10:09 PM
I don’t understand what this guy is whining about. Buckley was never a politician (well all most never) He was a commentator.
Are Doctor K and George Will not good enough for him?
Sheesh, he should quit blaming Limbaugh and Beck for his problems. And he is part of the problem. He’s worked for the Republican party in the past. And look at the results.
dave c on September 4, 2009 at 10:09 PM
The left seems pretty full of conspiracy nuts and it didn’t stop them from taking both Congress and the Presidency. And yet all these complaints about cranks on the right? One of Obama’s czars is a communist Troofer for God’s sake.
18-1 on September 4, 2009 at 10:10 PM
If anything, academia is more hostile to conservatism and true liberalism then it was even in Buckley’s day.
Johnny 100 Pesos on September 4, 2009 at 10:10 PM
The George W. Bush administration was the William Buckleyization of the GOP. “Conservative” collectivism and a militaristic foreign policy. A small-government approach would work better than any more National Review government.
Didn’t he endorse Obama, anyways?
The Dean on September 4, 2009 at 10:10 PM
This more than smacks of elitism. I’m all in favor of elitism, actually, as long as the elite are hardcore righties. Strangely, the elite always seem to be in the Charles Johnson camp of pseudo-liberals who are always ready to censor, ban, and suppress those who don’t tow the acceptable line. Here we see this again.
keep the change on September 4, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Exactly. In my opinion (which could be wrong), people like Frum are playing the role of the “intellectual,” when in reality they are probably stealing air/web space of those that are more of the WFB calibre.
Me too.
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:11 PM
Son.
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:11 PM
Ruffini got Allah the coolest b-day gift so the d-bag gets QOTD. The majority here at HA don’t care what the squishes think, say or write. They are the problem not the solution.
thomasaur on September 4, 2009 at 10:11 PM
Patrick Ruffini is a liar and a psychopath.
MB4 on September 4, 2009 at 10:12 PM
Do whatever you want. Just don’t shoot the people in the trenches already in the back.
You can call it sloganeering, but people are showing up to tea parties and they have a clear and precise voice in Malkin. They are showing up at townhall having read the health care bill (which few of the washingtonians had done).
Buckley is dead. Reagan is dead. Wishing they were here gets us nothing. Wishing they were here when people are already mobilizing politically is wasted effort.
And say what you will about Joe, he got Obama to say that he wanted to spread the wealth around and Joe said that sounded like socialism. Well, color me curious, but isn’t that what we are seeing? If it is, then it’s not sloganeering, it’s not Joe the Plumber, but Joe the Seer.
Spirit of 1776 on September 4, 2009 at 10:12 PM
I think the real point here is being missed.
We have been rapidly moving away from an educated and thoughtful elite.
Those who currently accord themselves as our elites are stunningly ignorant and quite happy to live in a bubble where the range of thought they encounter ranges from authoritarian technocracy to marxism.
18-1 on September 4, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Please elaborate on that.
And scoffing trolls don’t count.
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:13 PM
+infinity
You nailed it!
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Scoffing at conservatives as not being intellectual is soooo 2008…
Rhinoboy on September 4, 2009 at 10:13 PM
I have 3 degrees, including a doctorate. I’ll scoff at education, it’s largely propaganda.
Spirit of 1776 on September 4, 2009 at 10:14 PM
I believe (and am certain I will be corrected if wrong) an “obscurantist” is someone who hires million-dollar attorneys to bury his records from the public, then calls the people who wonder aloud what he has to hide “conspiracy nuts.”
TMK on September 4, 2009 at 10:14 PM
That was his kid.
And do you have a scream to go with your name?
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:14 PM
Education to gain knowledge is not the same thing as education for show.
thomasaur on September 4, 2009 at 10:15 PM
You DO realize that what you wrote is gibberish, don’t you?
The Bush administration was the ‘Ike-ization’ and in some ways the ‘Nixon-ization’ of the GOP. You’re so eager to try to mock what you don’t like and don’t understand that you keep stepping on your johnson
Janos Hunyadi on September 4, 2009 at 10:15 PM
I don’t care if they’re being replaced or hiding in plain site.
They are the reason we are in the mess that we’re in.
Give me a good ole rootin tootin cowboy any old day.
Knucklehead on September 4, 2009 at 10:15 PM
Well, perhaps not education, but definitely Education.
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:15 PM
It might have more to do with the current state of education.
misslizzi on September 4, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Well said, with emphasis on the most relevant portion.
Vashta.Nerada on September 4, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Intellectuals do not drive a movement on either side. The left claims to be intellectual but they are not really. They pander even more to base instincts. I loved WFB too but most right leaning people didn’t know much about him. He did not have the ability to rouse the troops. The country is full of Joe the Plumbers and there is nothing wrong with that, to toss them aside is electoral suicide. You don’t have to be an intellectual elite to have good common sense and work hard to succeed. It is the everyday people that make this country function, not the armchair quarterbacks who write columns like this.
echosyst on September 4, 2009 at 10:16 PM
The unwashed masses aren’t looking for fancy intellectuals to lead them. They’re looking for plain old American common sense. If these “conservative” elites don’t understand that by now, they just never will. After the Harvard-educated disaster that is Obama, and now his Yale-educated commie czar Jones, an academic pedigree just ain’t what it used to be. The nation’s once great universities have increasingly become radical factories.
Rational Thought on September 4, 2009 at 10:16 PM
I’m still not sure what the real complaint about Joe the Plumber is. He gave Obama the toughest “interview” the man has experienced in his life – something that was the supposed life’s goal of every journalist for the eight years before Obama took office.
If the issue is solely that Joe doesn’t have a degree in journalism I think it reflects far more poorly on those diploma mills then it does on the man who actually had the guts to ask a real question.
18-1 on September 4, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Yeah….
… but not all of them, not all of the time.
Seven Percent Solution on September 4, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Yeah. Somehow, cowboy diplomacy always works. I wonder why?
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:17 PM
A true intellectual would not allow himself to become politicized. That would just be stupid.
Guardian on September 4, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Amen.
As I understand it, this guy is saying that we don’t have a consistently articulate figurehead on the right, coupled with a RINO-bashing culture that often targets non-RINOs.
Exactly what I think.
Black Yoshi on September 4, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Keeping the lowest common deniominator as far away from policy as reasonably possible is one of the main reasons guys like Madison designed our federal system the way they did. Its why we didn’t originally directly elect our own senators. Its why we were given an electoral college of men, not necessarily of states. Hedging against the fickle passions of the general public is foundational to the republic.
ernesto on September 4, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Absolutely, Spirit.
Weight of Glory on September 4, 2009 at 10:18 PM
That’s a good distinction.
Spirit of 1776 on September 4, 2009 at 10:18 PM
Kathy over at fivefeetoffury has a great piece on this tool and nailed it with the last line of her post,
Jim708 on September 4, 2009 at 10:18 PM
BTW, the “intellectuals” on the Left that Ruffini talks about, most likely includes Van Jones – brilliant of course!
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:18 PM
I’m not buying this lamentation. History moves in seasons and what seems like an intellectually depleted era may in fact be the time when a new intellectualism is being born on the decaying compost of the old, and the body politic being revived by a more vital spirit of the common people.
And as Lanceman notes, we’re living in an age of intellectual betrayal. Intellectuals have betrayed the people and damaged their brand. We’re wary of them, by and large. For good reason.
rrpjr on September 4, 2009 at 10:18 PM
This periodic whining annoys me. Word of advice to Patrick Ruffini. Instead of whining that we don’t have a Buckley anymore, if you are so smart, make an effort to be a Buckley by laying out conservative principles.
pearson on September 4, 2009 at 10:19 PM
And as I’m sure you know, very little education happens in Education.
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:19 PM
Excuse me? Did he just say ‘ keeping the common people in their place is a constant struggle’?
[Skandia Recluse on September 4, 2009 at 10:04 PM]
Yeah, I think he did.
Dusty on September 4, 2009 at 10:19 PM
I’m not going to go back to search individual comments. I remember seeing them and being dismayed. And I think I know a troll when I see one. Do you doubt it?
Big difference between scoffing at educators and scoffing at education.
No doubt. But the comments I remember scoffed at education.
jaime on September 4, 2009 at 10:20 PM
I won’t lump in Ruffini … yet…
But this attitude is precisely why I have no respect for Parker and friends.
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:20 PM
the common man is the lowest common denominator?
Ampersand on September 4, 2009 at 10:21 PM
The difference is that while Buckley WAS an intellectual, he was ALSO willing to punch dorks like Gore Vidal right in their ugly mouths. He had appeal to a lot broader swath of conservatives than the self-important latte-sippin’ squishes of today.
innominatus on September 4, 2009 at 10:21 PM
Yeah, we do. Sarah Palin. Michelle Bachmann.
Somewhere, all pretext to objectivity was dropped by the media as to their politics.
And those two have built-in attack features – They’re women.
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:21 PM
Allahpundit is an intellectual giant.
DanSC on September 4, 2009 at 10:21 PM
No comment.
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
You seem to be equating education with intelligence.
Two entirely different animals.
Jim708 on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
You cant be serious
ernesto on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
Well Mr. Ruffini an intellectual dumbass is an intellectual dumbass wether they pronounce themselves on the left or the right of the political spectrum.
Intellectualism and academic theory have done great harm to this country so intellectualism be damned!
What the republic needs is some good common experience and good common sense as was by the way the vision of our founders!
PISSANT!
dhunter on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
Should be comment of the day.
Leftie faux intellectuals believe in serfdom, whereby they are not the serfs, nor the producers.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_13255934
Schadenfreude on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
He’s been living in a bubble. Within my relatively short lifetime, the knock against Ronald Reagan was that he was only a dumb actor.
pearson on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
If my understanding of the term lowest common denominator is correct…then yes, yes he is.
ernesto on September 4, 2009 at 10:22 PM
I always thought the goals of the Bill Buckley’s of the world was to provide a foil to the “supposed intellectual superiority and scholarliness” of the left. Also as a teachers and vanguards of the conservative movement.
The article makes me think that they would have never wanted a fella of my ilk on the “team”.
DLEW on September 4, 2009 at 10:23 PM
I disagree. Academics may be the word you’re looking for.
As for those who are often labeled as such, I strongly suspect at least a couple of the so-called elite pundits on the Right are pseudo-intellectuals. They approach the veneer of valuable policy analysis but never go beyond paying it lip service. (looking at you, KP)
Black Yoshi on September 4, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Ironically, Buckley is the person who pushed out the intellectuals who didn’t agree with the hardline Neo-Con welfare/warfare philosophy (i.e. the Old Right). So when you forcefully remove anyone who doesn’t agree 90% with Bush/McCain/Gingrich/Buckley philosophy and then wonder where the intellectuals are….it’s easy to understand.
The Dean on September 4, 2009 at 10:23 PM
I hope you’re right. Maybe they just failed to express that point.
jaime on September 4, 2009 at 10:23 PM
I don’t think the “common man” means WND. That’s WAAAAAAAY out there.
Black Yoshi on September 4, 2009 at 10:23 PM
Joe The Plumber understood the idiot messiah better than almost all of the pundits. That bothers this ruffini character. It should bother him, because he sucks at what he does.
Thanks for posting more of the Vichy Right, allah. You’re the best. Really.
progressoverpeace on September 4, 2009 at 10:24 PM
Old Right? Paleocons? Or was it the Birchers…?
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:24 PM
I dont think WND is the lowest common denominator. I didn’t originally use term, the comment I was responding to used it.
ernesto on September 4, 2009 at 10:25 PM
A penny will hide the biggest star in the universe if you hold it close enough to your eye. (which is what Ruffini does)
MB4 on September 4, 2009 at 10:25 PM
No, it’s just very hard to believe that any of the regular conservatives here would scoff.
But I do understand. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a Republican who is a Republican without understanding why.
Stupidityignorance is for the other side.Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Here’s a true intellectual.
Schadenfreude on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
No.
Are you trying to illustrate his point?
Kidding! Seriously, there’s a huge difference between what you said & what he said.
jgapinoy on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
I’ll still take a guy who pays attention over the one who paid tuition.
thomasaur on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Agree.
jaime on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Oh, we all know where you think they are Dean. The real intellectuals are hunched together as we speak trying to conjure up ways to eliminate the threat to world happiness: Israel. (If the word “Israel” confuses you, I mean that tiny nation in the Middle East, whoops, I mean, illegitimate tiny nation populated by Joooooooes in the Middle East that controls America’s policy).
Spirit of 1776 on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
What is it with this blame-the-victim mentality? Democrats are ignorant, lying, greedy, hypocritical, selfish, backstabbing, two-faced, hateful, thieving, conniving, fear-mongering, bullying, manipulative, dishonest, cowardly socialists who are winning due to the criminal shenanigans of foreign billionaires. You want to talk about trivializing, sloganeering, and pettiness? Democrats offer no shortage of examples.
Republicans are far from perfect, but perfection is an unreasonable standard. Winston Churchill said he would ally himself with the Devil in order to defeat Hitler. Surely we can ally ourselves with less-than-perfect Republicans in order to defeat the liberal agenda.
JohnJ on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Lest we forget, William F. Buckley gave us Ronald Reagan. WFB warned us about the nuts in our midst. The “birthers” are nuts, and should be met with facts and scorn.
toliver on September 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Now, now… the one that pays tuition probably also paid attention…
Now, who or who probably got free rides through Education?
Upstater85 on September 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM
I think you mistake us making fun of pseudo-intellectuals (like “social scientists” and global warming morons with scoffing at education. Scoffing at those pretenders to knowledge is a defense of education and intellectual progress.
progressoverpeace on September 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Maybe because our current education system is run by politically corrupt union goons and bureaucrats that only want to push a liberal leftist political agenda based on the political hoax of Marxist/Socialism, Global Warming/Climate Change clap trap, and Social Engineering….
…. Other than doing everything they can to partner up with the MSM and Hollywood to keep their jobs and indoctrinate the next generation with degrees in Liberal Arts that couldn’t get you a job outside Government or ACORN,
the system is working just fine, don’t you…?
… Other than the odd embarrassment that never makes the news.
Seven Percent Solution on September 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM
You make a lot of spaced-out stupid posts here, but this one combines stupidity with a snotty arrogance. Do you know who Thomas Jefferson is? Andrew Jackson? Lincoln?
Have you ever read anything on the virtues of the common man as superior to the ambitions and privileges of elites?
Janos Hunyadi on September 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Nice phrase!
Spirit of 1776 on September 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Let’s hear it for the ‘wise Latino, who, with the rich fullness of his experiences…….’.
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:27 PM
+1 Trillion
Knucklehead on September 4, 2009 at 10:28 PM
If he has seen less far it is because others have stood on his shoulders. /just kidding Allah. Don’t CJ me bro.
Geochelone on September 4, 2009 at 10:29 PM
Ruffini is sucking more and more about ever more things until ultimately he will totally suck at everything.
MB4 on September 4, 2009 at 10:29 PM
Point taken
thomasaur on September 4, 2009 at 10:29 PM
As opposed to appointing these conspiracy nuts to czar positions.
alliebobbitt on September 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM
You don’t even know what ‘irony’ means…
Buckley was not a Neo-Con. Are there limits to your ignorance?
Janos Hunyadi on September 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Your understanding of just about anything is pretty low.
Schadenfreude on September 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Doctors are mostly Republican or at least Conservative. It would be helpful if they spoke up more. I would rather belong to the party of Joe the Doctor than Joe the (unlicensed, gay hating) Plumber.
Speedwagon82 on September 4, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Sure. I just dont agree with it. What I’ve read from Madison and Hamilton on the need to temper the passions of the general public…that I agree with.
Im sorry, but Michelle Bachmann is no Buckley. Michelle Bachmann wants to make blood pacts over legislation. Thats no articulate leader.
ernesto on September 4, 2009 at 10:31 PM
What is the definition of “intellectual” anyway? I have a feeling I might have a different definition than the intellectuals themselves.
Bishop on September 4, 2009 at 10:31 PM
Never confuse education with intelligence, nor intelligence with wisdom. They are distinctly different qualities.
Lew on September 4, 2009 at 10:31 PM
I assume you mean AA. And not alcoholics anonymous.
Lanceman on September 4, 2009 at 10:31 PM
Comment pages: 1 2 3 … 8 Next »