THEY ARE SO, SO SUPERIOR – AT 11:31 P.M. ET:  My friend James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web Today blog, writes about the reaction of liberal, better-than-you-are journalists to election results that don't go their way.  There's a long tradition of this kind of thing:

Last week Boston Globe columnist Renee Loth described the election of Scott Brown as "a collective primal scream." It's an old trope, reminiscent of the late Peter Jennings's classic declaration after the 1994 election:

"Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any 2-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled 2-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week. . . . Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry 2-year-old."

This is a fairly common attitude expressed by those who've never spent time actually traveling the country and speaking to Americans.  Say nothing bad about the dead, but Jennings was an insufferable snob with a clearly low opinion of anyone who dared to disagree with him. 

Echoing this view of the voters as angry, unreasoning and immature is Time's Joe Klein, who in the headline of a blog post describes Americans as "Too Dumb to Thrive":

"Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it's been wasted on them. . . .

"This is yet further evidence that Americans are flagrantly ill-informed...and, for those watching Fox News, misinformed.

"It is very difficult to have a democracy without citizens. It is impossible to be a citizen if you don't make an effort to understand the most basic activities of your government. It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you're a nation of dodos."

Klein regularly makes a fool of himself, and has become an embarrassment to his profession.  But the arrogance of that statement should win some kind of prize.  James Taranto responds:

Hey, wait! Didn't this nation of dodos elect Barack Obama not 15 months ago? Why yes it did...

And finally...

What's more, there is a particular type of stupidity to which intelligent people are uniquely prone: intellectual snobbery, or the tendency to cultivate an attitude of contempt toward those who are not as bright. This may appeal to New York Times readers or voters in, say, Hyde Park--that is, to people who think they're better than everyone else too. But it may prove Barack Obama's undoing as a national politician.

Well said.  What has always struck me about a certain class of "intellectuals" is how anti-intellectual they actually are.  They have little interest in debate or exploration.  They have found the truth.  They actually do believe they are superior to other people, either because of the job they hold, the school they went to, or how much factual knowledge they've stuffed into their heads. 

I always love to quote an old adage about music, that there isn't a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York who wouldn't give up everything just to write one Irving Berlin song.  There is real talent, and there is put-on talent.  The real intellectuals, not the frauds, are the ones who know the difference.

January 26, 2010