Comments on: Anti-Bush Snobbery

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 15:02:26 +0000

I don't think it's snobbery to want---character issues aside---the most intelligent person possible as President. When availing of the services of, say, a doctor or a lawyer,would you ask: Give me the one who admits he doesn't like to read, has demonstrated a complete lack of curiosity about the world and, indeed, doesn't even seem to understand that most issues are complex? For Bush, even a rudimentary understanding of Iraqi society would have told him that winning the peace was going to be exceptionally difficult. I just don't get this obsession with having the "common" man as president

By: LowLife

LowLife — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 10:34:06 +0000

Boyd - so true, so true. But my point was not that G.W. doesn't get 50%, but that if snobs are driving the anti-Bush campaigne there must be an awful lot of them. This whole attack of "snobs" and "elitist" is a smoke screen and doesn't belong in the public discourse. It defines the notion of strawman and when Steyn and Joyner, both of whom are capable of better, engage in it they are talking past the issues. Where did Steyn get his critiques on Kerry's and Bush's speeches? What I read about Kerry's speech is that he started poorly - dumb jokes and all - but finished strong. It wasn't a great speech but he beat the expectations game. What I read about Bush's speech was the his pacing was a bit slow, that the speech itself was divided into two parts - most people thought the second part was very good but a few prefered the first part. Nobody said it was a dud. Some thought is was an absolute success - that is to say beyond expectations. Where did Steyn get his info? Nobody expected big bounces out of these conventions. Mainly because so many have already made up their minds. Kerry just survived a month long attack by the swifties and most of that Bush bounce is illusionary - according to Gallup and the campaigns, anyway. In short, Steyn wasted his time with his post and Joyner didn't recognize it as the nonsense it is. I expect both will do better next time.

By: Boyd

Boyd — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 03:28:04 +0000

Just for the record, LowLife, I don't think a President has won with an actual majority of the popular vote since George H. W. Bush in 1988.

By: jr

jr — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 03:18:47 +0000

Matt- Bush is a cowboy? Have you ever seen him on a horse?

PS: Kerry was an alterboy and goes to church most Sundays. When was the last time Bush went to church? He doesn't even belong to one.

PPS: The Clintons were members of Foundry Methodist Church and attended often. So don't believe that Bush doesn't go because it would be unsafe or disruptive. He just doesn't want to.

PPPS: Before Clinton, the last regular church-going president was Jimmy Carter.

By: LowLife

LowLife — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 22:37:29 +0000

Matt, I bet there are lots of thinks you can't recall. For one, Bush's famous quote of admiration was for Jesus Christ the philosopher. I'm sure that religious leaders can be considered philosophical but usually they engage in some kind of philosophy. Saint Aquinas or St. Augustine might serve as examples. Some might naturally admire Jesus Christ for his wisdom, his leadership, his sacrifice and the fact that he's part of the big three with Father and Spirit. I bet some snobs - you know, people who think of philosophers as philosophers and of religious leaders, especially those proported to be of the same Flesh with the Father, as something of a different breed - thought that Bush wasn't answering the question as it was ask. Some might of thought he was being lazy in his answer, ignorant in is studies or dishonest in his response. Not me. I'm with Bush and you. Why should anybody study Plato, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Betham, Berkeley, Kant etc. or even try any critical thinking at all when, after all that work, all's that's left you is a liberal world view and the scorn of all right thinking people? Only a snob would take a question like "who's your favorite philosopher?" and actually answer it based on the meaning of the words. Maybe that's why snobs hate us so much. They seem to have this antiquated notion the words mean something.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 20:20:06 +0000

Nearly every candidate has been fashionably Christian. I cannot recall any that have listed Jesus Christ as the man they most admire though. This type of spiritualism is generally regarded as religious fanaticism and bumpkin stupidity by elites. Put that in the white house and you suffer the disdain and "intellectual" wrath of the coffee house elites (the snobs).

By: carpeicthus

carpeicthus — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 19:32:48 +0000

Matt: Name the last non-Christian Democratic candidate. You're being deliberately obtuse.

By: Dan Ryan

Dan Ryan — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 18:41:34 +0000

Steyn's right. And let me be the first to admit that I am also a snob. I'm intelligent and somewhat culturally sophisticated and it bothers me that the President is a yobbish idiot. Pardon me if his everyman routine doesn't work for me.

By: LowLife

LowLife — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 18:37:14 +0000

More than 50% people voted against Bush in 2000 and he's not likely to get more than 50% this time even if he wins. I don't know the demographics of snobbery but do they constitute half the population? Would I be justified in assuming that there exist snobs that are voting for Bush? Though the following may be nuanced and thus reveal me as a snob, belieing my online tag, but can't it be reasonably said that anti-snobbery is a form of snobbery? You know, like the commercial cowboys that look down their noses at salsa made in New York. So we have snobs that hate Bush, snobs that like Bush and anti-snobs that are nothing but snobs. That probably constitutes the vast majority of the American populace. Don't even get me started on Nader snobs, religious snobs (their heaven is just too good for the rest of us), the Communist elite, and well, just everybody else.

By: McGehee

McGehee — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 16:26:03 +0000

Crickita, I think somebody stole your "Irony in Thread" warning signs.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 15:57:03 +0000

Let's also not forget why Bush is so hated by both coasts. Bush is a cowboy and, gasp, a Christian. There is nothing worse to a New Englander or New Yorker than a stupid cowboy. And don't even discuss religion and all it's values with hollyweird - religion tends to get in the way of their fun.

By: BigFire

BigFire — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 15:50:19 +0000

Re: La Femme Crickita

Though the article appears in Daily Telegraph, Mark Steyn is a Canadian writer living in New Hampshire. He just happened to write column for Telegraph, Chicago Sun Time, and various other publication.

By: The Unusual Suspects

The Unusual Suspects — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 15:22:38 +0000

The Lunch Beat
Ahh, bologna, veggies, and an apple I dropped. And Diet Sprite.

The Right.

Outside the Beltway comments on a column about Bush bashing being snobbery.

The Left.

Matt Yglesias on the complicated relations between Al-Qaeda and Chechnya, and ...

By: La Femme Crickita

La Femme Crickita — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 14:36:07 +0000

Mark Steyn is just a mean spirited European.