Thursday, November 20, 2008

"Ship of fools"

Can you guess the publication? Recent commentary begins:

Political parties die from the head down

JOHN STUART MILL once dismissed the British Conservative Party as the stupid party. Today the Conservative Party is run by Oxford-educated high-fliers who have been busy reinventing conservatism for a new era. As Lexington sees it, the title of the “stupid party” now belongs to the Tories’ transatlantic cousins, the Republicans.

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party’s defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200,000—many of whom will get thumped by his tax increases—by six points. John McCain did best among uneducated voters in Appalachia and the South.

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

From that bastion of the far left ...

(h/t: Andrew Sullivan)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, it's official: I like the new font. I wanted to let it sink it for a while before I passed judgement, but every time I load your site, now, I'm impressed with how it looks. It's nice also because it's fairly distinctive; there aren't many sites using this font.

Anonymous said...

I think it hit me today because it looks especially good with larger blocks of text -- like those in your blockquote.

bjkeefe said...

Thanks. And thanks for the note about the typo.

Jack said...

Hey, I just realized that Atrios also uses Georgia.

ShareThis