Ann Hurlburt seems to be playing the go-along-to-get-along type here. A few of her more risible statements:

"But there's a reason the campaign goes ahead and flaunts the 'when we were young and irresponsible, we were young and irresponsible' ethos that the twins displayed at the convention: It has the anti-elitist appeal the party assumes its Red state base thrives on."

True enough. But red state mentality isn't just anti-elitist, it's anti-intellectual. "I was just young & dumb" and "they're just young & dumb" sounds pretty reassuring to the chronically dumb. Bill Moyers coined a great term for the principle characteristic of heartlanders: 'dumbth.'

"Filtered through a populist prism, such an attitude needn't suggest decadence; it can convey a spirit of down-home, defiant independence."

Yup. Stupid can be kinda cute, too.

"After all, studiousness and parental pushiness, however virtuous, are also part of the pointy-headed approach to life."

Keep burnishing those anti-intellectual credentials, Ann. Just remember you're probably not fooling too many heartlanders with multisyllabic words like "studiousness."

"To snub TV is snobby, and adult hypervigilance can look like a lot like elitist cosseting."

To snub TV in 2007 is honest. TV news today is infotainment, entirely about celbrities and missing kids and stories on gadgets and health. TV in general is rapidly dumbing down America. Notice how many programs now include fart jokes and women jiggling their fake t--ties for the camera? Ah, but I forgot - that's hypervigilance and elitist cosseting!

"You can see the cultural contradictions of populism at work: Hit the books is not presumed to be what Joe Six-Pack wants to hear."

Nope. Though I don't think J. S-P feels conflicted about it.

Ann, you need to stop apologizing for all the dumb---s in America today. Excusing idiocy is what landed us in the current political mess in the first place. When the average American votes for a president because "dunno, I just sort of like him," you know democracy is in deep trouble.

You yourself are evidently intelligent and a gifted writer. So stop cosseting anti-intellectuals, please, and start holding the mooks up to a higher standard. It's either that or watch us lose ground to China, a nation less sentimental about stupidity and more respectful of science and "wonkiness."

A final note: to really get a handle on the difference between little libs and little conservatives, read George Lakoff's "Moral Politics." Lakoff nails it: bad dads make conservative kiddies. Liberal children can be cruel too, but they don't fetishize it the way conservative ones do.

- MW