Sleep is hard to find when, looking back, you see you've never been awake. No Utopia   ...W H A T ' S . A . S W E E T H E A R T . L I K E . Y O U . ....D O I N ' . I N . A . D U M P . L I K E . T H I S ?  HOME  COMMENTARY  ESSAYS/STORIES  POEMS/SONGS  LINKS Tuesday November 25, 2008........................................................................................................... Why I'm thankful Brains over Bullshit: a Decline of Dimwitery 8:26 am | "We’ve lionized dimwits. And now we’re paying the price." Bob Herbert gets that just right in today's NYT. He says something else equally as valid: "One of the reasons the U.S. is in such deep trouble is that it has stopped being smart —" This is true on so many levels. It seems unfathomable how and why the administration which has held power for eight years could let this happen. The damage is so comprehensive the only thing that would make sense is if it were the result of a conspiracy to demolish --as if George W. Bush will exit the White House on January 20th into a smoldering, decimated landscape of broken banks, budgets, and bridges; crumbling roads and public schools; an exhausted military and tattered American moral reputation; a constitution pierced with signing-statement pens; and a dispirited people; —departing under a "Mission Accomplished" banner ...wearing his trademark smirk. Why else would dimwits have been elevated to power positions and given a mandate to screw up? A demolition conspiracy at least makes sense. "Great Job Browny," the president said to his FEMA chief after Katrina. We thought that was an odd remark under the circumstances --just another Bushism-- but maybe he meant it literally. So Herbert exalts: It looks as if the U.S. is about to have a president, at long last, who gets it when it comes to jobs. There doesn’t appear to be anything faint-hearted about Barack Obama’s plans to stimulate the economy, which hasn’t come this close to flat-lining since the 1930s. The president-elect’s recovery plan emphasizes job creation, and the path to that end winds through the nation’s long-neglected infrastructure. Some of us have been beating that drum for years. Who knows if Obama will be able to steer us out of this? For the moment it's just nice to see U.S. leadership elevating brains over bullshit. E.J. Dionne, in a related bit of analysis says this: President-elect Barack Obama has now made three things clear about his plans to bring the economy back: He wants his actions to be big and bold. He sees economic recovery as intimately linked with economic and social reform. And he is bringing in a gifted brain trust to get the job done. There it is again, the "B" word; the eight-year-long missing coordinate on the path to prosperity: brains. Now that the anti-intellectual policy initiatives of the Bush era have been exposed for what they are, the people are now offered the gift of intelligence and --no, really!-- a glimpse of not just competence, but of excellence. I believe, if it's not too late ...if the intellectually lame, and/or intentionally malicious have not already cut the heart out of the Republic, it might be revived from its coma. HOME