Addiction in Society: Democrats are Bigots - They Like Smart People

Posted by Stanton Peele in Addiction in Society

During the Congressional hearings in which Gen. David H. Petraeus lectured senators on progress in Iraq ("We've made great progress, so much that we have to stay indefinitely"), Senator John McCain once again revealed he didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia Moslems.

For some reason, McCain likes to insist that Iran is training Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. But that's not how things work in that part of the world. Al Qaeda is Sunni, Iran Shia - Iran has been training Shiite militia.

I know: it's so damned complicated over there! When you combine the prior info with the fact that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein was Sunni, and that we replaced him with a Shiite party that naturally favors Iran, you see we have the makings of a quagmire.

Democratic commentators tend to be critical of McCain's stupidity. Republicans, on the other hand, shrug it off - who can keep those factions straight? Does anyone seriously think George W. Bush understood any of this before invading Iraq? I don't think so!

All of this traces back to a deeper division between supporters of the two parties. Democrats like smart people! This is highly distressing in an era when educators tend to minimize conventional measures of intelligence. Despite this, Democrats virtually always nominate the candidate with the higher IQ.

But Americans overall vote for the man they'd most like to have a beer with. When the smarter candidate is also a better beer buddy (think JFK and Bill Clinton), we get both qualities. Often, however - as with the current president - we get only the better drinker (or, in GWB's case, former drinker).

The unavoidable conclusion - in order to achieve long-term electoral success, Democrats have to run stupider candidates. Unfortunately, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are high-achieving wonks. You can't listen to either one of them without thinking - "Are these people nerds, or what?"

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LaCrosseTribune: Mental Illness Drives Yale-Educated La Crosse Man From Job As Professor

By Chris Hubbuch, La Crosse Tribune, Wis.

His wants are simple enough.

A decent job. One that would allow him to save a little money, enough to buy a new car, maybe help out his kids, or make a down payment on a small house with room for the books spilling from the shelves on every wall of his cramped public housing apartment on Seventh Street. The only problem is on his resume. There, right above the part-time filing clerk job he has held for the past decade, education: Yale University, summa cum laude, Ph.D.

It's a resume that raises more questions than it answers.

That's part of the problem with mental illness. It isn't always visible, like a missing limb or paralysis. But it's a disability that keeps people like Mark Felker from getting a decent job.

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