Kind Sir:
This is the most incisive, insightful analysis of Bush and the Miers situation it has been my pleasure to read.

I hate to dilute the impact of the previous sentence, but I would like to share a "conversation" I had with an attorney, a confirmed left-winger and "hate bush"ie.
He accused Bush of being "an idiot". My reply: "Good, because I'm also an idiot[1] and now I finally have a President who represents me."
In your exposition, you have crystallized this thought into brilliant clarity.

[1] Lest anybody track me down and use this statement against me, let me offer that while many might indeed classify me as a classical idiot, I could probably find a handful of people who would contest that.

Isn't this pretty close to what Beldar has been saying? Or at least the net effect appears to be. I think it's the best explanation of the situation.

I think the comparison holds up, if you remember that Harriet Miers was seldom in a career position that allowed her to put forward her own ideology or political philosophy. In Miers' career, she was an advocate for some individual plaintiff, or defendant, or some big institution like Microsoft, the Texas Bar Association, the Texas Lottery, or even the President of the United States.

Reagan, as an actor, had the opportunity to get involved directly in politics and be as ideological as he wanted. If you make your living as a lawyer, you can’t do that.

Dafydd,

Like you this will be my last comment on Miers, I am grudgingly throwing in the towel. Since the day Bush moved Roberts to Rehnquist's slot, many of us have seen this day coming; Bill Kristol wrote a piece that day titled "Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?" The reason I'm giving up has noting to do with what I see as the merits of my position, I will go to my grave thinking the Loyalists, and especially the Dogfaces, have done the country a disservice by not uniting to pressure Ms. Miers into correcting this blunder for her President. I'm giving up because if she is defeated with a minority of hardcore Republican votes, in committee or on the floor, it would provide a figleaf to the Dem activists to say minority pressure (i.e., filibuster) is all fair in love and war. I just wish John McCain could have been President the last 5 years, but life is about learning to live with compromises.

Fantastic analysis, Dafydd. I may be a cowboy myself...at any rate, it'll be interesting to see what happens next.

These are intelligent but non-intellectual (even anti-intellectual) folks who don't try to articulate their conservativeness... they simply live it.

Great stuff so far!!! However, this is one that i will have to re-read many times, before i even come close to getting it right.

BTW, the main rule of Mother Nature addresses what proper intelligence is about, if one/One expects to *SURVIVE* longer than one/One deserves...so to speak.

i dislike repeating myself, but basically the problem stems from the so-called intellectuals that write such crap as "All in the Family". Yes, is was cute, even intellectual on an Age-of-Aquarius level, but it sought to destroy any "Cowboy" thinking American Male.

KårmiÇømmünîs†

John McCain

Heck, why not wish that Bill Clinton was still in office. McCain is a talker, and knows nothing of actual action...like Bill.

Anyway, after Bill, this Country needed to have someone willing to take action instead of trying to talk the enemy to death.

Karmi
PS. McCain...don't even try!!!!!!!

I had a Revelation stronger and more sudden than anything I've experience since I quit taking LSD back in the 1980s:

Usually, weak acid causes such, and the later reactions to such are usually known as "flashbacks".

LSD ain't required to understand why W picked Ms. Miers here...simply put, he had a weak 'Army' in the Senate, and decided to let the Voters speak before the War was lost.

Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame
tree, intimate friends, the ego and the Self dwell
in the same body. The former eats the sweet and
sour fruits of the tree of life, while the latter looks on in detachment.
The Mundaka Upanishad

Dafydd, thanx for the epiphany. That is exactly correct, representation for anti-intellectuals. It's perfect!! Of course, scientists, doctors, evolutionary biologists, geneticists, constitutional scholars and neurologists are dolts that we must view with the utmost suspicion and distrust!!!
ha ha ha! You have perfectly captured the culture of this administration. Why not put an IQ cap on this seat? Or seek out someone with a learning disability? Those people need representation too. lol.

Re: matoko kusanagi at October 10, 2005 08:39 PM

Sometimes "intellectual" is just shorthand for "pompous elitist know-it-all." In that case, it has almost nothing to do with I.Q. In fact, being a pompous elitist know-it-all (e.g. Al Gore or John Kerry) seems to stunt creativity--not help it.

No, RBMN. It is part of the whole Bush admin culture. It is the same culture that gave us Terri's Law (everyones a neurologist now!), Bush saying why not present ID in schools? (because it's not science!!!) Bush equivalencing ASCR and ESCR in a press conference (aaargh!!), the odious "bioethics" council...the whole culture! It is anti-science and anti-intellectual.
Now i'm really depressed.

Hey, matoko kusanagi -- please carry on with your "real" depression.

Remember something, RBMN, when matoko kusanagi and similar types rail on and on about "anti-science" and "anti-intellectual" they're just pimping for their European superiors, and pissing on the American concept of things.

Great post, Dafydd. I wouldn't say "cowboy" but I understand where you're going with it, and it is perhaps "the" enduring American symbol around the globe. This reminds me of the schism in black America back in the day between W.E.B. DuBois and his idea of a talented tenth vs. Booker T. Washington and his faith in the masses of black people. The former talked about it, the latter lived it -- and has a university, Tuskeegee Institute, to show for it.

Of course, Booker T. Washington is disrespected by black academics nationwide.

Well, I was born in cow-country (El Paso, Tx) 64 years ago, and grew up working from time to time on ranches in NM as a kid, tending and herding more beef than most people have ever seen - where, incidentally, most conservatives were Democrats (Reagan type, most having now switched to the GOP.) All my heros then, and now, have mostly been cowboys - and yeah, though he never really had any cows of his own that I can say he cared for, John Wayne was probably America’s favorite cowboy, and may well still be.

Funny thing - Ted Turner moved in, bought the Armanderas ranch (one of the biggest) - but, most locals, including Democrats, hate him, vowing he could never become a real cowboy.

So, there’s a whole lot more truth to the idea that a cowboy has “instantaneous intuitive understanding of right and wrong” than some might imagine. The real ones are just a breed apart from those who can’t quite cut the mustard. Even when and if they have all the trappings - the fakes are all too easy to spot.

when matoko kusanagi and similar types rail on and on about "anti-science" and "anti-intellectual" they're just pimping for their European superiors

huh? I don't have any euro-superiors. I am disappointed in the "bioethics" council, the weekend passage of Terri's Law, the nutty equivalencing of ASCR and ESCR on national television, the promotion of ID in classrooms by GW--these things to me all form a pattern of disdain for science and scholarship. Look how RBMN uses the the word "intellectual"--it is like an epithet.

Another thing, Rattlergator, i can outride, outrope and outshoot just about anyone you want to put me up against. I've ridden since i was six and i'm an eventer, i own a 9mm ruger pistol with a sixteen shot clip, and i was taught to rope for real brandings by real cowboys in Wyoming. So there.

One comment deleted for being a personal attack.

Warning: David, this site does not allow such attacks, either on the hosts or on other commenters. If you want to respond to that person, please rephrase your comment to answer the points, not sling invective.

Thanks,

Dafydd

Matoko Kusanagi:

Do you recognize any limits, established by any community, on scientific research? Or should the researcher himself be the only decision maker on what research is done?

Dafydd

The scientific community is perfectly capable of policing themselves, like the bar association and the AMA.
GW needs to drop the mad scientist schtick. Scientists don't need a nanny.
1. GW lied on national television at the press conference featuring the "snowflake kidz". ASCR results != ESCR results. And no one even called him on it.
2. By coming out in favor of theory of ID being taught in schools, GW made it into a Lysenkoism, a state sponsored pseudo-science. Because it is not science. Perhaps it could be a science, but it is not a science yet.
3. The very existence of the "bioethics" council. A bunch of non-scientists giving direction to scientists. Feh.

'cmon, treat us like grownups and professionals.

Matoko Kusanagi:

This is drifting rather far afield from the post, but what is your professional background? I always like to know with whom I'm discussing something science related.

Dafydd

Dafyyd, email me.
I'll reply with my "bones."
it's sssssssssssensitive. ;-)

Your analysis, Dafyyd, is ill-conceived. Reagan was an entirely known quantity when he ran for President in 1980 (his second run for that office). He had already served in the "minor leagues" as a state governor for two terms. He had given numerous public speeches and written hundreds of newspaper columns setting forth his conservative views over the preceding two decades. In short, Reagan was a known quantity in a clear celophane wrapper. The people knew who they were getting.

The problem with Miers (and I am not a supporter for her nomination at this point -- I am waiting for more information and even leaning against her confirmation given the information I have learned to date) is that, far from being a known quantity, she is almost wholly unknown. She has published little, whether scholarly legal articles or opinion columns. She has given few public speeches accessible today. She is a nominee encased in a plain, white generic cardboard box. Comparing her nomination to Reagan's candidacy is quite a stretch given the paucity of information provided thus far.

MrSpkr:

The post is not about why you should supporter her; it's about why Bush nominated her.

She is not "almost wholly unknown" to George W. Bush.

As I said in the post, I cannot possibly say whether Bush is right about Miers until and unless she gets on the Court and fulfills his expectations -- or dashes them. But I do actually like the general idea... picking some intelligent non-intellectual for the seat.

Dafydd

picking some intelligent non-intellectual for the seat.

lol, Dafydd, there you go again, wielding the Can Opener of Epiphany 'gainst my thick skull! ;-)
You use intellectual like a slur.

Do you know why the Bush admin denigrates intellectuals, academics and scientists?
Because Bush believes thinkers can't be believers and believers can't be thinkers!
ha ha ha!!

-- matoko-chan

Matoko Kusanagi:

You use intellectual like a slur.

No, Ace; I use it as a specialization.

If you needed an operation, would you prefer going to a medical intellectual or a good surgeon? If your car broke down, would you prefer an automotive academic or a mechanic?

Would you prefer that all nine members of the Court be specialists in constitutional law? Then what about all the cases that come before the court -- the majority, I believe -- that turn on statutes, regulation, contracts, and other areas of the law?

I prefer that at least one or two members of the Court not be fiery intellectuals with the rhetorical chops to rationalize anything. We've have quite a few highly intellectual idiots on the Court over the years. I want to see one or two who can just say "cut the crap" -- meaning "cut the sophistry," but the folks I want wouldn't use a word like sophistry.

Say, aren't you the fellow who conflated "intellectual" and "I.Q.?"

Dafydd

Dafydd,

Another great post. The constitutional qualifications are: the President nominates, and the Senate confirms (advice and consent). The candidate simply must be able to read, think, have good character, and apply the law/Constitution to cases. This isn't that specialized an endeavor. Credentialism run amok is part of the reason we are in this mess today. The politics of personal destruction of heretics, that is, conservatives/libertarians, is also a part. Today, only masochists and/or the power mad need apply. There are many people who have seen this since John Tower, Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, etc. and now simply refuse to be pilloried by the likes of Chuckie, Teddy, Arlie, et. al.

Intellectual used to be a good word. It meant someone who studied things, thought about them, and tried to come up with practical solutions to problems. These were thinkers *and* doers. Now the word means someone who can be argued out of a belief in God and into a belief in anything.

To Matoko,

Evolution as a theory of origins cannot be scientific. All of the empirical tests that I know of failed. As someone who has studied and worked with living things, I know that ID has a scientific basis. Irreducible complexity comes from Information theory. Evolution, the word, has been co-opted. Evolution means change over time. This is a tautology. In biology, evolution also means descent with modification. As an explanation of why living things are the way they are now, and how they preserve themselves into the future; evolution has a scientific basis. Evolution cannot explain order from nothing. Even quantum cosmology has to assume things not in evidence to explain how the Big Bang theory fits observations.

I hazard a guess about the allegation that Bush 'denigrates' scientists, academics, and intellectuals. He knows that much of what the scientists, academics, and intellectuals think they know just isn't so; particularly the ones funded by government and blinded by socialist ideology.

Charles

Dafydd:

Naruhodo.....i am not only a "fellow", but apparently an intellectual and a jerk. Do you think i am a fellow because i can ride and rope and shoot, and i use big words? Isn't that just a bit sexist?

intellectual-- n : a person who uses the mind creatively

Would you prefer that all nine members of the Court be specialists in constitutional law?

Yes. There is a reason that it is called the Supreme Court. What do you suppose was the intention of the founding fathers?

Say, aren't you the fellow who conflated "intellectual" and "I.Q.?"

No. I did not convolve intellectual and IQ. There is nothing in the definition of intellectual referring to IQ. Altho there is most likely a convolution involving intelligence and IQ (heh). And I am not a fellow. You want Joe Sixpack, or Jane Everybody on the bench. Fine. The mean IQ of non-hispanic whites is 100. So cap a seat to IQ 100 and they will be represented. Bench quotas--so affirmative action. Do you know what i really believe in? Excellence.

I said Bush believes that thinkers can't be believers, and believers can't be thinkers. I do not believe that. I know orthodox Jews who have no problem being brilliant thinkers and deeply religious at the same time. I myself believe in a deity of sorts. But that is why Bush chose Miers, he wanted a believer, not a thinker. Truly, Bush is disdainful and suspicious of science. How else to explain the "bioethics" council, and Terri's law? Anyone could look at the CAT scans and see her hippocamus was liquified.

And charles, ID is not a science now. Perhaps it could be a science, i don't know. But IDists could take a page from the early Quantum theorists' book. String theory started as a set of purely mathematical theorems--we had no way to prove any of them until we had mechanisms and metrics to deal with the very small. Now, entanglement has been proven by the double slit experiment and scientists are looking for Higgs Bosuns and other exotic particles at newly built super colliders. There is no reason that ID theorists couldn't be working hard on body of evidence. And that is what ID needs to be taught in schools. Department chairs, core courses, graduate students and research assistants, technical journals and peer reviewed papers, textbooks...who could teach ID in high school? Who would train the teachers? ID needs to make its bones in acadame and research before it can be called a science. My alma mater just instantiated an Institute of Nanotechnology this year--where is the Institute of Theory of ID?

GW said ID should be considered in schools--that statement alone made it into a Lysenkoism, a state sponsored pseudo-science. That was very wrong, and has probably prejudiced previously openminded people against ID. ID is not ready to be taught in schools. It is not mature as a science. Trying to force it into high schools is just foolish, and makes the proponents look intellectually dishonest. heh.

And Dafydd, you are not interested in vetting my credentials. You planned to deconstruct them and mock me.

I thought you were a science fiction god, but you have not even read Masamune Shirow.
And you are certainly no Rhys.

Oyasumi, i will bother you no longer.
--matoko-chan

Matoko Kusanagi:

And Dafydd, you are not interested in vetting my credentials. You planned to deconstruct them and mock me.

I beg your pardon? You're making lordly pronouncements about science, and you won't publicly disclose your credentials, saying they're "sensitive." I thought it relevant, since you set yourself up as a judge of other people's scientific literacy.

I'm not a scientist; my training is in mathematics, in which I have an MA from the University of California at Santa Cruz (1984). That means I know something about logic, but not necessarily anything deep about science.

I think I know enough, however, to distinguish between George Bush gently suggesting that perhaps intelligent design, whatever that is, be studied in school alongside evolutionary theory (I have a pretty good layman's grasp of that) -- and Lysekoism, in which anyone disputing any utterance of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was dubbed a counterrevolutionary and could be cut off or even imprisoned.

I find it surprising that a person claiming the moral high ground on defining science cannot even distinguish between praise and prescription.

You want Joe Sixpack, or Jane Everybody on the bench.... So cap a seat to IQ 100 and they will be represented.

Evidently, you also believe that anyone who is not an intellectual must therefore have an average or lower IQ. This is precisely what I meant by saying you conflate intellectualism and intelligence.

This is bigotry, plain and simple: the bigotry of verbal acuity. A person can be highly intelligent, penetrating, quick, and deep -- yet not be a man or woman of letters. Whether you believe it or not.

Dafydd

I said, A Lysenkoism, not THE Lysenkoism. A Lysenkoism being defined as a state-sponsored psuedo-science. George Bush (the state) suggests ID (not-a-science) be taught in schools alongside evolution (a-science). Riiiight.
I said, an intellectual is someone who uses the mind creatively, and that has tanj-all to do with IQ, which correlates with intelligence, what everthat is.
I asked for the courtesy of a private discussion of my background, and we see where that went.
Forgive me for imposing on your bandwidth.

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