POPULISM OR POWER GRAB?

There is a long-standing meme of anti-intellectualism in the U.S. and I'm sure it plays a significant role in the popularity of halfwits like Fats Limbaugh and Sean Insannity but there is also a new twist introduced by the neo-cons. Jonathan Chait writes in The Big Con (pp. 70-71) that back in 1978, Irving Kristol in his book Two Cheers for Capitalism came up with a new class enemy, the educated & intelligent. According to Kristol, this New Class had essentially taken over government and prevented even the consideration of different (e.g., neo-con) approaches to governing America.

This distrust of "the experts" led some wealthy conservatives to create their very own "think tanks," like the Heritage Foundation or AEI, that put ideology above researh. We've also seen that the criminal Bush regime has put incompetents and ideological hacks into what are nominally positions, like Surgeon General, that require a true independence of mind.