Elitists Rule!

Hillary Clinton, when recently asked if she could name one economist who thought her “Gas Tax Holiday” was a good idea, responded:

I’m not going to put my lot in with economists… We’ve got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans.

Now, I’ve got my problems with economists. Economics is a field that I think too-closely resembles weather prediction, a complex system prone to the effects of chaos theory; however, I would never dismiss economists for working so hard to at least try and know what they are talking about.

Given the choice between Al Gore and George Bush, voters went with Bush because he was someone they could have a beer with (despite the fact that he is a teetotaler and recovering alcoholic). Dittoheads despised Gore because he was educated and wasn’t ashamed of it. We can see what going with our drinking buddy as leader of the free world has gotten us.

Barack Obama is often attacked as an elitist (See also here, here, here, here, and here). It’s an easy charge to make for some people. Obama was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

He has an impeccable academic background for the position for which he is currently serving as a Senator and the one he is applying for: President of the United States. He is extremely qualified for protecting our Constitutional rights and upholding the rule of law; however, in America, a large portion of our population see this as a defect, and would prefer to have a lovable doofus lacking even a high school understanding of our constitution to run the free world (in)competently.

Imagine this irrational position applied to other situations. When, if in need of heart surgery, Americans choose doctors with less qualifications but were lovable doofuses. If, when we need technical support, we went to the bar and found someone “down to Earth” enough to service our computer, car, or home, rather than someone certified in an area of expertise.

It’s absurd that we factor this criteria into choosing the person who will manage the governmental policies that will affect all of our lives.

When American’s go to the doctor, they want an elitist, someone who’s spent nearly a decade studying the human body. When we choose a lawyer, we’re looking for an elitist, someone who’s spent nearly a decade studying law to pass the bar exam. When we look for computer programmers, engineers, academic institutions, economists, scientists, or any other field requiring specialization and years of intense intellectual training, we want an elitist to fill that role.

If a candidate is well-educated, mature, and has demonstrated an effective leadership style, then I can overlook the fact that they don’t enjoy watching a bunch of rednecks make four left turns for four hours, hanging-out in smoke-filled bars, or show any proficiency for hunting, bowling, golf, or any other activity unrelated to making America run smoothly. I want an egghead running my country, a policy wonk who keeps abreast of current events so that I don’t have to worry as much. I’ve been worrying too much these last eight years.

Stephen Colbert satirized it best on his show The Colbert Report, when interviewing Susan Jacoby about her book The Age of American Unreason: