Dare to be stupid
Via Roy Edroso at Alicublog with are treated to the utterly unironic call to arms for conservatives not to be intimidated by smarter, more educated people than themselves. This tendency toward Forrest Gumpism is hardly surprising given that the current crop of nativist conservatives are the direct intellectual descendants of the "Know-nothings" and the current administration's motto, despite Bush's intention to be the "edumacation president", is the most hostile to science, reason and fancy book-learning since, well...possibly Andrew Jackson, but at least Old Hickory, for all his faults, recognized the danger posed by corporations.

From Alicublog, first quoting then analyzing Lee Harris' original paean to thickheadedness:

In a world that absurdly overrates the advantage of sheer brain power, no one wants to be seen as a member in good standing of the stupid party. Yet stupidity has been and will always remain the best defense mechanism against the ordinary conman and the intellectual dreamer, just as Odysseus found that stuffing cotton in his ears was his best defense against beguiling but fatal song of the sirens.

That's the close; the rest doesn't illuminate it much. Smart people will attempt to "pull the wool over the eyes of the rest of us," and though "the intellectual conservative of our day excels in good arguments," he must not use them to defend propositions such as (to use Harris' own example) resistance to gay marriage, because he might get out-argued by the smart alecks.

When the leading candidates for the party's presidential nomination all publicly state that they don't believe in evolution, can there really be any doubt that John Stuart Mill was right in calling conservatives the Stupid Party?

A belated Xmas post
Another member of the International Santa Conspiracy is heard from in Ponoka. We are everywhere.

I cannot bear Mitt Romney
And neither can the Mike Huckabee, who in typical Republican Mayberry Machivelli style held a press conference where he told the assembled stenographers that while the campaign was going to attack Mitt Romney with negative ads, Holy Roller Huckabee just felt he could not stoop that low. And to prove it he showed the negative ad he had decided not to use to press, who immediately broadcast the ad on every major news program as part of the "story" thus saving the Huckster's campaign the expense of paying to air it. This has all the subtlty and earmarks of success of the "hey, look behind you" gambit so often attempted by third graders hoping to escape the class bully.
This campaign ad, courtesy of Jesus' General, is definitely not safe for work, especially if you work at a bear sanctuary or zoo or even if you just really, really like bears. As someone who was there in that very French cafe on that fateful night, I can attest to the fact that the bear consented--in fact it asked Mitt to call the next day so the two could "do brunch and then maybe hang out down at the dump or push over a honeytree." And you thought Mitt's magic underpants and Mexican roots were shocking.