Op-Ed: Does Barack Obama Spell the End of Dumb and Dumber?

It's been eight long years of intellectual distaste in the U.S., condoned and even celebrated in the White House. Barack Obama's spent the last year kicking this attitude's ass. So is the job done? Have the cretins crawled back from whence they came?

As we get closer to Barack Obama moving into the White House, expect the chatter about healing and bridging gaps to get louder. This is as it should be; there are lots of wounds to heal and gaps to bridge. Not the least among them is the intellectual gap. The US has been in the grip of the anti-intellectual knuckle-draggers and their fantasy fuelled creationist cronies for too long and hey, it's time for Change. Healing the intelligence gap is a process barely begun.If it's to succeed, it's important to know how America acquiesced in its own dumbing down, at every level.,especially culturally, scientifically and politically.Only in such an intellectual climate could something like the Creationists get a serious hearing and grow teeth. While George is seen as the prime mover, loads of blame must be laid at Bill Clinton's door because unlike George, Rhodes scholar Bill knew better. Once Clinton got busted interning, he was able to get away with his indiscretions by focusing on the good ol' boy just having fun spin, precisely because this was in step with the prevailing cultural climate. Wasn't nothing any of us wouldn't do, nudge,nudge. The terrible price was to watch an American president become the justified butt of every third rate standup's jokes. This set the presidential bar at a level George Bush could relate to, so little wonder things turned out the way they did. After that, it was a short step from tolerating this dumbing down to elevating it. The fallout from the Clinton factor wasn't done yet. The bible huggers reaped loads of mileage from Bill's escapades and he was held up as an example of what can happen to even the goodest ol' country boy if he got too smart for his own britches. The dark side of middle America began weaving a new philosophy in which smarts got all mixed up with being anti-family values, anti-American even. And did they ever get a boost when the European reaction to Clinton's fooling around was an enormous, so what?, followed by shrug and smile. America is looking for a leader who can drag them out of the mess the crew they voted for last time around got them into. But he's gotta do this without being too smart about it. in fact, it's best if he's as average as well, the average guy. 'Course, checking the dictionary definition of the word "Leader" blows that away. But that would mean reading which puts you on the slippery slope to getting too smart fer yer own good. It's like the Russian Cold War era joke that goes: How may Russian cops does it take to write a traffic ticket? Two, one to do the writing and one to keep an eye on the intellectual. The US has the world's best universities attracting the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine, its wealth and power dependent on the practical application of knowledge. Still America remains a land where pop tarts are more revered than scientists and anyone with a brain is sure to be the butt of jokes. It's the only major nation in which intelligence in a political figure is a major disadvantage. As long as intellect is equated with subversion, this will not change. Just about every day you can catch rightist motormouths like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly ranting against the "liberal elites destroying America. This was used most effectively against the Kerry/Edwards ticket ,portrayed as pointy headed intellectuals too high and mighty to have any perception of common folk apart from being voters. Ever since that success, suspicions of intellectuals has proved a useful weapon to both the Repubs and the Christian Right. And we know they're not one and the same because of that separation of State and Church thingee in the Constitution, right? Barack Obama has made Americans stand up and speak out against the Republican.fundamentalist coalition.Rejecting it doesn't mean an end to its influence. As long as the US education system, in which two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of high school kids cannot name the three branches of government and the maths skills of 15-year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD, remains an afterthought and concepts like "Creationism" are granted validity, this war is far from over