Sad indeed. It goes deep. Smart American children often have to hide by pretending they're not. After being a geeky high school student, I can remember the great relief I felt in college where it was finally OK to be smart. Unfortunately, anti-intellectualism is now creeping into universities and being stupid is slowly becoming more than merely acceptable, but "cool".

Thanks for posting this video.

The country's anti-intellectualism is one of my biggest pet peeves. I am so sick of seeing people in commercials and tv shows being laughed at for being smart (nerd) working hard (too uptight) or doing the right thing.

This country WORSHIPS idiots like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh just to name a few. America gets to spend all its time hearing about the lives of barely literate celebrities, and getting political views from guys with more bluster than brains.

You are only cool if you skip work, drive an SUV, lie to your spouse, hate the french, and spend all your time watching sports, playing video games and drinking beer.

These attitudes have to stop.

As much as I utterly detest fascist O'Reilly, you cannot call him an idiot. He is highly educated, going to Oxford even like Clinton.

He knows what he is doing, like Goebbels.

Aw shucks. I don't know nutin bout no fancy words. All I know is I love Amurrika!!!!!! Woooo!!! Matthews has sure done an about face, eh? Wasn't he the one gushing over Bush in his flight suit?

bernarda,

I wasn't calling O'Reilly an idiot (although somebody might be willing to debate the point), I was trying to say that he is anti-intellectual.

He makes arguments that have no basis in reality in an attempt to poison reasonable discourse.

Thank you for letting me expound on this point.

"He is highly educated, going to Oxford even like Clinton."

He didn't go to Oxford, he went to Marist College, and did a study abroad at the University of London. He got master's degrees from Boston U. and Harvard. So what? Bush went to Yale and got a master's degree from Harvard. I'm glad that someone with as many listeners as O'Reilly actually has some education, but that doesn't make him or anyone else wise. O'Reilly makes up facts about WWII, calls Paul Krugman a "quasi-socialist", and produces some of the worst prose you'll ever see out of a major printing press. There are smart conservatives out there, and he's not one of them.

I think both of Matthews' commentators were speaking the truth. Cillizza is right that pedantry is a bad quality that exists even in our anti-intellectual society. Smart people often brush off the charge of pedantry because they think it's motivated by intellectual envy. But it isn't always. Most smart, very educated people I know dislike pedanrty at least as much as more average people. People don't want a president who seems like he is teaching them a lesson in school. Adlai Stevenson wasn't the type of working class hero that I'd like to see heading up the Democratic party. Clinton was, not because he hides his intelligence and acts dumb, but because he seems approachable even though he is smart.

On the other hand, the mere fact that Bush could have been elected (even with less than a plurality of votes), even when people knew what he was made of intellectually, says a lot. A stockholder wants a sharp guy for the CEO of his company; a college student wants a sharp teacher; but apparently a lot of people don't care about whether the president is interested in and intellectually dedicated to getting it right or more interested in clearing brush and playing golf.

nice to see our president is in charge and knows what he's talking about.

Excellent post dende blogger.

With that said, I find it somewhat ironic that Bush is constantly being accused of not being very smart yet when he speaks, it sounds like he's talking down to his audience - as if he feels that HE is the smartest person in the room and has to "dumb it down" for everyone else!

Man, I'm sick of the media viewing its job as constantly reinforcing the conventional wisdom and then disclaiming all responsibility.

Well, that's one hell of an insulting thing. I want a fucking intelligent president. Elect an idiot and you get stupid results.

I've never understood the anti-intellectual streak in US public life. I can't think of another country where a population is actually suspicious of learning, thought, and education in their leaders (except China during the Cultural Revolution).

Most countries expect their leaders to be well-read, informed, traveled, curious and educated...as well as multi-lingual.

For instance, here's an interview with the new Liberal leader in Canada (and likely future Prime Minister) that gives some sense that education and intellectual capacity need not be considered a political liability:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omxoC70BpsA

So now the warmongers are "jughead neoconservatives"?

Gee, Chrissie, wasn't that you publicly masturbating yourself while gushing about the manliness of Bush's flysuit codpiece during the "Mission Accomplished" speech? What a disgusting whore you are.

"What a disgusting whore you are."

You know before the war began Matthews came out solidly against it. And yet he hasn't brought those views to his show until now. He claims that he's trying to be fair, but in reality it seems more like typical media cowardice--pumping up Bush when he's riding high and then kicking him when he's down.

The unfortunate thing (but maybe it's not such a bad thing) is that there is no media figure so trusted by the public that he could make statements that cut against the grain of public opinion that much without being labelled a liberal or conservative pundit. To some degree the media has to reproduce majority opinion or conventional wisdom.

I hadn't done any reading up on Stephane Dion yet (and as a student I don't see/hear the maintstream media very often) so thanks for the link Freaked-Out Canadian.

I did a quick google blog search on him and found an article that I interpretted as complaining about his style as being alienating (but maybe I prejudged it after the author used the phrase "a bookish wonk" in the first paragraph): http://thetyee.ca/Books/2006/10/12/StephaneDion/

That strong streak of anti-intellectualism one finds is the States is rare but not unique.

It is also found in much of the mid-east. In areas where the Islamacists hold sway, anti-intellectualism turns violent. Remember the Taliban in Afghanistan. If not, keep looking, they are coming back.

Pol Pot's red guard were also determined to wipe out the intellectual community in Cambodia and pretty well succeeded.

Whether it happens under the guise of wiping out western ifluences or wiping out Satanic influences, it's the same thing and success always has the same effect. A very bad effect.

The parochializing and dumbing down of the American population has been very successful. Powerfully assisted by a population that has always distrusted "eggheads".

Dummies make good corporate cogs and a sheep like populace. Easy to control for both commercial and political purposes.

The great American individualist has disapeared, replaced by conformatiy obsessed consumers.

I don't believe some think tank somewhere decided that they needed to make the American population dumber. But the country as a whole and it's rights polititians did decide that money and resources and honors for the academic community were not important as immediate political and finacial gains.

Except for the needs of coporate commerce and the military and government, education is seen as a frvilous waste buy a significant number of America's population and leadership.

American voters are more interested in style and perception because the entire culture is based on style and perception and popularity. Good commercial consumers and trend followers, but lousy thinkers and leaders., with a self serving social consciousness.

The nation is sick from the top down, the solutions, if there are solutions are going to have to come from the bottom up. The country has no moral leadership.