this has been a theme of mine for the bush era; apologies if i've bored anyone with it previously. worse yet, i'm no expert in the field in any way.

but in Myers-Briggs and similar type personality tests, frequently things can be lined up on a gut/intuitive - brain/analytic axis; sensing vs intuitive, thinking vs. feeling, judging vs. perceiving for Myers-

Briggs, for instance. And my understanding of the interpretations of such things is that folks who are heavily on either side of the intuitive-analytic axis have a tough time understanding, communicating, trusting, respecting, etc. the folks on the other side.

And that is, to a high degree, where America finds itself today; a lot of highly analytic folks whose jobs and even private lives revolve around analytic work, and a lot of folks whose strength lies more in nonanalytic gut feelings, intuitive decision making, and the voice of experience. The latter are resentful because the first bunch got an easy ride through our educational system, which is all about data-driven analysis; the former are snooty because they have been told all their lives they were superior because of this success.

In fact, of course, not only do both decision making styles have their place (an emergency room doctor who racks his brain over every shred of data and all the possibilities before making a decision may not be as good a choice as one who goes with instinct), but the success of the decision making done by a person of each type can vary. We can all name somebody whose gut instincts have famously been very wrong at every turn; at the same time, the average corporate CEO would be likely to do a pretty decent job navigating by instinct. Similarly, for every big-brain hyperintellectual who can successfully distill the meaning from a ton of confusing data, there are plenty of comic figures who can read the same data and conclude positively that the Earth is indeed flat.

But the split in America today is to a great degree between these two personality types; the person of faith and the person of science. The person who doesn't see that intelligence reports really implicate Saddam Hussein's regime as a threat, and the person who just knows that removing Hussein from power has to be done. The person who can provide literally hundreds of pages of dense text indicating that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is altering the climate dangerously, and the person who thinks that all just obfuscates the silliness of the concept. And of course, not too long ago, the cartoonish media image of the emotionless hyperintellectual robotic presidential candidate, and his opponent the doofy but lovable guy with his downhome real-world common sense. And everyone reading this, as I do when writing it, can't help but view their side as right, and the other side as wrong.

this has been a theme of bush's presidency; he clues into something years after every single other person on the planet, then acts like he's just discovered something we all need to know. "Hey, America! we need to find alternatives to petroleum! I'm gonna find out who's been blocking this!"

indeed.

he's not a man of thought, clearly; not really a man of action, in that serious action requires thought; but he seems to be a people person, more or less. he'd have made a good figurehead for a country, like prince philip; an ambassador to a country where there's not much to do, like Canada or Britain or even Mexico. or a car salesman, had he been born in a different family. but he's born to parents who drum into him that he has to excel in fields where he's out of his element, and has to prove that he's better than his father, etc.

Cheney? maybe he's just gone insane. as everybody notes, he used to be the voice of reason. seriously, there's a lot of evidence that repeated bouts of open heart surgery etc. have deleterious effects on mental function.

Rumsfeld? an idiot.

etc.

the villains in the piece? we have met the enemy and he is us. the shmucks who voted bush in because his opponents were 'elitist' and made them feel like maybe they were inferior, just because they didn't have the same education, drive, ambition, etc. and so they voted for the nebbish, just to show them. even the second time, when it was all made clear to them.

and those who voted against him, but let him become president in the first place just because they didn't want to make any more of a fuss about a detail like whether he had won or not.

and those in public life who didn't want to take a stand against him when it might cost them because he had some popularity and it wouldn't be "patriotic"

and those in private life who were too busy or tired or had too much to lose to go through the same crap we went through 25 years ago to end a war and get rid of a president who wasn't even as bad so went on with business as usual, just like we were told; go shopping, or the terrorists will have won.

Guantanamerica! where we are all de facto prisoners, and your rights are what you earn by giving up your rights.

(Alternate spelling, Guantanamerikkka)

by the end of the campaign, i predict at least one "conservative" pundit will refer to her as a "ho".