A perfect example, perhaps, of this idea gone terribly wrong, considering the noxious power and influence of the Straussian neocon school that emerged from it.

Having gone to an Ivy myself in the Reaganesque 80's (not one of the big three, though), my impression was that it (and presumably all the others, including all of the major non-Ivies such as the UC system, Michigan, NYU, etc.) had by then been transformed into an institution whose primary purpose was to pump out as many future players and leaders in today's corporatist world as possible, who would follow its rules, lead it to ever-greater riches, power and glory, and not buck the system in any serious and meaningful manner.

Sure, you could still get an excellent liberal arts education in them and go on to an intellectually rich and satisfying career in the arts, academia, pure science, etc., and not be part of the power "system", but that's what they were primarly meant to do by then. Just as West Point and Annapolis were meant to pump out the nation's future military leaders, these schools were meant to pump out its (and the world's) future political, corporate and other leaders. The culture was too corporate to miss that--it seemed like half my graduating class wanted to work for Goldman Sacks or McKinsey (and more than a few that I know did).

As for Dubya, well, he's clearly the exception to all of this. The people who set this all up knew that if the system that they had set up and perfected were left in the hands of idiots like him, it would all come crashing down in a few decades. So they shrewdly liberalized it to allow non-male WASPS--there was only so much in that narrowing and inbred gene pool to go around to sustain this system for very long. They needed fresh blood, and didn't hesitate to bring it in.

But idiot sons like Bush were still given preferential treatment and allowed to slide through, not on merit but out of legacy. Just because a new group of to-be-indoctrinated "outsiders" would be allowed to run things (and Clinton was clearly an outsider) someday didn't mean that their own offspring would be shunted aside. Some of them, in fact, and no doubt to their delightful surprise, would eventually prove to have their own unique "talents", such as Bush (i.e. a total lack of apparent empathy and conscience, and a hucksterish ability to fool half the nation into believing that he was Billy Bob from down the street).

Like I said, you can still get a damn fine education at any of these places, and they're not, per se, merely incubators for tomorrow's moustache-twirlers. The world still needs its foot soldiers, dreamers and assorted other non-players. But they are also and significantly that as well, and as Paul pointed out have much of their present unreal endowments to thank for that.

I just came across this on AmericaBlog, which got it from CNET:

http://www.americablog.com/2007/05/gonzales-proposing-new-orwellian.html

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is pressing the U.S. Congress to enact a sweeping intellectual-property bill that would increase criminal penalties for copyright infringement, including "attempts" to commit piracy.... The Bush administration is throwing its support behind a proposal called the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, which is likely to receive the enthusiastic support of the movie and music industries, and would represent the most dramatic rewrite of copyright law since a 2005 measure dealing with prerelease piracy....

The IPPA would, for instance:

* Criminalize "attempting" to infringe copyright. Federal law currently punishes not-for-profit copyright infringement with between 1 and 10 years in prison, but there has to be actual infringement that takes place....

* Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations. Wiretaps would be authorized for investigations of Americans who are "attempting" to infringe copyrights....

* Allow computers to be seized more readily. Specifically, property such as a PC "intended to be used in any manner" to commit a copyright crime would be subject to forfeiture, including civil asset forfeiture....

* Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America. That would happen when CDs with "unauthorized fixations of the sounds, or sounds and images, of a live musical performance" are attempted to be imported.

Oh where to begin?

First off, what this legislation is really about: The Homeland Security department getting carte blanche authorization to fish through your computer and tap your phones with impunity, whenever they want, so long as they argue that they think you might have ever tried to download even a single song via Limewire or some of other music-sharing software, or have ever copied a photo off the Internet, or even watched a single clip from any TV show on YouTube. They're going to use this legislation to hunt for terrorists, and won't need search warrants, etc. That's what this is about.

Huh? How is this all that different from these proposed FISA changes? Seems set up to pretty much accomplish the same thing, i.e. grant the executive branch the power to spy on us "legally", and for "justifiable" reasons. Just another attempt to lower the threshold for fascism.

Tyranny, thy name is the RIAA and MPAA, Sprint and AT&T, TiVo and Google. Or, to paraphrase Lewis, when fascism comes to America it will be wearing an Ipod and waving a cell phone.

I can point to more than a few notable graduates of my own formerly non-elitist school--on both sides of the elitist and/or virtuous aisle. Some working for this administration, and some directly against it. And some, I suppose, both, in their own ways.

Ah, the "good ole days". Can we bring them back again? We'll just have to see...