And yes, as Amity claims, the 'liberal failure' has primarily been that they they do not adequately critique themselves. But, as a matter of fact, as a non-US citizen, I've actually seen much less of this needed needed ability 'self-critique' in Republicans than in Democrats as a group.

Oh, I completely agree. But I'm more forgiving of modern Republicans, for the sole reason that their political movement is explicitly and purposefully an authoritarian anti-intellectual one.

I don't expect them to be curious about or engaged with the world because their party ideology is based on incuriosity and disengagement. It's why they're there. It's what drew them in to begin with.

American liberals, by contrast, are at least ostensibly dedicated to well-informed, constructive, cooperative participation in the life of the republic. But for the most part liberal thought in this country can't get its head out of Time magazine or the myriad other news organs run by (ta da) the Republican elite. Liberals have been suffering from this habit of having other people's conversations for them, rather than starting conversations of their own.

The kooks and know-nothings have always been there — I agree, they're in every society. But it used to be that they were kept at bay by at least a modestly robust liberalism. In the absence of one, the former have spread like a weed.

Bayard is rather unjust to Alexander Hamilton, who, at the Constitutional Convention, actually proposed a larger House of Representatives, with NO requirement of property. That was too radical for the other framers, so they did not approve his motion.

Like all the other Federalists who had studied Greek and Roman history, Hamilton did worry that demogogues would push people's buttons and cause them to vote for dubious candidates or to support bad policies. He saw Aaron Burr as exactly the sort of politician he feared, clever, conniving, & quick to change parties whenever it was to his advantage.

So I'm in agreement with Shenkman. Credulity is a kind of stupidity. Americans fell for the lies that brought about the Iraq War; many believed that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. When I put up a Howard Dean sign on a window, my housekeeper angrily said, "We have the right to defend ourselves!" and stormed out. I recently talked to a white, working-class guy who was convinced that Obama is a Muslim. The Swiftboaters changed the public perception of John Kerry's war service. When I canvassed for Gore and for Kerry, I met people who had little knowledge of, and interest in, the issues. I phonebanked one evening and got a woman on the line; before I could say anything, she said, "I'm pro-life" and hung up. Isn't a single-issue voter stupid? Another woman, working in the store with the radio on, said she had no idea how to find out what the candidates were for. I said, well, gee, there are newspapers, tv news, and the candidates' websites...and you've got the radio there, you could put it on NPR." These people didn't seem to feel that they were citizens in a representative democracy and that they should exert themselves to find out about the particular views and policies of a potential president. In fact, many Americans don't even know who's on the money. They don't look at the names, they don't recognize the faces. Perhaps citizens should, at the age of 18 just before they are first going to vote, take a short examination in American political history, much as immigrants do when they become citizens.

When you say, "Americans are stupid" perhaps a little context would help, as in relative measures of how well the Brits know how British government works, how well the Dutch understand Dutch government, and so forth. I'll admit I don't expect our citizens to fare well in such comparisons, but I don't think we should take these things as axioms and just run with them.

Americans are conditioned, by the government and the (admittedly) horribly bad mass media, to believe all they have to know about government is who to vote for, and the details will be taken care of by our betters. And let's face it, to some extent that is what the framers wanted, insofar as they regarded the masses as poltroons who wouldn't understand the finer points of governance anyway.

This is the message that the media and "our betters" saturate us with, and for the relatively low numbers who bother to vote, apparently they buy it. (Salon is part of the problem too, you know. Look at all the interminable articles you ran about the Hillary-Obama horserace, compared to the articles you ran about the policy proposals of Biden and Dodd and Kucinich when they were still running, or that detailed look at the healthcare proposals of Obama and HRC...

(the sound of the wind. A tumbleweed floats by...)

Some of the people who don't pay attention and don't vote are less intelligent than average, but I seriously doubt the group is less intelligent overall.

Many have undoubtedly concluded that getting educated about being an American is a sucker's game, since it only pays off if you have money and can really influence things and the whole thing is a con, and if you're poor and educated all you'll have for your trouble will be a more articulate sense of how you're screwed. I'd like for people who see things that way to be wrong, but that view doesn't strike me as irrational.

Churchill said that democratic government is the worst form, except for all the others. With that maxim in mind I tend to think that overhauling our system to make it less democratic can only make it worse, the law of unintended consequences being one unforgiving bitch. We should prefer to be conservative in the classical sense of the word and avoid opening up Pandora's box of supposedly enlightened ideals.

Let's see: The English parliament and house of Lords. Our Electoral college -- which gave Bush the presidency over Gore's lead in the popular vote. The Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

Not all of these examples are horrifying, but none make a case for replacing what we've got with something else.

If nothing else, who defines if you are smart enough to vote? Do you need to know the theory of Intelligent Design? Do you need to know the chemistry of greenhouse gases? What about a thorough understanding of statistics? That would eliminate most of the American voting public.