"The only real question on the table is why you prefer a candidate with so many "deficits" to be "made up for" in the first place. Why does your party go out of its way to pick the candidate who is manifestly less articulate, less informed, less intelligent than many others who were available? Was it really impossible to find someone who shares your values and possessed both intelligence AND character? If not--to go all binary on you here--what does that say about your values? Or if so, what is it about the dumbing down of America that you and your party apparently like so much?"

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Like Mr. Conason's rhetorical title the rhetorical questions above beg the question by assuming what requires demonstration. This fallacy (petitio principii as all the smart people will know) and the Straw Man are staples of juvenile political polemics. Of course the main thing is the ad hominem. Public political discourse has as a direct result long since ceased to be serious but has become instead a prolonged and largely useless exercise in mutual shouting and stoning and casting spears. The side that gets tired of it or has something better to do and retires is declared the loser and those who have remained on the field and are still shouting and tossing objects solid and pointed are the de facto winners. Anthropologists are familiar with this primitive and often largely ceremonial mode of Stone Age warfare.

I don't know what makes Mr. Conason and his readers think they are all that smart. No offense - but they don't seem all that smart to me. They seem remarkably shallow, puerile, dogmatic, self-righteous and self-satisfied. They pass judgments on people and affairs about which they cannot possibly be sufficiently informed to know with certainty what they are talking about. Almost nothing gets said of any actual substance that cannot be boiled down to "I don't agree with X about Y." It seems to be an axiom for them that they are always right about everything and that those who disagree are always wrong and probably stupid/dumb/ignorant/evil to boot. The narrow-minded fanaticism, bigotry, intolerance and actual malevolence of Leftist ideologues is always something of a shock when held up and compared against their professed virtues of compassion, diversity, tolerance, benevolence. It is remarkable that such people seem never to be able to appreciate how nasty and mean-spirited they seem, and sometimes actually behave, towards others while they preach their pieties and platitudes and denigrate those who dare to differ

Here is something to ponder and reflect long and hard upon: Is it possible, however faintly, remotely, implausibly and incredibly, that Mr. Conason and his followers just might not know everything about everything and that they might not be 100% right 100% of the time about 100% of what they believe? Could it be? Is it thinkable? Does it violate the Law of Non-Contradiction?

Is it possible that people like me who admire and respect Mr. McCain and Governor Palin might have some valid reason for doing so? Might we occasionally entertain views that are correct even though they do not coincide with or even contradict those of the Left? Is it truly the case that no possible basis for voting Republican exists or could exist besides stupidity, ignorance, greed, gullibility &etc.?

Wise up children! Wake up children! Just because you strongly believe something to be true and just and right and swell does not necessarily make it so. Your passions do not certify your opinions. Indignation, rage, fear, delight and even compassion are no basis for sober political judgments. Your hopes and fears and what you think is the best way for other people, society and the world to be will seldom bear much resemblance or relationship to the way people and society and the world actually operate.

In my experience very few, indeed almost none of militant Leftist partisans are well informed about history, political philosophy, military history, economics, philosophy and the history of ideas, science, great literature and, of course, religion. There are of course exceptions. But the remarkable thing is that this crowd that does not hesitate to proclaim itself as infinitely superior in intelligence and education to their political opponents is appallingly ignorant of the most basic foundations from which serious thought on complex issues such as politics has to begin. For example: Though they are quick to proclaim rights and are always discovering new ones, they are usually unable to say where such rights come from. And few indeed are the idealists who have any inkling how how many times their fantasies and schemes for human betterment and social justice have been thought up, proposed and tried before, and with what result.

I am afraid we have quite a Children's Crusade on our hands and Mr. Obama, to mix the metaphor a bit, is the Pied Piper leading them off heaven knows where.

Wake up children before it is too late!

I want a POTUS with a real intellect and with real thoughts in his head. I want a POTUS who can deal with subtleties without getting his knickers in a knot. I want someone who is smarter than I am in the White House (and I had a 4.0 GPA in college). I want someone who understands and values the Constitution, knows his way around science even if he is not a scientist (i.e. knows that the solar system is about 4.5 billion years old and that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist and that life forms evolved rather than got put here by God some six thousand years ago). Can you imagine George Bush as POTUS in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis? We would not be here having this conversation today.

I can understand the disgust regarding the bailout, but don't be fooled by a pretty face. She is no different than any other politician. She is a liar like all the rest. They will all, well mostly all, sell their souls for the power and the money from special interests.

We as Americans have to get off of our sorry lazy asses and vote all of these people out of office, and keep voting people out of office who do not work for OUR best interests. They might just start getting the message.