Joe Klein is one angry man. In fact, Joe’s so pissed-off I think he could shoot the next Twelve Angry Men sequel all by himself. Why is poor Joe so unhappy? Because we–well, actually, mostly you conservative women out there–are just so bleeping ignorant, that’s why. As an avid Tea Party supporter, I’ll be the first to admit I’m just a mindless dolt who consistently misspells the racist, dimwitted signs I bring to the rallies. Still, I’m not nearly as ignorant as you female Tea Party supporters. I mean, you’re really bleeping dumb!
But don’t believe me. Just read irascible Joe’s latest rant, “Ignorance as Authenticity,” immortalized for all time–or at least for a week or two–in Time. Mined from which, I bring you this nugget of angry Joe gold:
There is no way she [Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell] could ever be confused with a member of the elites; there is no way she could be confused with an above average high school student. Her ignorance, therefore, makes her authentic–the holy grail of latter-day American politics: she’s a real person, not like those phony politicians. In that sense, she–and the lifeboat filled with other Tea Party know-nothings–follow in the wake of our leading exemplar of ignorant authenticity, Sarah Palin (who seems every bit as unaware of public policy–she certainly never talks about it–as she was when a desperate and petulant John McCain chose her to be his running mate). There is something profoundly diseased about a society that idolizes its ignoramuses and disdains its experts.
Not surprisingly, Sarah Palin leads the pack of dunces on whom Jaded Joe unloads. Now it’s no secret most journalists use Spellcheck. But few realize that all good liberal journalists also regularly employ “Sarah-check,” the program that verifies that the obligatory Palin put-down hasn’t inadvertently been omitted before the piece goes to press. The software engineers who created Sarah-check have made millions just from The Huffington Post, Salon.com, and The New York Times. (They’re now developing Christie-Check, but have run into a slight problem while debugging the program: it turns out the New Jersey Governor actually makes sense.)
Back to Eine Kleine Joemusik.
Tempting as it is to let Klein rage on in his bitterness, even frenetic, splenetic Joe deserves an attempt at rehabilitation. Here goes my good Samaritan effort, however hopeless, at Kleintervention.
Klein would do well to forget Mr. Smith going to Washington and remember Annie Porter driving around L.A. Yes, that Annie Porter–the bus-driving heroine Sandra Bullock made famous in her 1994 breakthrough film Speed. Since Obama and his cliché-challenged Democrats are so fond of the “drove-the-economy-into-the-ditch” analogy, let’s address them in the simplistic terms they understand best.
You see, Mr. Klein, just as in Graham Yost and Jon de Bont’s big-screen thriller, our runaway government motor coach doesn’t need superheroes, Wharton grads, Rhodes Scholar economic nerds, tax-dodging fiscal planners like Tim Geithner, flip-flopping yes-women like Christina Romer, towel-snapping foulmouths like Rahm Emanuel, question-ducking truth-deflectors like Robert Gibbs, up-sucking, Stepford automatons like Kathleen Sebelius, nor even self-adulating, so-called Constitutional scholars like Barack Obama, to fix what’s wrong with it.
It just needs someone with a pulse who’s brave enough to drive the bus.
In Speed, Annie Porter (Sandra Bullock) hadn’t driven a bus before. Smarter people like you and your ilk, Mr. Klein, would no doubt have mocked her blue-collar, non-elitist background, not to mention her near utter lack of credentials. “What qualifications,” you’d have fulminated, “does Ms. Porter have? Has she completed a state-accredited CDL training program? Has she ever rented a U-Haul? Why, she’s probably never even ridden in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane, for God’s sake!”
But a crisis, Mr. Klein, calls for action. What’s needed isn’t eggheads with no common sense–but common folks with a good head on their shoulders who are willing to act. What’s needed is a warm body who knows which direction to turn the wheel. Before becoming America’s first President, George Washington was a tobacco farmer and land surveyor. Pretty shabby qualifications for fathering a country, wouldn’t you say? Shouldn’t he have had, at the very least, a long pedigree of studying philosophy and political science at Oxford?
When the proverbial bus is in the ditch, Mr. Klein, it doesn’t take rocket science to get it out. Or a degree in constitutional law. Just basic knowledge of the rules of the road. But that kind of lore–to bring up another Bullock film–seems to be smack dab in the middle of your blind side.