In The Company of "Dumb"

I've just discovered Christopher Hitchens. He's a writer for Vanity Fair and although I've seen him touted as a Liberal by his admirers and detractors, I find that label hard to believe. He wrote a column titled "Not So Dumb Then" in which the following appeared.

It's quite a few years now since George W Bush took down the Democratic Party's then-favourite daughter, Ann Richards, as governor of Texas.

SINCE then, he has regularly beaten every Democrat who has run against him. But this hasn't prevented many supposedly clever people from continually underestimating him.

And now look what he's done. Won the popular vote, cleaned up the electoral college vote, increased his party's hold on both Houses, while enabling a successful election in Afghanistan and fighting to hold one in Iraq. What an idiot! What a nutcase and bastard as well. He'll evidently stop at nothing.

In the UK, the Queen is the head of the church and head of state, as well as the Armed Forces - a state of affairs that is so ridiculous that many people hardly notice it. In the US, the Constitution states that the government cannot sponsor any church.

This means, and has meant for some time, that voluntary religious participation is one of the defining things about American life. As an atheist I am sorry to say it, but there it is.

It may seem regrettable to you that these pious church-goers also have the right to vote but so they do. They had it when the British were living under absolute monarchy.

And it was prayer-muttering farm-boys from Tennessee and Vermont who came over to Europe in such large numbers, bringing their various chaplains along, and did us all such a favour a generation ago.

At the time, many of the black members of this great people's army were prevented from voting but they later managed to win that right, led largely by clergymen, and are still quite loyal to their touching Sunday devotions.

Of course, I would prefer that only secular humanists and believers in Darwin had been in the front line against first fascism and then Stalinism and now Islamic nihilism but one can't have everything.

All this after musing if he should be irritated at a headline (The Manchester Guardian?) in which supporters of President Bush are called "dumb." I dunno about you, Mr. Kitchens (well actually I do because I read your article) but I really resent being called dumb by my intellectual inferiors. How do I know they're my intellectual inferiors? Because I have a really high I.Q. and the people who wrote that headline work for a newspaper. Proves it for me. (You can read in a really mischievous grin here.)

Kitchens says what really irritates him is being patronized. I'm surprised he just discovered that. Maybe he hasn't been reading liberal columnists or watching the likes of Al Franken and Michael Moore. I can paraphrase an old saying my Mom taught me: "If you can't say anything substantive, be patronizing." That seems to be the Liberal mantra...and how did the Liberals get the label "intellectual," anyway? Bill Buckley and David Horowitz (and a WHOLE bunch of others) can compete on that turf any day.

But what I really and truly loved about Kitchens' column was the statement he made about the President, "And now look what he's done. Won the popular vote, cleaned up the electoral college vote, increased his party's hold on both Houses, while enabling a successful election in Afghanistan and fighting to hold one in Iraq. What an idiot! What a nutcase and bastard as well. He'll evidently stop at nothing."

Yeah, I say with an even bigger grin. He did that. AND collected the nukes from Libya, protected the US so that instead of bombs we got a mere video tape from Bin Laden trying to affect our election, and fielded a tax cut that put a Clinton-lagging economy back together (330,000 jobs in October would have been infuriating news if we had lost the election). And more -- I can honestly say that my family is much better off today than we were four years ago. For one of our family stories, see http://www.angelfire.com/tn3/tiedemannvols. And thank you again, Mr. President.

And thank you, Mr. Kitchens. It's obvious that being in the company of "dumb" is a fine and noble place to be.