Why GOP embraces simpletons and how it hurts America

Mr. Bush's 2006 reading list shows his literary tastes. The nonfiction ran from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, LBJ and Genghis Khan to Andrew Roberts's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900," James L. Swanson's "Manhunt," and Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower." Besides eight Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Mr. Bush tackled Michael Crichton's "Next," Vince Flynn's "Executive Power," Stephen Hunter's "Point of Impact," and Albert Camus's "The Stranger," among others.

Fifty-eight of the books he read that year were nonfiction. Nearly half of his 2006 reading was history and biography, with another eight volumes on current events (mostly the Mideast) and six on sports.

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/article/SB123025595706634689.html

 

Then perhaps we should've flooded the place with SW videotapes instead of wasting ungodly billions on a fairy tale program that everyone involved--except perhaps grandpa Reagan--knew was an utter impossibility.

And the Soviet Union was already bankrupt, and its demise already an inevitability by that point. The notion that it was Reagan's brilliantly wasteful spending that made it happen is largely right wing mythology.

And that's about as far into that off topic rabbit hole as I'm interested in descending.

 

Mizzou - I get sensitive about one thing and one thing only: Ad hominem attacks. When it comes to ideas or current events, let if fly. I'll never get upset about that. Never.

 

Is it irony or sarcasm that Newt has a Phd in modern European history, a liberal art. BTW he was not a Professor,"..in 1970, Gingrich joined the history department at West Georgia College as an assistant professor. In 1974 he moved to the geography department and was instrumental in establishing an inter-disciplinary environmental studies program. Denied tenure, he left the college in 1978.Fifteen years later, in 1993, he taught a class, Renewing American Civilization, at Kennesaw State College in Georgia.

-Wiki

While he was getting his BA, MA and PHD, between 1965 and 1971 he dodged the draft. As in he actively avoided serving.

 

I don't think you have any idea how difficult it is to get into Harvard Law School. The margin for error is razor thin. Now, maybe the admissions process isn't the same then as now, but today, if you're below a 3.8 GPA and a 174 LSAT score or so, make alternative plans. And your pedigree, undergrad degree, and real-world experience won't save you.

 

I wonder what in the hell Newt did that kept him from being tenured there. I would assume no great research productivity was required. I imagine getting along with your colleagues was critical ... hmmmm, maybe that would be the answer.

 

The proxy wars of the 1980s - which included the war on drugs - were some of the worst decisions made in the last 40 years. Reagan lunched with a war criminal more than once.

Of course, Reagan didn't really "make" those decisions, just as he didn't "make" the morally outrageous decision to trade guns for people. He didn't know about most of those decisions until the die had already been cast. I don't call that a strong leader.

 

George W. Bush also said "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" was his favorite children's book, which was an odd choice given the fact that it was published while he was a senior at Yale.

In short, I call bullshit on that list.

 

I like Romney. I think he's intelligent.

Do you think he's smarter than Gingrich?

 

It could have been a book that he read to his kids.

 

Gore was a pot smoking, divinity school drop out, who suddenly gets a job with the house organ of his daddy's political machine, and I'm supposed to believe this was some career choice he made? He earned this job?

http://bit.ly/vFQvRF

The kid needed a job. Daddy got him one.

 

Correct. It was a typo.