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Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.
We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.
Why do you believe Kristoff is a conservative? He is widely known for bringing to light human rights abuses in Asia and Africa. I've read several of his columns over the last few years and he does not come across as a conservative.
"An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity."
While noting that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were thinking men, George Washington was described as the least intellectual of our presidents.
And the writer's final analysis.. "Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re caught with brains in their heads."
I did not vote for Mr. Obama , but his intelligence and character are obvious.
He is also a very flexible leader. I'm enjoying watching some of his policies evolve and mature in response to events and new information.
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