Wednesday, October 01, 2008

 

Paul Campos--Typical Elitist

I've noticed in my long life that the guys and girls who went to first tier schools, Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the like, usually don't denigrate others who attended schools without the reputation their schools enjoy. However, the second tier school attendees, of, for example, the very good state universities, almost always look down on people who didn't attend first or second tier schools. Paul Campos, in an article which at least touches on such fatuous elitism, criticizes Sarah Palin for her life and her school choices. He looks down on Sarah Palin, one of the fifty people, out of 300 million, who are the chief executives of a state, something Campos couldn't do if he put a gun to his own head.

Campos writes of Alaska's Governor.


Palin has spent almost her whole life in a very small town in a sparsely populated and extremely isolated state. For reasons that remain obscure, she attended five colleges in six years where, if her public performance to date is any indication, she seems to have learned nothing.

Let's test my theory from experience. Where did Campos go to school? University of Michigan-- good school, but not Harvard or Yale (Michigan Law School, which Campos attended, a classmate of Ann Coulter, is absolutely first rate).

Yep, true to form. Extremely isolated Alaska? Well it's not the sophisticated well spring of culture the upper peninsula is, but it's such a high standard.

Governor Palin is to the snobby elitists some sort of near frozen hillbilly. I've not yet heard her say there are 57 states or that the President in 1929 was Franklin Roosevelt appearing on TV, but of course Obama is Occidental, Columbia, Harvard Law (two out of three ain't bad) and Biden is University of Delaware, Syracuse Law so in Campos' and other nabob's eyes they are OK. They're smart. They have what Campos thinks is necessary for the office, that is, they are "vastly more educated and knowledgeable than the average American."

Palin is the only one running for high office with any executive experience. That doesn't matter to the elites. She's from a small town in a state with more square miles than people, and she went to third (or lower) tier schools. She's an idiot. QED.

It is a little funny that President Bush (Andover, Yale, Harvard Business School) is supposedly the same sort of dunce as Palin, at least compared to such intellectual giants as Al Gore (flunked out of Divinity School) and John Kerry (who had a lower grade point average at Yale than our President).

Every time I write about Campos it's because he's crossed a line from his usual dull and uninformative to stupid and/or hate filled and each time I write about him, he's worse than the time before. I try follow Christian teachings and not hate people, but isn't there an exception to that rule for hateful people? There ought to be.

Labels:


Comments:
Based on his own admission during CNN forum at Columbia University , Obama said this:
"It's easy for me to go to Washington and frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have," he said. Obama, meanwhile, also mocks his own job in response to the same question. "We yak," he said, while small-town mayors work."

Mark Dunn
 
Yep, true to form. Extremely isolated Alaska? Well it's not the sophisticated well spring of culture the upper peninsula is, but it's such a high standard.

That's funny.
 
When, over the next 33 days will you admit that Sarah Palin as Vice President is a joke?
 
Let me see if I have this correct:

A supporter of Joe Biden is complaining that Sarah Palin is a joke?

Please tell me that you have a second job working for The Onion, 'cause that's hilarious right there.
 
Rog,

For once I agree w/ Campos. The fact that some of our politicians who went to elite schools and were not stellar academics is proof of my corollary to the axiom we were told when we arrived at law school: people who get A's become law school professors; people who get B's become judges; people who get C's become lawyers.

The first corollary is that people who get D's become politicians.

John Kerry got poor grades at Yale because he was three sport varsity athlete and who knows waht else. George W. Bush was a DKE I think and who knows what else. Neither of these two guys were sweating jobs after graduation.

In my opinion, George W. Bush pickled his brains on alcohol and other stuff but that was after Yale. Also in my opinion, his retreat into religion did not help his intellect.

So far as governors as president go, we have seen a mixed bag: Carter was poor; Reagan did a good job; Clinton did a good job; Bush has done a poor job. So executive experience on the state level is no indicator of ability.

I do not care if I viewed as an elitist. Perhaps naively, I expect our leaders to be better than I am.

In 1982 Sarah Palin enrolled in Hawaii Pacific College and left after a semester. Then she transferred to North Idaho CC for 2 semesters. Then she transferred to the University of Idaho for 2 sememsters. Then she attended Matanuska-Susitna CC for a term before returning to te University of Idaho for three semesters and completing her BS in Communications-Journalism in 1987.

I am certain there are cogent explanations for her educational journey. But let us admit that one thing she is not is either an academic elite or a graduate of an elite institution.

Pardon Paul Campos and me if we recognize this.

T
 
So Obama is back to all-time highs on intrade and Palin is rated twice as likely to be withdrawn as Biden is.

Not good news for the GOP
 
If asked by debate moderator, and future best-selling Obama historian, Gwen Ifill about his education, an anonymous source said, “Joe might struggle to explain how he graduated in the top 50 percent of the bottom quarter of his law school class after earning half of a full academic scholarship based on financial need.”


Little Sarcasm for you people.

Mark Dunn
 
Andy, I'm with Doug.
T, you're admitting your an elitist who agrees with Campos in this. Wow. Just wow. Kit liked to call CC from time to time, the Stanford of Colorado. I assured her once that we rarely called our school the Colorado College of California, so at the risk of being elitist myself, you're being true to form looking down on Palin's schools. I don't, but that's perhaps because I was lucky enough to get in one name school and know that the reputation is actually no big deal. But look how little value just going to elite schools matters to the left. Andover, Yale, Harvard Business School and he's a moron. Kerry did St. Paul, Yale, BC Law. Not the same arc as Bush and Kerry's the intellectual giant. Bush, whom I don't defend, got better grades as a 4 year cheerleader and a 3 year varsity (though club) Rugby player plus all his duties as a DKE president. Kery got worse grades while debating and being active in Hockey, LaCrosse, Soccer and Fencing. No wonder his grades suffered. Anyway, I'm still shaking my head at the PDS symptoms you're showing.
Mike, the polls and intrade are bleak, bleak, bleak, but Kerry was about this far ahead last time in October and he lost big. I'm still bracing for President Obama after about a month's vacation from that fantasy/nightmare.
Mark, two good comments. Keep 'em coming, man. Hope you're well and getting through this rough patch OK.
 
Joe Biden is a blowhard of the first order, no doubt. A joke of the Democratic Presidential race? Sure. The best pick of the litter for running mates? I don't think so. I am hardly a Joe Biden supporter.

Having said that, do you think that Sarah Palin would ever have been taken seriously as a Presidential candidate for the Republican party? Laughable! Not because she can't play the political game, but because she is massively unqualified . . . to be a Governor. Please don't make beer come out of my nose by telling me she is qualified to be in the position of VP.

Oh, and here are a few choice articles on the Onion about Palin.

This one says it best.

Please, tell me with a straight face that you think that John McCain used his best judgment with this choice.
 
Rog,

"PDS?" Is that Palin Distress Syndrome? I had to figure it out as when I Googled it nothing surfaced. Is that a cute Conservative blogger acronym? Cute like Palin winking at the camera last night while she robotically recited her debate bullets.

T
 
Tony,

robotically reciteing talking points ?

Wow.....you guys really are scared shitless.
 
Andy, yes. He needed to get Christian Conservatives to get excited about the campaign and that suceeded brilliantly. He introduced a neophyte prodigy into the big leagues. Even if he doesn't win, which is looking likely just now, he's done the country a favor by making Palin a player in the future, if she wants it.
T, you probably thought Biden displayed a lot of discipline to stay with the battle plan of tying McCain to the hated President, but it's only Sarah Palin who 'robotically' stayed with her game plan. You reveal yourself, like Andy, and it's still not pretty. I do have to report that I did not remember the context of Kit bringing up the Stanford of Colorado thing. She was reporting on a t shirt she saw and she hated it. So the contest was negative about that. Sorry for mis-reporting her opinion.
 
So is it your prediction Roger that if McCain loses, Palin returns in 2012 as the odds on favorite to win the nomination?

How does Sarah Palin really feel about George W. Bush? She seems to have thrown him under the bus. She used blunder at least twice to describe actions under his administration, and maybe saved putting the nail in the coffin by saying "all administrations do", but I wouldn't say she is much of a fan of W. So is she a straight shooter on this or is it just politically expedient?

And, you and I have gone back and forth on Global Warming - spirited debate indeed. However, after agreeing, seemingly wholeheartedly, that GW is without a doubt happening, she gives the absolutely mystifying answer that it doesn't matter what causes it, let's just stop bickering and find solutions to the problem. How do you find solutions before figuring out the cause?
 
Who said anything about 2012? I think it's political expediency due to Bush's unpopularity. Is there a 'solution' to a natural cycle? We can, if it keeps on getting warmer, shade the Earth with a very thin mylar sheet slighlty darkened a couple of hundred miles up. We can sequester carbon in a number of ways if that is indeed the problem. I think putting aerosol particles into the air would be tricky and a little dangerous, but it might work as well. Other things to increase the albedo of the planet? Lots of things to do, if necessary.
 
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