Conservatives promote anti-intellectualism

Read this terrific piece at the Talking Points Memo website (quite by accident - I was looking for something else) and just loved this comment by "FredM" - he's SO right and so concise - he took the thoughts right out of my head and covered all the highlights in just a few well-chosen words:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/dec/19/hole_in_the_head_conservatism

The Right's problem is even more fundamental than you say. In fact, they owe almost their entire success over the last quarter century to anti-intellectualism. It's been demonstrated and commented on for years that their core platform of tax cuts, market fundamentalism and corporate welfare would not earn them electoral victories, so instead they promote "values" issues and a blockbuster action movie vision of foreign policy. Indeed, Frum's own "axis of evil" meme is profoundly simplistic and anti-intellectual. For twenty five years, it's been high-concept marketing masquerading as governance. How disingenuous of Frum to deride the "just folks" populism the Republican candidates have been forced to adopt to play to the base. He is among those that conditioned the base to such brain-dead messages.