Monday, August 20, 2007

Tomasky On Edwards   [Jonah Goldberg]

For what it's worth, last year Michael Tomasky got a lot of grief from his colleagues on the left for daring to criticize, very tepidly,  Edwards's intellectual shallowness. Here's the original post (it's not on Tapped site anymore, I had to find the cached version, so scroll down):

TO RUN, PERCHANCE TO READ. Was anybody else the least bit disquieted by the revelation in yesterday’s George Will column that John Edwards has apparently never heard of James Q. Wilson? Will:

Edwards, who does not recognize the name James Q. Wilson, may have missed this paradigm shift. Many people in public life, and almost all those with presidential ambitions, are too busy for the study and reflection necessary for mastering any subject.

Will is right here. Look, Wilson isn’t even a tough one. He’s extremely well known. Even George W. Bush knows who he is, having pinned something on his chest once.
One of the big problems with most politicians at Edwards’ level is that they don’t read seriously anymore. This means they don’t develop serious ideas of their own, and it makes them more susceptible to any shallow thing their pollsters and handlers tell them. It’s surely true of both parties, but it seems worse among Democrats for some reason. Maybe it’s that they almost never, ever, ever refer to anything historical (I’m sure their pollsters tell them that history is a loser). Maybe it’s just that I know the Democrats and don’t really know the Repubs, so I see it up close with them.

In any case, I was disturbed by this most of yesterday. He didn’t even know who the man is. I just wonder if this is true of Hillary (probably not), Kerry (tough call), Pelosi (almost surely so), and the others.

08/20 09:08 PMShare