The Smart Vote

V reminded me about Doogie Howser's end-of-episode musings on his computer (in the MS-DOS editor, if I recall). No, this is not supposed to be like those short, naive-but-wise encapsulations of the episode's events. These are naive-but-uninformed. And not so short, either. With a tendency to ramble.

An example (two, actually) of what I'm going for is below. This isn't much like a personal diary as it is a writer's notebook. Half-baked notions and streams of consciousness that could someday, schedule permitting, make it into a 700-word op-ed. It's an exercise in developing a voice, keeping current, and get faster/better at jotting commentary. It's really not meant for public consumption, which is why it's not advertised on Blogger's directory. But the web address is still accessible from anywhere, so I don't put anything about my friends or family on it.

Andrew Sullivan nails down a phenomenon I had only recently observed:

Fantastic quote from a "feminist" activist at the anti-Arnold rally yesterday. Film producer and Codepink activist Patricia Foulkrod explained why she was so fervently pro-Clinton and so outraged by Arnold:
"The difference is that Clinton was so brilliant... If Arnold was a brilliant pol and had this thing about inappropriate behavior, we'd figure a way of getting around it. I think it's to our detriment to go on too much about the groping. But it's our way in. This is really about the GOP trying to take California in 2004 and our trying to stop it."
Ah. The principles of liberalism today. I'm constantly amazed at how so many of the new class left believe that intelligence is the supreme human virtue. I guess this is because being smart has been their own ticket to power, wealth, etc. If I had a dollar for every liberal friend who couldn't vote for Bush because he's so "dumb", I'd be as rich as Terry McAuliffe. And during the Clark boomlet, I kept hearing, "But he's so smart." As if that were a sufficient argument for electing a president. And then when you ask the same liberals if they approve of intelligence testing or whether people sould get into college on the basis of test scores, they look horrified. Go figure.


I first noticed this over the summer, when a far-left buddy got drunk and privately mused that people who don't read the NYTimes (or at least their local paper) shouldn't be allowed to vote. Or their votes shouldn't count as much. Or they should pass some kind of quiz first.

The point was, he wanted extra power because of something he does in his (ample) free time. It never occurred to him that some people don't need to know the latest CPI numbers to vote their conscience, or may not have the time or money for news commentary. And the hubris of a government-subsidized student, who takes out far more than he puts in, advocating that his vote should count for more than an overworked middle-class taxpayer -- well, that was lost on him.

I do wonder, though, if the Left would hate Bush as much if he were articulate or well-read. His advisors -- Rice, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld -- are all perceived as extremely smart but tained for serving a jock-type. If any of them had been in charge from the get-go, would their be such vitriol against the war?

Maybe not.

I'm just glad that no one in my clerkships so far has advocated anything less than the standard-of-care (equal treatment) for even the most abusive, self-destructive patients. I know it probably comes up occasionally, but I have yet to observe it.

And Wanda, Doogie's girlfriend -- what a voice she had.