Could it be? Could the Republican Party be poised to nominate a candidate with less intellectual prowess than Dubya? (And we know how Dubya’s tenure turned out!)
Or to put it another way: Is the nation ready for another intellectually challenged Texas governor who drops his “g’s?
These are not idle questions. Many of the candidates for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination openly debunk science while at least one makes doing poorly in school a virtue.
GOP hostility to science has deep roots. Last month Texas Governor Rick Perry told a young boy in New Hampshire that evolution is a “theory that is out there.” It has, he went on to say, “some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools.” It’s difficult to know what Perry meant by that remark, since teaching creationism would be a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state (see the 1987 Supreme Court ruling in Edwards v. Aguillard).
For the most part, the Republican presidential candidates don’t believe the science on global warming either. One candidate, Jon Huntsman, has taken his rivals to task on this: “The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party – the anti-science party – we have a huge problem.”
It isn’t only the aversion to science that is disturbing. Equally upsetting is what can only be called “the cult of stupidity.” Case in point: Rick Perry’s speech at Liberty College in Lynchburg, Virginia, last week in which the governor bragged about his poor grades at Texas A&M. Perry quoted the dean of the veterinary school, who recommended switching to an easier major after examining Perry’s transcript. Perry told the students: “Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me.”
The governor was telling the truth. A copy of his transcript shows he received an F in one semester of organic chemistry, a D in veterinary anatomy, and a C in animal breeding, and even a C in gym.
As for high school, Perry says proudly: “I graduated in the top 10 of my graduating class – of 13.” Perhaps that explains why it is so painful watching Perry in the GOP debates trying to put together a sentence.
Perry seems to believe his mediocre class record qualifies him to be president of the United States. Why should that be? To be sure, going to Harvard ought not to be a qualification either, but why do so many in the Republican Party believe it is good politics to make a fetish out of stupidity?
Our history is replete with politicians who extolled their humble beginnings. Much was made in the election or 1860 about Abraham Lincoln’s early life, how he was born in a log cabin and worked as a rail-splitter. But at the same time, those who fashioned the Lincoln myth also stressed the self-taught Lincoln, reading late at night by candlelight after a day in the fields on his father’s farm.
That’s not what’s happening today. At the same time as the College Board has announced record low SAT scores the governor of Texas brags about his less-than-stellar academic record. That’s not comforting in a nation struggling to compete in the global marketplace.
Call it “the cult of stupidity.” Unfortunately, the governor of Texas has earned his bragging rights.
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