zodiac12 Mar 2005

"But Woods' critics on the right belong to what might be called the conservative elite—neoconservatives and libertarians — whereas Hannity, Buchanan, and the radio talk-show hosts are, like their most fervid followers, essentially populist. Whatever jabs they may take at the liberal media or at academia, conservative elites, like their (elite) liberal adversaries (and here I'm generalizing), harbor an underlying respect for the values of higher education, science, reason, and expertise. Conservative populists, on the other hand, more often exhibit scorn for intellectual authority altogether.

For a while now, conservative elites have made common cause, sometimes cynically, with populist anti-intellectuals. Once upon a time, the original neoconservatives — the academics and intellectuals around the journal the Public Interest — rested their critiques of liberalism on penetrating social science scholarship and attacked the left for preferring bleeding-heart sentiment to polemical rigor. But now the Public Interest is defunct, and in the Bush years, conservatism has embraced not only the familiar ridicule of the eggheads but a rejection of the very legitimacy of independent, nonpartisan expert authority. The wisdom of legal professionals, such as those in the American Bar Association, is now denied, and, since George Bush took office, no longer used by the White House in evaluating candidates for federal judgeships. Mainstream journalism, such as that in the major newspapers and network news shows, is deemed liberal, slanted, and unreliable. The faith-based belief in creationism, enjoying renewed support of late, is accorded equal (or greater) weight as the scientific theory of evolution."

- www.slate.com/id/2114713/