Ever since the day after the election despondent Democrats have been casting their aspersions far and wide across Red America. Bush voters, we're told, are "stupid" and "ignorant". A headline in the London Daily Mirror asked the question that many American Democrats were asking, "How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?". Kerry voters by contrast are "reality-based" i.e. they are too sophisticated and smart to embrace all that religious hokem that the Bush people in their unbelieveable stupidity actually think is true. The spin on the election is that there are just too many dimwits out there voting for Bush and not enough of the enlightened crowd who voted for Kerry. The spin, however, collapses as soon as we start asking some questions about it.
Let's ask who's more stupid and who's more grounded in reality.
Is it those who believe that Kerry would have made a good leader, or is it those who in vain searched his twenty year record in the Senate for some scintilla of evidence of a predisposition to lead and an ability to do so?
Is it those who took him at his word when he claimed to have a plan for every contingency, economic, social and military, or those who asked to no avail to see those mysterious plans or to be told how, exactly, the plan differed significantly from what the President was already doing?
Is it those who believe he would stick it out in Iraq until the insurgents were defeated, or those who believed that since Kerry said that it was wrong to ask a man to die for a mistake in Vietnam and since he believes that Iraq is also a mistake, he could not be expected to ask soldiers to continue to die in Iraq any more than in Vietnam?
Is it those who believe Kerry would've been able to persuade the French and Russians to join us in killing the goose that was dropping golden eggs into their avaricious and unscrupulous hands, or those who believed that if something is right to do then it's right to do even if you have to do it by yourself?
Is it those who believed that Bush would end Social Security for the elderly, reinstate the draft, and suppress the black vote, or those who demanded evidence that any of these allegations was true?
Is it those who believed that Kerry could lower the deficit, keep all his spending promises, and yet not raise taxes on the middle class, or those who believed that this was all political posturing and flummery?
Is it those who believed Kerry's claims to piety, or those who thought these claims just as phony as his Ohio goose hunt?
Is it those who believed John Edwards' claim that he and Senator Kerry would have quadraplegics up and walking within a few years of being elected, or those who laughed in derision at such asininity?
Is it those who didn't believe any of the Senator's twaddle but voted for Kerry anyway knowing he didn't mean a word of it, or those who didn't believe it and refused to vote for someone who was so obviously untrustworthy?
Is it those who believe that anyone who refuses to go along with their sage plans to reform American society and culture is an intolerant bigot, or those who believe that it's wiser not to tinker with millenia-old institutions whose stability is crucial to our social and individual well-being?
Is it those stuck in menial jobs earning less than $30,000 a year who voted overwhelmngly for Kerry, or those who have the talent and drive to earn over $50,000 a year who voted overwhelmingly for Bush?
Is it those who received their education in blue counties where schools are often abysmal and drop-out rates are the highest in the nation, or those who received their education in red counties where public schools are often excellent and drop-out rates are low?
Is it those who paid money to see Michael Moore's patently dishonest and spiteful movie and came away thinking they'd just learned something profound, or those who saw the movie for what it was?
Is it those who based their vote on hate and spite for a candidate, or those who based their vote on respect and admiration?
Is it those who saw Teresa H. Kerry as a potentially impressive first lady, smart and sassy, or those who saw her as a self-absorbed whiner who's pretense at profundity was evidently delusional?
Is it those like George Soros who saw millions of dollars of his personal fortune spiral down the toilet of his foolish hatreds?
Is it those like Dan Rather, who, in his obsession to unseat the President, got taken in by an amateurish fraud, and, like Ahab in pursuit of the great white whale, sacrificed whatever credibility and integrity he had as a journalist that he might heroically slay George Bush's candidacy with forged documents?
Is it those who are so despondent and angry that they've cancelled family visits because their families live in red states?!
We here at Viewpoint may not be the brightest lights on the Christmas tree, but we don't think it's hard to see in this instance who's smart and who isn't and who's been grounded in reality in this past election and who hasn't.
