{pic by ElDave}

Paul M. Weyrich, one of those poorly educated hate-mongers who qualify as deep “thinkers” in conservative circles, finally died on December 18, at the tender age of 66. For decades, Mr. Weyrich was a tireless crusader for blind bigotry, compiling a lengthy resume of accomplishments that demonstrated just how small-minded he truly was.

He is most famous for coining the term “Moral Majority” in 1979 to describe those al Qaeda Christians who long for a new Dark Ages of Biblical tyranny in the United States. But, even before than momentous under-achievement, he had done plenty of social damage. In 1973, he used the inherited millions of Right Wing sociopaths Richard Mellon Scaife and Joseph Coors to create the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC, anti-think tank that even now asks that most intellectually poignant and politically relevant of questions: “What would Reagan do?” When the Heritage Foundation proved to be insufficiently conservative for his Inquisitorial tastes, he created the Free Congress Foundation to launch holy war against homosexuals, feminists, and cultural Marxists.

The man who warned that the Equal Rights Amendment would force Christian girls into unisex bathrooms, who opined that the 2004 election of George W. Bush was an act of divine intervention, is gone. But his legacy of self-righteous delusion and hate lives on… unfortunately.

{pic by hoveringdog}

Of the many reasons that conservatives hate Barack Obama and his incoming posse, perhaps the dumbest is that, well, they aren’t dumb enough. As the Washington Post’s Alec MacGillis notes, conservatives are apparently outraged that Obama will populate the White House and federal agencies with too many people who not only went to universities like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, but actually had the audacity to excel in their studies. This is, of course, anathema to conservative ideologues, who insist that, if you must attend prestigious universities, you can at least have the decency to earn poor marks—like soon-to-be ex-President George W. Bush.

From the conservative perspective, performing too well in the classroom, especially on an Ivy League campus, is proof of near-treasonous sycophantic snobbery. The Weekly Standard’s Joseph Epstein, for instance, claims that people who get good grades in Ivy League schools do so only by regurgitating whatever their liberal, feminist, socialist, communist professors want—in slavish devotion to empty personal ambition. He juxtaposes this with the example of a truly “great” president such as Ronald Reagan, who attended Eureka College in Illinois and went on to famously proclaim that “trees cause more pollution than automobiles do” and “facts are stupid things.”

In conservative circles, ignorance is a virtue and a source of “regular guy” street cred. This is to be expected since conservatism is based on the notion of unquestioned truths: the One True God blessed the United States (but not France), the soul enters a human zygote exactly at the moment of conception, the earth is flat and located at the center of the universe, etc. People who always ask questions and look for evidence (intellectuals, academics, heretics) are not only tiresome, they are morally suspect. That’s why the Bush administration relied so much on ideological purity rather than competence in filling so many crucial posts—and then completely bungled the reconstruction of Iraq and the response to Hurricane Katrina, among several hundred other self-inflicted disasters…

…And that’s why former presidential candidate John McCain chose a base-mobilizing fool as his vice-presidential running mate.

…And it’s why a second-rate actor with the intelligence of a house plant was transformed by adoring conservatives into a “visionary” president who single-handedly brought down a Soviet Empire he probably could not have located on a map.

{pic by Irene Roxanne (aka Irena Kittenclaw)}

It is reassuring to know that half-witted right-wing uber-celebrity Sarah Palin is in no danger of disappearing from the political landscape anytime soon. Yesterday, she hit the campaign trail in Georgia to support the runoff election campaign of Senator Saxby Chambliss—the Republican troglodyte whose stand on issues both foreign and domestic illustrates a devotion to the kind of misogynist machismo, racist xenophobia, and ruthless U.S. exceptionalism that so enthralls his party’s base. Acknowledging her appeal to his most devoted constituents, Chambliss gushed to FOX that Palin “truly is a rock star.”

Regardless of how Chambliss fares today at the hands of Georgia voters, rest assured that Palin will continue to resurface like an especially virulent form of multi-drug resistant political pathogen. In addition to the cornucopia of television, film, and book offers through which she is currently wading, it is no secret that Palin has her sights set on the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. Although some progressives fear this prospect, I welcome it. Palin did invigorate the Republican Base in support of John McCain back on November 4, but only at the expense of “independents” who might have given the limp McCain campaign a shot of political Viagra. If she takes the helm of the Republican Party four years from now, chances are she will ensure its continued marginalization. Evangelical Christians and other poorly educated conservatives love her, but—fortunately—a majority of the electorate (albeit a relatively slim majority) finds the stupidity she displayed for Katie Couric to be less than charming.

Long live Palin!