Saturday, November 06, 2004

Projection 103: It's Not Cool To Be Smart

Brooks has projection nailed:
But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.
I am endlessly fascinated by this torrent of liberal projection. No sooner do they get done saying the problem was all about Republicans as being simple-minded illegitimate brutal killers of Iraqi babies since there were no WMD [Saddam? Who's that? -ed. I thought there was something about someone "reporting for duty"?.] but we learn that it was actually all about gay marriage! Forget what we said about WMD!

It's spelled P-R-O-J-E-C-T-I-O-N.

I was quite comfortable with the Iraq war resolution listing *over 20* reasons for toppling Saddam. In fact, I thought the list was too short. It's the libs who insisted on one!

And who still insist on one. Just not the same one this week. Maybe it'll be back in style next week.

It's not cool to be smart.

(Hat tip Glenn)