The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> LEARNED MEN WANTED br> Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s The Stature Gap : /p>

In response to Mr. Tyrrell's question, "Why do public servants and public thinkers not attract the esteem they had in earlier eras?" I have a suggested answer.

Could it be that public interest has been overwhelmed, finally and completely, by political interests? As the substantive positions of the Democrats and Republicans become ever less distinct, what use is there for a sage who will take the broad view of a philosopher? What is called for are expert "spinners" and attack dogs such as James Carville, who can hardly be confused with a sophisticated thinker in any positive sense of the term.

I see such Republican "stalwarts" as John McCain cozying up to Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold. I see our President padding his pockets all these years in search of his lost veto pen. I see Republicans and Democrats tripping over one another to be first to announce some proposed legislation that focus groups have shown to be likely to translate into votes. I see more winks and nods than at TGI Fridays on a late Friday night.

In short, the business of government has dropped all the remaining facade of principled leadership in the public good. Of what use are broad thinkers who can only cause an outbreak of troublesome deep thought among the diminishing portion of the electorate so capable? In these days when the internet grants a forum to any pestiferous thinker with access to a computer, it's more useful to have on board someone accomplished at demonizing such malcontents than it is to breed even more pests in house.

In the case of our President, he has surrounded himself with persons who have somehow managed to keep alive the preposterous perception that he's a conservative. The Democrats are hamstrung by the fact that the leading lights of their political philosophy, such as Karl Marx, are not only dead, but retain an unacceptable aura of going just a bit too far. As a result they have to put up such charlatans as John Kerry, who might have done better, had he had access to the political assassins so prominent in the legacy of the Clinton White House.

I fear that Mr. Tyrrell's question fails to go far enough. Not only is deep thought disfavored in the public sector. I think we must consider whether it can survive at all.

Look for an accelerated push by both parties to rein in free speech on the Internet, "in the public good," of course. See the McCain-Feingold-Cochran Campaign Reform Bill, reining in free speech in the form of campaign contributions, as a possible template. Although the FEC recently declined Congress's invitation to take the next step, I can hardly imagine that thought in the public interest, publicly expressed, is safe.

p>No politician has to place or keep on staff anyone who engages in such perfidy. That, I suggest, is why public servants and thinkers are no longer found in public service, but are relegated to the blogosphere and out of the mainstream websites (among whose number I count TAS

topics:
Taxes, Education, Trade, Health Care, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Mainstream Media, Economics, Business, Entitlements, Social Security, Medicaid, Religion, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, NATO, Immigration, Oil, Medicare