The Devolution of Republican Leaders

I remember when many of us thought President Eisenhower was of barely normal intelligence, because he seemed inarticulate. That was wrong, of course--Eisenhower had been smart enough to cope with Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill. He was inarticulate in public because (my theory) he was hiding a sharp personality behind a grinning boyish charm, even at age 70. That much self-censorship would make most people trip on their tongues.

Next we thought that Gerald Ford was stupid. In fact, we said, Nixon had named Ford as his Vice President because nobody would ever remove Nixon from office if the alternative was a thickheaded dunce who had played football without a helmet. President Ford was the first man of whom it was said that he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Chevy Chase achieved fame by playing Ford on Saturday Night Live as a fool who repeatedly fell over furniture and landed on his ass. Compared to some recent political leaders, though, Ford now looks like the dean of graduate studies.

George W. Bush is commonly thought to be the most stupid President in American history, although not the most stupid major candidate, who remains Dan Quayle. I once saw Quayle in person. He had a single mixed expression, fear of punishment combined with puzzlement. It was the look of a man who could not spell his own name and had been beaten on top of his gong for it. Example: when he addressed the United Negro College Fund, whose slogan is "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," Quayle said, "You take the UNCF model that what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."

But Quayle is a paradigm of informed wisdom compared the what the Tea Party has coughed up on the lawn in the last two years. Now we are down to slobs set on ending contraception on the grounds that having sex once every nine months more than meets their copulatory needs. They wave Confederate flags, stare with hogs' hungry eyes, and tell you slavery wasn't so bad. After 2010 they rode into Washington, two to a mule, on saddles made of recycled toxic waste, determined to destroy the federal government, sack the world economy, and reverse events that had once taken place at Appomattox Courthouse. They live in an alternate universe composed of twaddle.

It's enough to make you wonder why democracy failed in Athens, replaced by an oligarchy of wealthy families, unless that sounds familiar.