I know that criticizing Newt Gingrich is so easy it's almost unfair, but today in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen--an otherwise worthless hack--unwittingly showed us how ignorant Gingrich really is.
New Gingrich is a college teacher. A college history teacher. Bear that in mind when I quote him and then give a little background.
Newt Gingrich, according to Cohen, said on the Today Show of Sarah Palin: "She's the first journalist ever to be nominated, I think, for the president or vice president, and she was a sportscaster on local television."
Now, I'm not a college history teacher--though I did major in Amercan History in college--but I knew without even looking it up that the 1920 presidential election featured two journalists heading the two major party tickets: James M. Cox, the governor of Ohio and Democratic nominee for president, was a newspaper reporter. He also owned and edited newspapers. And on the Republican side, Warren G. Harding, U.S. Senator from Ohio, was also a newspaper man. He owned his hometown newspaper, the Marion Daily Star.
Now I know this isn't a big deal by itself, but Newt Gingrich holds himself up to be one of the leading conservative intellectuals today. It's because of people like Gingrich that the common wisdom in this country is that the conservatives are the thinkers, and conservatism is the intellectually rigorous strain of political thought, while liberals are hidebound and wedded to discredited old ways of thinking.
If a leading conservative "thinker" and college history teacher doesn't even know the basic facts of U.S. presidents, like what they did for a living, then why do conservatives get credit for being serious thinkers? As picayune as this fact seem, we ought to slam Gingrich for his ignorance of American history. He teaches college students about history. He has a PhD. Shouldn't he know a little something abut his own political party's presidents? It isn't like 1920 was even all that long ago. There are people alive today who remember it.
Sure, I know, I'm making a big deal out of something small. And I know I'll hear about it in the comments. But it just bugs the hell out of me that such ignorant fools get taken seriously in this country. I for one think we ought to pound Gingrich over this.