A Government of Know-it-Alls: Smart People Have Their Uses, But Our Nation Doesn't Belong to Them

PJ O'Rourke:

Barack Obama is more irritating than the other nuisances on the left. Nancy Pelosi needs a session on the ducking stool, of course. But everyone with an ugly divorce has had a Nancy. She's vexatious and expensive to get rid of, but it's not like we give a damn about her. Harry Reid is going house-to-house selling nothing anybody wants. Slam the door on him and the neighbor's Rottweiler will do the rest. And Barney Frank is self-punishing. Imagine being trapped inside Barney Frank.

The secret to the Obama annoyance is snotty lecturing. His tone of voice sends us back to the worst place in college. We sit once more packed into the vast, dreary confines of a freshman survey course-"Rocks for Jocks," "Nuts and Sluts," "Darkness at Noon." At the lectern is a twerp of a grad student-the prototypical A student-insecure, overbearing, full of himself and contempt for his students. All we want is an easy three credits to fulfill a curriculum requirement in science, social science, or fine arts. We've got a mimeographed copy of last year's final with multiple choice answers already written on our wrists. The grad student could skip his classes, the way we intend to, but there the s.o.b. is, taking attendance. (How else to explain this year's census?)

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 30, 2010 1:02 AM
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