M was smart. My high school graduating class valedictorian. We knew each other, but other than gym, she wasn’t in any of my classes. Only once did we have a one-on-one conversation and that was in our senior year. A rainy day when we were stuck in the gym locker room with nothing to do. As these times often go for me, we began sharing what we had been reading for pleasure.
M monopolized the conversation and I politely listened. Kept expecting her to move on to a book or magazine that we both had read or at least one that interested me. I’d been reading Camus and Harper’s, and working on my lines for a little theater production of The Night of the Iguana (which was of zero interest to M). Her pleasure reading passion – and she was passionate about it – was contemporary romance novels. Instead of smart, she sounded dull. And boring.
Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Rand Paul remind me of M. Labeled smart and academically impressive. Then they open their mouths without a script.
Paul was admitted to medical school after five semesters of college. Apparently because his MCAT scores were at the top. Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton (presumably on the four year program) and magna cum laude from Harvard Law. Then there’s Tom Cotton:
Harvard College, AB magna cum laude 1998 (graduated in three years)
Claremont College – 1998-99
Harvard Law, JD, 2002
clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, 2002-2003
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher – 2003-04
Cooper & Kirk
US Army – January 2005-09
McKinsey & Co. – 2009
I’ve known and worked with many attorneys. Most not graduates of prestigious law schools. All were intelligent to highly intelligent. (With one exception, but that seemed to be due to aging and/or alcoholism and not his Harvard Law degree.) I’ve also worked with a few McKinsey & Co folks who ranged from bright to wicked smart. Not one of them would ever have received an assessment of his/her work product like this one:
Reluctantly, Rep. Cotton withdrew his amendment when basically everyone on the Committee informed him that he is a dumb, ridiculous piece of shit and a complete embarrassment to the entire state of Arkansas, and even to Congress. The GOP Committee chair basically laughed in his face and told him to go blow a goat.
His amendment?
Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would “automatically” punish family members of people who violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, levying sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
…
Cotton also seeks to punish any family member of those people, “to include a spouse and any relative to the third degree,” including, “parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids,” Cotton said.
“There would be no investigation,” Cotton said during Wednesday’s markup hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Can Harvard Law revoke a JD? With his “Iran letter,” Harvard might want to consider revoking his AB in Government as well. Or perhaps Cotton should demand a refund because he didn’t get an education. Although he did pass the AR bar exam and was admitted on 4/9/03
Cotton on Face the Nation today wrt Iran:
They already control Tehran and, increasingly, they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad. And now, Sena’a as well.
Duh!
The Atlantic has some choice bits from Cotton’s senior thesis.
Men who seek national office, Cotton wrote in his thesis, are the most ambitious men, seeking the headiest sort of power over a nation’s commerce, finance, and affairs of state. Self-selection ensures that they have “a superior intelligence compared to the unambitious and to the lesser ambitious.” This does not necessarily mean that they are wise, he notes, but “it does imply some amount of sheer, raw brainpower. National officeholders will all possess something akin to shrewdness, cleverness, or perhaps even cunning.”
As sophomoric as that reads, do wonder if his thesis and law school papers could withstand a close scrutiny for plagiarism. Particularly in light of the high probability that AIPAC wrote “his” Iran letter.
Will let Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station take it from here: The Second Coming of Richard Milhous Nixon
…
We haven’t lost enough of America’s future in the Middle East.We haven’t bled enough.
It’s never enough for these sons of bitches.People like Senator Johnson, they walk past those 58,220 names inscribed on the cold black granite of the Vietnam Memorial, they can see it, they can touch it, they argue over the endless appropriations for war and its terrible aftermath, trillions in blood and treasure, bills they can not afford to pay and that they have mortgaged our children’s future for, they have their noses rubbed in the futility and the utter criminal waste of it all every single goddamned day and it’s still not enough for these insane fuckers.
It will never be enough. Never.
…
Great diary!
○ Tom Cotton from Arkansas – part I plus LTE NY Times – 2006
Shocking coming from not just a lawyer but a Harvard Law “educated” lawyer isn’t it? While possibly not a majority, I’d guess that a large portion of the non-lawyer public would recognize that it’s unconstitutional or have a strong sense that there was something very wrong about the proposal.
I too have encountered a number of very smart people who are incredibly stupid and blinkered when what they desire clashes with decency and/or reality.
Any of your readers who have yet to make Jim Wright’s acquaintance should read the whole piece cited and quoted. Now. Then explore his archives.
More and more these days I feel as if I’m living through a 21st century equivalent of the fall of the Roman Republic.
My education in world history wasn’t strong enough to sense a return of the fall of the Roman Republic. But if it had been, wouldn’t that mean that this country is in for a couple more centuries of continuous decline?
(I try not to urge readers to click on links to other articles that I think are worth reading. Those inclined to do so don’t need any encouragement. Plus, I’m lucky if more than you and a few others bother to my diaries.)
Rome went on for several centuries after Caesar Augustus turned the Republic into an empire in form as well as function; its imperial decline is what Gibbons addressed (“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”). It’s the period before his takeover that concerns me; a time of deepening factionalism, hollowing out of the republican structure of governance, increasing irrelevance of the senate, eventually outright civil wars and show trials of opponents as soon as they were out of office — no, we haven’t gotten to such outright breakdowns yet, but when half the American polity and its leadership regard the other half as not legitimate participants in government, then we are headed down a dark road indeed.
The US turned the corner from a Republic to an Empire some time ago. Perhaps we were always and Empire but processes aren’t always obvious in real time.
This country was birthed in factionalism. The degree to which comity waxed and waned blurred out a lot of that. There have been physical brawls in Congress and we have had a horrendous civil war.
when half the American polity and its leadership regard the other half as not legitimate participants in government, then we are headed down a dark road indeed.
Been down a few of those dark roads before. While perhaps not as blatant in recorded documents (so much easier today to get everything down in print, stills, and video), a few other Presidents weren’t viewed as quite legitimate. I never saw GWB as legitimate, did you?
Certainly the American westward push of settlement and dispossession of the natives was raw colonialism; I’d say the term imperialism applies more correctly when we started shoving our noses into the affairs of other sovereign nation states, starting with our southern neighbors and expanding from there to the present worldwide bootprint. Rome also was colonialist and imperialist in those senses (though they were far more honest about their intent being plunder and power) for centuries before the republic was made irrelevant by the Caesars and their successors. The inflection point, though, for “Roman Republic” versus “Roman Empire” would be Augustus’s assumption of power; that’s when “imperator” became a lifetime gig (however short that might prove to be) rather than a temporary, senate-bestowed title and power.
Of course, historical parallels are never neatly aligned; one might better call them recurring themes.
As to legitimacy of the sitting president, I’m 66 years old and reasonably well read in history, and the fervor with which this president is delegitimized (birth certificate? college transcripts? et bloody cetera) is unique in my experience, certainly far beyond whatever question attached to Dubya. I did not regard the electoral process that put him in office as legitimate, but once there I would never have expected Democrats to have shown the insanely unrelenting opposition and intransigence the GOP has shown Obama. More opposition in certain areas? Yes, if only they had! But explicitly setting out at his inauguration to make him fail, as the GOP did to Obama (at a time of economic calamity, no less)? No.
You are quite correct, we have been down some very dark roads indeed in the past, including a civil war; I just have some bad feelings about where our current dark road is going.
My take on how much nonsense they had to resort to in their attempts to delegitimize Obama is more optimistic than yours. It was no less relentless than what we saw in the ’90s, but two differences between then and now.
The GOP was forced to modify their attack strategy with Gore. He too was basically clean. So, they parsed and made up shit. Repeated in 2004 with Kerry. Both of those efforts left just enough glimmer of doubt in the minds of just enough people to defeat Gore and Kerry. And IMHO, it wouldn’t have been successful against Gore if not for the attacks on Clinton for eight years.
Had Clinton or Edwards won the nomination in 2008 — they had their attack plan on the shelf and ready for use. They weren’t prepared for Obama and had to scramble. I’m not even sure they concocted the birther and college transcripts bs. (Wasn’t college grades raised as in issue for Gore?) Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to learn that those and the Rev Wright matter was crafted in the Clinton camp. (Recall that it was team Dukakis that initiated the public charge of plagiarism against Biden in the early stages of the 1988 race and led to him dropping out months before the Iowa caucus.)
The reason for my optimism? Obama won with a solid majority in 2008. After four years of attacks he was re-elected with a majority — and the drop-off in his support had nothing to do with the rightwing attacks. I’d say that it’s getting more difficult and not easier to sell slop. The average American is learning how to read this type of propaganda for what it is.
The swift and negative response to the “Iran letter” is confirmation of my observations and speculations.
Where I’m not optimistic is that the Democratic Party elites intend to respond to the general welfare needs of the public. They are comfy being DINOs — don’t have to think hard or do much other than shave off a couple of rough edges of GOP proposals and then declare “it’s a good deal for Democrats.” And a majority of the Democratic electorate still can’t see through this bs that is no more than twenty years old and with some devastating results.
I certainly hope your analysis is more valid than mine!
Practically, in the real world, not much difference between yours and mine. Driving down the same road and merely questions of how many pit stops to make, what color glasses to wear, and how soon we reach the intended destination.
Oh, gee, thanks; now I’m depressed all over again.
There’s that risk. OTOH, my morbid curiosity demands that I hang around for a while and watch the great unraveling or unfolding. Expect there will be survivors, but it will be a surprise as to who they are.
Cotton’s first Senate floor speech:
Godwin’s Law, Tom. Not Harvard Law material, but only a total dweeb wouldn’t know it. You’re out.
But I believe these are examples of people whom are plenty intelligent but grossly immoral. None of these quotes or actions are intended to be reasonable or reasonably analysed; this group know perfectly well where their power is founded.
This is the consequence of “safe” Republican seats where only the primary determines the outcome and challenges arise from the miasma of the xenophobic Right. Occupancy of one of these seats seems predictable opportunism for those whose intelligence significantly overhangs their principles. Their cynicism is nakedly apparent to the rest of us; and they couldn’t care less.
Tend to disagree. They aren’t immoral geniuses playing “eleven dimensional chess” for their personal gain in power and wealth. They aren’t even intelligent enough to recognize that their “principles” are anti-social and narcissistic. Their intelligence is narrow and they overvalue that so much that it blinds them to what is obvious to an ordinary person. Cotton is genuinely flummoxed that “his” “Iran letter” bit him in the ass.
How many times have Dr. Ben and Rand been told to walk back stupid shit they’ve said? Stuff that as physicians they should have known better than others was stupid. It’s possible that they knowingly say stupid stuff because they lack of political skills (all of these guys are newbie pols) and believe all stupid stuff sells well. However, manipulative conscious liars are also adept at quickly modifying the pitch when an audience isn’t buying the stupid schtick. Watch that video of Cruz falling flat on his face. He was lost.
Successful con-artists in private moments of honesty have revealed that the easiest mark is another con-artist. An observation that Warren Buffett has made: “If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”
There seems no downside to playing the ‘long con’ on the wilfully ignorant whose xenophobia and racism trump their own self interest.
Only in certain regions with a very long tradition of feeding on xenophobia and racism instead healthful and nutritious fare.
It’s why those folks can’t absorb the fact that a black man is POTUS.
That’s a nice way of putting it, Marie; I have other adjectives for these areas.
But this is why I qualified my original comment to “Republican seats where only the primary determines the outcome.” All of your diary subjects’ seats seem to fit this description, IQ notwithstanding.
What my superficial comment didn’t adequately convey is that culture/traditions move slowly or change little in certain regions. For example, there’s a long tradition of families being Republican in the midwest and upper midwest that culturally shares little with the southern neo-Republicans. The Lincoln through Teddy Roosevelt Republicans that didn’t shift their political affiliation much with the New Deal even if they favored or benefited from those policies. The Republican Party from its inception was always a mixed bag — one part for the 1% bankers and industrialists, one part for the small farmer and entrepreneur, and one part for ordinary progressives wrt to education and welfare. Democratic Party politics varied by region. Workers and unions where the industrialists ruled, and racist/fascists in former slave states. Took a great depression to knit together enough of the public to focus on a more equitable distribution of wealth.
But as the Old Testament repeats over and over again, the old gods don’t die and the people relapse and worship them anew.
That’s a charming idea but I’m thinking this ain’t your great-grandpa’s GOP no more.
Hasn’t been for a hundred years, but old habits are passed down to new generations and die out very slowly.
wrt political affiliation, the south flipped, without looking back, more quickly than anywhere else except VT.
Would be remiss in not mentioning that the fasted demographic voter flip with no looking back was that of African-Americans. Traditionally Republican. Until 1948. Key to Truman’s win and one reason for Gallup’s polling screw-up.
Not in the least surprising when one contemplates how crucial their need to make clear-eyed realistic assessments of every situation in order to survive. Unlike Midwest whites, say, their margin of error has been and still is razor-thin.
The thing is that they had some assistance in seeing clearly. Strom bled off southern white votes from the Democratic Party. And Truman did something tangible wrt to the existing second-class status of African-Americans that foreshadowed other legal/legislative moves the could be made.
Republicans have been playing mid-western white voters the way Democrats once played southern white voters. Divide through fear and conquer. The bedrock of fear was the same in both instances — economic and status losses. Reconstruction cemented the fear as a racial issue in the south. De-industrialization, decimation of unions (beginning in 1948), and jobs moving south and off-shore with no answer (often collusion) from Democrats did it in the mid-west.
Charlie describes him better:
Funding Tom Cotton for his senate seat from Arkansas …
○ Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel Spends Big on Rep. Cotton
○ Fundraiser for Tom Cotton includes the Adelsons for pro-Israel stance
○ Tom Cotton stars at the billionaire Koch Brothers’ Summit
h/t Mondoweiss | Neocon meteor Sen. Cotton is funded by Abrams, Adelson and Kristol and loves war a little too much
This was covered several days ago – a comment in the 47% Have No Decency diary thread. Not that this funding is unique to Cotton which is why it didn’t occur to me to pull that info forward to this diary.
Would like to whack this mole, but must be careful not to play whack a mole.
Aaron Schock resigning amid cloud of ethics questions. More likely cloud of criminal activities. Let’s see the feds go after this guy and his associates with the same vigor that they went after Rep Jesse Jackson, Jr.
A bit from Charlie on this brainiac: Schock And Awe: The Esthetic Limits Of Conservative Grifting
Moral? Don’t grift above your pay grade.
interesting
He actually tried to introduce legislation for an attainder of the blood? Shocking. I mean shockingly dumb.
He did. And unlike you or me, he’s a graduate of Harvard Law School. An institution that wouldn’t have considered the likes of me for admittance.
I learned that phrase in eighth grade. In an Illinois public school.
That was a long time ago. In Il and not AR. Back when it was perfectly legal in AR to deny those born with black skin the legal rights and economic privileges enjoyed by white folks.
It would have been 1958 or 1959. I forget which semester. Yeah, ancient history. Back when teachers instead of politicians determined what was taught.
It’s sad that our motley old brick building with the black iron fire escapes was an institution of learning that apparently tops today’s private schools. It wasn’t perfect, however. We did have our child predator shop teacher.