Minnesota is home to the Center of the American Experiment, a think tank that describes itself as "a nonpartisan, tax-exempt, public policy and educational institution that brings conservative and free market ideas to bear on the hardest problems facing Minnesota and the nation." Its current president, Mitch Pearlstein, regularly contributes editorial columns to local newspapers, and I rarely miss an opportunity to respond with a letter to the editor. Over the years two or maybe three have been published, the most recent last March, when I wrote, in response to this:
"So many reasons for Mitch Pearlstein to be pleased with himself! He disapproves of Ann Coulter! He has a biracial daughter! He knows the meanings of hard words like 'alliteratively' and 'larboard'! On a subsequent descent from Olympus perhaps Pearlstein will explain how he decides where to draw his lines of disapproval.
"He's 'not too thrilled' with Coulter, but she's gotten rich selling her schtick to dolts who mark their ballots as he marks his. He boasts of never having invited Coulter to address his think tank, but he's invited others who fawn on her.
"Lacking the powers of discrimination possessed by these demigods, I find it convenient to revile them all uniformly."
There are millions like Pearlstein, but there is something about his I-am-sir-Oracle manner that really rubs me the wrong way. It is as if he's emulating Richard Perle: the overfed smugness, the heavy fragrance of self-satisfaction, the intellectual pretension--he's angling to be despised, so why disappoint him? I'll admit that, along with his sidekick Katherine Kersten, Pearlstein is my bete noire. Here is his most recent contribution to the local paper's editorial page, and my likely unpublished response:
"Last time I read a Commentary by Mitch Pearlstein, he was mincingly criticizing Ann Coulter for having called John Edwards a "faggot." Now, in his latest effort, Pearlstein whines that Republicans (who rule at the White House, the Supreme Court, and, until recently, in both Houses of Congress) cannot make their voices heard over the bullying liberals on college campuses.
"Someone should explain to Mitch that if Republicans would cooperate with these 'boarish' [sic] attempts to muzzle them, he would not feel obliged to apologize, however backhandedly, for the outrageous and stupid things they keep saying."
Predictably, the Powerline punks--add them to my list of despised things--hold Mitch in the highest esteem. I guess the "intellectual supremacy" of conservatives does not extend to knowledge of the boar-boor distinction.
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