September 22, 2022

"Mr. Walker, I believe you when you say that you’re not smart.... You are the personification of a game being played by Georgia Republicans..."

"... a wager that any Black Republican — in your case, an empty intellectual vessel — can beat the Black Democrat, a man who is thoroughly qualified and utterly decent. Walker is Georgia Republicans’ attempt to undermine the image of Black competence, by making a mockery of Black people, by replacing a thinker with a toady. It seems clear to me that Walker will inflate or deflate his intellect to fit a function. The truth is irrelevant. This is at the heart of Trumpism."

Did Hershel Walker say he's "not that smart"? Yes. He said it in the context of managing expectations for the debate: "I’m this country boy, you know. I’m not that smart. And he’s a preacher. He’s a smart man, wears these nice suits...." 

Like Walker and his Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock, Blow is black. He's endeavoring to make Walker's blackness different from Warnock's blackness. The black Democrat is "thoroughly qualified and utterly decent," but the black Republican is "a mockery of Black people... a toady." Democratic party politics is decent and Republican politics — at least in the Trumpian form — is completely insincere. 

Blow stops slightly short of calling Walker a complete nothing. He's not an "empty vessel," but an "empty intellectual vessel." I don't know what an "intellectual vessel" is, but I think he means Walker is a vessel that is empty of anything intellectual.

But we'll see how Walker debates. It's actually just very conventional to characterize your debate opponent as glib. A "preacher," "a smart man," in "these nice suits" — it all sounds like old-time-y language saying watch out for the fast talker, the con man, and see my limitations as somehow good. I'm humble and honest. 

Walker offered a line for anyone to snap up: "I'm not that smart." That seems like red meat for racists, but I'm only seeing how a black NYT columnist used it.

ADDED: If you google the phrase "I'm Not That Smart" — which I did to see how others were reacting to Walker's line — your results will be dominated by a song — a highlight of the musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." It gave me an unexpected and delightful escape from the grim racial politics of the Blow column. So let me just point to the off ramp:

101 comments:

Buckwheathikes said...

Charles M. Blow is a smart man.

He knows the opinion he must have and espouse if he is to continue being employed by the New York Times. It's nice up in the big house.

RideSpaceMountain said...

Do you see how high-brow it is? How utterly and completely suited to the NYT and their readership?

The NYT and their readers would never stoop to just out-and-out calling someone an 'uncle Tom'. Too low-brow for them! That's cotton-picker language, and Charles Blow doesn't stoop for a bowl, no siree! Why say in two words what massa prefers in paragraph form.

Dave Begley said...

We've seen how "smart" Black politicians have actually performed in office. Look at the failed administration of Barack Obama. He was the President of the Harvard Law Review; apparently an elected position.

Walker is in touch with the people. He has common sense. He's rich and famous. He doesn't need this job. I think he will do the right thing for the people of GA and the nation.

Most importantly, he won't vote with Schumer, Whitehouse, Warner, Murray, Gilibrand and the other far Left Senators out to destroy America.

And Charles Blow sucks!

Dave Begley said...

For Seamus.

Blow sucks.

AlbertAnonymous said...

We’ll, it’s Charles Blow. ‘Nuff said…

Wince said...

And who thought he was "smart"?

"I can handle things... I'm smart! Not like everybody says!."

RMc said...

It's OK to be racist against Blacks, but only if they're the Wrong Kind of Black (tm) and you're also Black.

Aggie said...

Blow is the kind of guy that just needs to keep on, a walking-talking Democratic signpost.

BudBrown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

The hit is out on blacks who don't think whites are the enemy.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

A non-politician who showcases humility. we can't have that!

Blow can blow it out his ***

CJinPA said...

"Charles Blow is racist."

I don't know if he actually is, but this is how the game is played, right? Republicans better play by the rules or get out of the game. The rules state that this is when the candidate calls the critic "racist."

Mike Sylwester said...

This morning, Steve Sailer posted an amusing blog post about the issue that professional-football coaches are disproportionately White although the players are disproportionately Black.

Did that racial disparity happen because coaching football is more intellectual that playing football?

Sailer presents Herschel Walker as an example. Walker was a great player, but he has not become a coach. Is Walker, because he is Black, not smart enough to become a coach?

Sailer then lists a series of Washington Post articles that argue that Walker is remarkably stupid.

=======

Herschel Walker’s anti-tree campaign is genius
George Washington may not have chopped down the cherry tree, but he should have.

By Dana Milbank

-----

What Herschel Walker’s clueless campaign says about the GOP
Would a GOP-run Congress dominated by fools be any different from a smarter one?

By Paul Waldman

-----

If Herschel Walker wins in Georgia, America will have lost its mind
The Senate candidate beats Trump for mendacity and serene ignorance.

By Eugene Robinson

-----

Herschel Walker’s insulting campaign is the worst kind of sports idolatry
Some sports stars are deserving public servants. Herschel Walker, on the other hand, is embarrassingly unqualified.

By Kevin B. Blackistone

-----

Senate candidate Herschel Walker questions evolution, asking, ‘Why are there still apes?’
The statements mark the latest eyebrow-raising comments by Walker, who has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump and other leading Republicans.

By Felicia Sonmez

-----

Herschel Walker Tests the Importance of ‘Candidate Quality’
If he babbles his way to a win, we all lose.

By Frank Bruni

-----

Herschel Walker Says He’s ‘Not That Smart.’ I Believe Him.
Walker is attempting to lower the bar of the upcoming debate so low so that anyone, even Walker, can clear it.

By Charles M. Blow

=======

Sailer's blog article embeds the links to all those Washington Post articles about Walker's supposed stupidity.

Enigma said...

Mr. Blow: Now write a parallel story about Democrat Rep Hank Johnson and his fear that Guam would flip upside because too many people were on the island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjG958lZ1KI

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The old “dumb Republican” trope! How fresh of Mr. Blow!

Kai Akker said...

If that columnist had had a few more ounces of intellect in his own vessel, he would have written 'intellectually empty vessel' and had the adverb work properly to modify the adjective "empty," thus making his meaning clear.

But, being a toady and an intellectually empty vessel himself, he couldn't get there. Nor could his editors. Could they all be toadies and intellectually empty vessels?

Which newspaper was this from, again?

Howard said...

This reminds me of a punchline from the joke about Confederate IQ test questions: How 'bout them Dawgs

narciso said...

Walker is not smart enough to be for Fidel and Hamas, that who warnock is a terrorist sympathizer in a nice suit,

Kevin said...

Thankfully for the current crop of US Senators, "smart" is not a requirement for the job.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Wow - A NYT columnist is anti-Republican candidate.

We are all so shocked.

Beasts of England said...

I wish Bo Jackson would run for the US Senate in Alabama. I mean, if we’re going to have a senator associated with our lesser SEC school, I’d prefer it to be a Heisman winner.

Kevin said...

OK Blow, now do John Fetterman.

Or is that outside your assignment because it's outside your race?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Wisdom is not held in high esteem by progressives because they have to perpetuate the myth that only “experts” and technocrats can really understand complex issues. In America we used to call it “common sense” but it was really accumulated wisdom and it was common because we encouraged thinking and skepticism. Walker has more than enough intellectual capacity to debate Warnock. I hope Mr. Blow tunes in with an open mind: he’ll be surprised.

Mr Wibble said...

I'm just a simple country lawyer...

Krumhorn said...

I never miss an opportunity to point out that the lefties are such nasty and toxic little shits.

- Krumhorn

Kevin said...

The truth is irrelevant. This is at the heart of Trumpism.

-- The border is secure.

-- Inflation is zero.

-- This trillion-dollar legislation costs nothing.

It would seem a lot of untruths are blowing right past Charles.

Sebastian said...

"He's endeavoring to make Walker's blackness different from Warnock's blackness."

Correct. So what's new? There's good black and bad black. Been that way for, oh, half a century.

"But we'll see how Walker debates."

Actually, I prefer not to.

"see my limitations as somehow good. I'm humble and honest."

It's his best shot.

The game being played by GA Republicans is trying to win with a black Trumpist candidate to neutralize the blackness of the Dem candidate. But the only person fit for the role was indeed an intellectually empty political novice, unable, as far as I can tell from this distance, to articulate any coherent policy views at all. Maybe GOP identity politics will succeed, but Georgia righty voters took a big risk. Here's hoping the debate gets low ratings.

hawkeyedjb said...

The job of a junior senator is to vote the party line. That is what Warnock does and will do; it is what Walker will do. It has nothing to do with "smart." It has to do with which party has the majority, and nothing else.

Achilles said...

What these "intellectuals" have done is define what "smart" is.

In this case "smart" means:

1. Open Borders.
2. Massive inflation.
3. Climate Change Cultism.
4. Rampant Crime.
5. Brian Sicknick blood libels.
6. Russian Collusion Hoax.
7. Kavanaugh Rape Hoax.
8. Starting Wars all over the world
9. taking bribes from China
10. Exploding Rent prices
11. Housing price collapse
12. Doubled Utility Bills

John henry said...

I'd like to see the full context of the "I'm not that smart" line but I hear stuff like that all the time.

Didn't Obie the Magnificent say say something similar a few years ago about abortion? I think the line was "It's above my pay grage" but it is very similar.

Or People saying "I think that (insert thing here) but what do I know. I'm just a UW grad."

Big Mike said...

... a wager that any Black Republican — in your case, an empty intellectual vessel — can beat the Black Democrat, a man who is thoroughly qualified and utterly decent.

Anyone else wonder why Blow writes “Black Democrat” instead of naming Raphael Warnock? Could it because of his spousal abuse and misuse of campaign funds? The end of the sentence is a lie: Warnock is neither qualified nor decent.

Ceciliahere said...

According to Charles Blow and the left-wing democrats, it doesn’t matter if a Black person is smart or not. If you are Black and Conservative, you must be destroyed. Blacks are not to be allowed off the leftie’s plantation.

TrespassersW said...

Wait. Blow is saying Warnock is a "thinker?"

William said...

Now do Futterman.....Walker was better at football than Blow is at writing columns. There are some real moral deficits in Walker's character, but he's in pretty good physical shape. He'll probably be the healthiest person in the United States Senate. In our representative democracy shouldn't we have at least one physically fit human being in that august body.

Gusty Winds said...

Charles Blow is black, so it's ok for him to call another black man stupid.

Once you get used to the rules, they're not that hard to follow.

dbp said...

Warnock may have a higher IQ than Walker, but Walker is definitely smarter than people like Patty Murray or Maisy Hirono. These latter two are fine for their very blue states, just as walker is a better fit for a state like Georgia, which is far more red than blue. Warnock is a straight down the line leftist: No restrictions on abortion, would be perfectly happy with a complete ban on firearms, no work requirements for welfare, no border enforcement, etc.

Amadeus 48 said...

Walker is smart enough to reject the racism inherent in the Democrat Party. Warnock and Blow are just workers on the plantation.

William said...

Benjamin Carson was a lot brighter than most people. He was well spoken and had a moral presence and quiet dignity. I'm not that familiar with Charles Blow's writing, but the guess here is that Blow wasn't particularly welcoming to any of Carson's ideas or presence on the public stage.

JRoberts said...

Charles Blow considers himself (and by extension, Raphael Warnock) to be capitol "C" persons of color.

Herschel Walker is merely a small "c" person of color.

JRoberts said...

Charles Blow considers himself (and by extension, Raphael Warnock) to be capitol "C" persons of color.

Herschel Walker is merely a small "c" person of color.

Charlie Eklund said...

What’s this fresh baloney…that a person must possess intelligence to serve in the US Senate? Since when? So many US Senators that I’m aware of seem to best fit the description “dumb as a bag of hammers” that I thought possessing an-above-average-level of apparent stupidity was practically a Constitutional requirement to serve in that body.

Joe Smith said...

Wow...Blow outs himself as a typical racist democrat. Maybe he'll cover the race on the ground and spend his off time standing in schoolhouse doors.

Warnock is a race-baiter and grifter who uses the cover of clergy as a shield.

His ex-wife accuses him of failing to pay child care expenses, and others have accused him of stealing from a charity.

Sure, only accusations. But democrats play this game all the time. Let's have an investigation before the election...

Temujin said...

The thing about people like Charles Blow is that they cannot understand, and will not accept that a Black person- man or woman- could look at their life, look at the facts around them, and decide that being a Conservative is better than being a regressive. That they can look at what the Democrats say and do and prefer what the Republicans say and do. It's beyond fully indoctrinated racists like Charles Blow to give any individual credit for independent thought if that independent thought has them leaving the Plantation of the Left.

In this, Blow is not alone. There are hundreds of Black leading voices who are nothing more than either grifters, making money on race hate, or useful idiots, parroting and backing policies that clearly- by the evidence of ones own senses- are destroying Black lives in America. That you can vote for your own destruction is on Blow, not on Walker. That Blow berates Herschel Walker for his faith, his demeanor is on Blow. Walker is who he is. Those voting for him know he is not Stanford grad. But he is a man of his own convictions. Vote for him based on that, or not. For the record, Warnock is no Einstein either. More of a grifter, which makes him a perfect fit for politics.

DLNE said...

A politician saying they are "not so smart" is, well, not so smart.

madAsHell said...

Blow is an unusual name. I wonder how it was earned?

Joe Smith said...

And yes, I realize who Blow is...black people can be racist against other blacks. They put themselves 'above' others who they see as 'race-traitors.'

They associate with the white, liberal 'elite' and gain power, money and prestige by being attack dogs; doing (and writing) what whites can't, for obvious reasons.

Blow is the kind of guy who thinks football players are lunkheads. He is still hurting from being picked last in a playground basketball game as the only black guy playing.

Ice Nine said...

Hershel Walker had a B average in school.

retail lawyer said...

Charles Blow is never interesting.

Iman said...

Tell it like it is, Walker. Warnock’s a far-left extremist.

JK Brown said...

Seems like Blow is seeking to call up the old differences between W.E.B Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. I'm not going to claim to fully understand the "argument" but Thomas Sowell discussed it in his 'Black Rednecks and White Liberals'. Du Bois promoting academic education for "the talented tenth" and Washington pushing more vocational type education. The words Blow uses seem to be calculated to exploit this fissure between antebellum 'free blacks' and freed slave families. Being from small town Georgia, Walker may be seeking to use this with the "smooth talking preacher" label for Warnock to his advantage.

hombre said...

Speaking of toadies, Charlie Blow is the quintessential toady, wedded to the party line and absolutely predictable.

Warnock is a grifter, double dipping his Senate salary and stipend from his church. He is also a party man. It is no tribute to his or B!ow's intelligence that they have endorsed relentlessly the Democrats' economically and geopolitically illiterate efforts to destroy the country.

n.n said...

A sarcastic retort that blew past a condescending Blow. That said, 50 shades of Kenyan elite vs deplorables, which is likely to resonate with people.

Lurker21 said...

Are we still waiting for "Unfrozen Caveman Senator" or have we already had a few of those already?

You can be as sleazy as you like and still qualify as "decent" in liberal eyes if you have the right progressive views. Even if you discount his more radical utterances, there are serious question marks over Warnock's conduct in his relationships and his finances. Generally speaking, I'd assume that politicians are not especially "decent" and have a skeleton or two in their closet. Too much talk about a politician's decency or probity or honesty makes me suspicious. I give you my word as a Biden on that.

"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." -- Emerson

tim maguire said...

Sometimes Times readers surprise me with their ability to see through the Times' BS, so I went to the comments to see if they saw through the game being played here by the Times' house negro. They did not.

Did they at least see how the game Blow is playing conflicts with the games Democrats are playing elsewhere, such as in the PA senate race. They did not.

Oh well. They are Times readers after all.

Jupiter said...

I think you mean Charles M Suck?

traditionalguy said...

Herschel speaks like a good trial lawyer who is speaking to a standard issue jury of good high school graduates. The point is those people are always being told that they are not as smart as College Graduate aristocrats. But their common sense has always been smarter than those.

In Georgia the black baptist church industry’s self appointed “Bishops” are treated as elite Black Community leaders who must be obeyed. Herschel is pointing out that although Bishop Warnock is claiming title to that status, he ALWAYS sells out his power over them for cash money payoffs to him. And that is accepted. But Herschel now is saying Trump and Walker already have money and can offer the Black Community new thing: a team that serves the middle class instead of cash bribed Bishops.

Herschel Walker plays on teams that win. Good luck to the smooth talking Bishop Warnock.

gahrie said...

Charles Blow supports the party that defended slavery, imposed and enforced Jim Crow and today confines most Black people to urban ghettos full of crime, failure and despair. He has the audacity to imply that Walker is an ignorant Uncle Tom?

Wa St Blogger said...

There is only one thing that Blow evaluates in nay person. There is only one characteristic that matters. Is that person a Republican. All other characteristics are then fungible. Low IQ democrat would be lauded for some other characteristic. You could have a white catholic child-showering liar, and they would be more upstanding than a black Republican.

Shorter Blow: That person is a Republican, they they are bad.

D.D. Driver said...

"Walker is in touch with the people. He has common sense."

😂I spit out my coffee.

The wife beating Russian Roulette guy? This is what passes for common sense in Trump's GOP. The Alabama pedophile and now this? Trump's vetting procedures are as weak as his election fraud claims.

Leland said...

Lots of smart people in history treated others very poorly. I don’t know how smart Warnock is, but I know how he treats his own family. I don’t know why people would expect Warnock to treat them better than he treats his family.

mccullough said...

Saying “I’m not that smart” is good politics.

And The Best and the Brightest have wreaked havoc over the past 30 years.

How’s that military and police recruitment coming along? Inflation? Debt? Immigration?

Yancey Ward said...

Warnock is as dumb as a fencepost. So is Charles Blowhard.

Lurker21 said...

Walker may do okay with Black men. There's always been friction between women who love the slick preacherman and men who are suspicious, sometimes with good reason. It's there in other communities, but not so sharp or intense.

Unknown said...

"That's cotton-picker language, and Charles Blow doesn't stoop for a bowl, no siree!"

Blow-boll-'bowl'. ICWYDT.

pacwest said...

Oz and Walker. Inexplicable. If both win it would be testimony of Trump's political power. But, what the hell was he thinking?

Josephbleau said...

The best rule is that if you go around telling people how smart you are, you are not very smart. Violators of this rule are on both sides of the political spectrum.

Yancey Ward said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Yancey Ward said...

I have heard Walker speak in interviews over the years- he isn't dumb- I can tell you that much with certainty. He is smartly managing expectations, something that is easy to do versus Democrats since Democrats always claim to be smarter than Republicans.

RNB said...

I remember Warnock's first TV commercials during his race against Kelly Loeffler. (Another empty [pants-] suit handpicked by the Georgia GOP leadership.) He said absolutely nothing about either his philosophy, policies, or current (Then --) situation. (He is pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, a very prominent position to African-American Georgians.) Mostly he recounted that he had been discriminated against in school -- because his last name begins with a 'W.' His current ads either 1) tell voters what goodies he will give them, 2) make hyperbolic claims for what he has already done during his short time in the Senate (reversing climate change), or are very nasty.
.
Herschel Walker is a former football star with excellent name recognition. But he is smart enough not to get on a debate stage with the Reverend Warnock.

Achilles said...

pacwest said...

Oz and Walker. Inexplicable. If both win it would be testimony of Trump's political power. But, what the hell was he thinking?

Trump got millions more votes than any other Republican candidate in history for a reason.

It is a reason that political junkies like us have trouble understanding.

My hypothesis on this is that Trump is choosing to support candidates that connect to people who have been left out of politics in this country.

The people on this board still cannot figure out why Trump got 75 million votes and Desantis will never clear 65 million and will be uncompetitive in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

It is a huge blind spot for you people.

Mike said...

Having had the misfortune to read Charles Blow's columns on occasion over the years, I can confidently say that Charles blows chunks--as the playground euphemism goes.

He's the Times's resident Black columnist who can be counted on to spew progressive and liberal pieties while pushing the Times's line. He's not much of an original thinker or "intellectual vessel" but he says what's expected of him.

rcocean said...

Charles Blow is never interesting.

He's even duller than bob Herbert. An almost impossible feat.

smartsy said...

We're all pretending that Blow is intellectually honest and that the NYT is a newsworthy publication to read.

Why do people embrace this pretend game?

rcocean said...

Blow is intelligent? Yeah, i suppose. When compared to Mr. Average American IQ 100.

Compared to other nationally famous pundits? Not so much.

rcocean said...

The R's nominating affirmative action Blacks for state office is interesing, because blacks still vote for the D's in large numbers. Walker won't get more than 15 percent of the black vote.

So why do the R's do it? Simple, its the althouse vote.

Michael K said...

The wife beating Russian Roulette guy? This is what passes for common sense in Trump's GOP. The Alabama pedophile and now this? Trump's vetting procedures are as weak as his election fraud claims.

The "Alabama pedophile" just won a big lawsuit against somebody who used your slur about him. You, of course are suit-proof and have no assets so it's safe to spread libel. Warnock has his own troubles so we will see if the GA voters will elect a grifter, wife beater.

Rabel said...

I expect Blow's column will shift the Black intellectual vote in Georgia away from Walker.

Joe Smith said...

'Saying “I’m not that smart” is good politics.'

It comes off as humble and folksy.

walter said...

Warnock likely has an impressive pants crease. What say you, Brooksie?
As for intelligence, there's the curve decimator Hank Johnson.

PM said...

Mr Blow is not supporting a candidate simply because he's black. It's a step in the right direction. Enough First Black this...First Black that. Unfortunately, Blow's the only Times' op-ed writer who could attack the intellectual prowess of a black candidate without being called a racist. That part is still fubar. In the main, I find Blow to be idiotic. And I read his stuff all the time.

Michael said...

Warwick is the house Negro, Walker the field hand. That is Walkers appeal

hawkeyedjb said...

Will said...
"Since when is intelligence a prerequisite for the Senate?"

Good question. A body that has had both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as members cannot be relying too heavily on intelligence as a requirement.

Tina Trent said...

It will come as a surprise to him, but Charles Blow is no James Baldwin; legislative elections are about platforms; qualifications are disputed generalities; Mr. Walker is far from the first candidate to be elevated based on a reputation for something other than debating acumen, and there is nothing the Republicans can do to debase identity politics that the Democrats haven't done a million times over.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

set up so he looks like he is getting bullied by a guy much smarter than him. Good ploy
,falls flat, the man has been hit in the head too many times in general.

Scotty, beam me up... said...

In a close race in Georgia, Walker is talking to his fellow Georgians and not patronizing them like Warnock. By saying he is not “smart”, not a preacher, and not dressing in expensive clothes like Warnock, he is talking directly to the common person. He is also setting a trap for “journalists” like Blow by setting the bar low for himself by being humble while setting the bar artificially high for Warnock. Like Blow, journalists will repeat Walker’s “I am not that smart” line. Walker will then go out and blow away the expectations of the Georgia voters when he gives speeches. Meanwhile, Warnock now has to live up to expectations that he can’t attain and all he has left is to brag about how he voted for these bills that are economically crippling Georgians and Americans in general.

M said...

Raphael Warnock is in no way decent.

pacwest said...

My hypothesis on this is that Trump is choosing to support candidates that connect to people who have been left out of politics in this country.

And mine is that Trump got 75m votes because he not only exposed the left's idiocy, but actually proposed smart things while running and then followed through with them. That is what made him "popular".

Turnout is everything. I question the wisdom of supporting a Forrest Gump caricaturization. Walker is undeniably a popular figure in Georgia, but "gee whiz" isn't going to drive turnout. Voters are not stupid. (...OK, go ahead and have fun with that one.) They want people that can execute. That's why Trump got more *legal votes than any candidate in history. Walker has Trump’s coattails. I wonder if that is enough. If, as Althouse says, Walker is making a feint with his I am not a smart man act and thumps Warnock by suprising voters with his erudition somewhere later color me suprised and happy.

*Aside: DD Driver, do you really need an explanation of illegally run elections yet again?? It didn't seem to take last time.

takirks said...

Look around you. Examine, in detail, the world that "the smart" have built for us.

Are you really all that sure that "smart" is a positive thing?

I used to take pride in the fact that I was demonstrably "smart"; I do well on all the tests, and the sort of self-referential BS demanded of the "smart" in school comes very easily to me.

However, before the sort of self-delusion common to all too many of our "intelligentsia" set in, I had some slight contact with reality, and being as I am teachable, I learned from that experience: Smart ain't necessarily a good thing. In fact, I have come to believe that "smart" is a positive menace to society, because it enables all sorts of delusional types to gain power over the rest of us, for them to further emplace unworkable "solutions" for problems that anyone with that rarest of super-powers, common sense, could see were unworkable before they were implemented.

I wouldn't mind so much, but as I told a local political type the other day, as he was doing door-to-door canvassing, the demonstrated inability for these creatures of purest "intellect" (self-defined, mostly...) to actually learn from experience and then effectively use what they learned to modify their actions out here in the real world, where nothing and nobody pay attention to those vaunted credentials they all keep on their "I Love Me" wall displays that they invariably have somewhere to bolster their fragile egos.

No, Herschel Walker saying he "isn't smart" is not a detractor; if anything, that would make me more likely to vote for him. The ones you really need to watch out for, and probably should cull from the population, are the self-assured "smart guys" that think they know it all, and who will tolerate no questioning whatsoever of their credentials, inherent virtues, and rights to boss the rest of us around "for our own good".

Smart is as smart does, and if you want me to go along with your egotistical preening, then you'd better demonstrate "smart" out here in the real world where I can see it. So far, that criteria leaves out about 99.9999% of our "educated elite", from where I sit.

Gunner said...

Dems are on record basically saying they prefer a guy with brain damage in PA so that he can just be a vote for their side. How can they then attack a non-brain damaged Republican for a similar strategy?

Dr. Graphene said...

Ann, is it too over-the-top to say that I think Charles Blow is a racist? I've read his columns periodically over the years, so I know he's not that bright.

Wilbur said...

madAsHell said...
Blow is an unusual name. I wonder how it was earned?


You just know that on the grade school playground he was Chuck Suck. That would explain some of his anger issues.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Does Blow have a comment on the trust-fund hoodie pro-crime and pro-criminal had-a-Stroke and can barley communicate white democrat running for senate in PA?

I'm guessing no.

Mind your own business said...

Doesn't Blow know that we tend to elect the least smart people we can find to Congress? It's a national tradition.

Iman said...

“The wife beating Russian Roulette guy? This is what passes for common sense in Trump's GOP. The Alabama pedophile and now this? Trump's vetting procedures are as weak as his election fraud claims.”

Well they call him dd driver
Once he taps a couple of keys
He’ll blow a toad
And he’s gone!

walter said...

Gunner said...
Dems are on record basically saying they prefer a guy with brain damage in PA
--
They put the same in the WH. But Joementia has better Juicers.

RMc said...

It's OK to attack Black people and call them stupid, if the attacker is also Black and the attacked is the Wrong Kind of Black (tm).

Howard said...

Our NFL Moron isn't any more incompetent than your Skinhead stroked out drooler. Neener neener neener.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Sio Charles Blow is so stupid he can't recognizing self-deprecation?

And then this moron wants to tell us why the other guy is "really dumb"?

JAORE said...

They want people that can execute.

So, tell me how well Warnock has "executed" while in office.

pacwest said...

So, tell me how well Warnock has "executed" while in office.

He was elected by a left majority of voters that supported the Democrat's agenda and he has fulfilled that role. I don't remember him promising to bring home the bacon. If so he has failed at that.

(I was referring to Trump supporters btw)

realestateacct said...

Warnock's ex-wife says he abused her and that he ran over her foot with his car. Not sure how this qualifies for decent.