Saturday, August 13, 2005

You'll be hungry an hour later . . .

There has been a lot of liberal wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Center for the American Experiment’s new website Intellectual Takeout. Spotty says that it will actually provide endless hours of entertainment in the college classroom.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, and that may include most of you, the Center of the American Experiment is an aquarium of bloviators who are not employable anywhere else, a sheltered workshop for conservatives, so to speak. In the fifteen years or so of its existence, the roster of the un- or underemployed conservatives who have taken refuge at the CAE is impressive.

The CAE is bankrolled by a group of wealthy benefactors whose commitment to the welfare of this discrete and insular minority is impressive and commendable. Characteristically modest, Mitch Perlstein is quoted as saying:
This was my idea, said Pearlstein, a writer and president emeritus of the center. It has nothing whatsoever to do with running errands for the wealthiest people in the United States.

Spotty thinks he seems kind of defensive.

The Center has recently announced its new website, Intellectual Takout, as an antidote to liberal bias on college campuses. It is supposed to provide intellectual ammunition for tongue-tied conservative students who want to engage their contemporaries and liberal college professors in Meaningful Dialogue. Moon balls for Pete Sampras are more like it.

Spotty would love to be around when gems like this are declaimed:

Oh yeah? Well Ronald Reagan single-handedly defeated Communism.

Jesus would have supported the war against Iraq, because he hated Muslims.

Huge and growing income inequality is good, because the poor will only spend their money on low value-added items like food.

Just remember grasshoppers, it is never good to go into a battle of wits lightly armed. Our young conservative friends may think it will be helpful to be equipped with a one-page defense of say, the existence of the Easter Bunny. But Spotty says that speaking up will just expose you to more ridicule.

Spotty’s recommendation is to find a nice conservative little Bible college somewhere that won’t challenge the things your Mommy and Daddy have told you.

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