Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

If our age has a word, it's asinine. We just got through an epochal debate over which of five mediocrities would win a pile of base metal at a spectacle where would-be sex objects wore designer beanbags, and an equally epochal debate over how many would watch it. We just had riots over cartoons. The president of Iran is auditioning for a revival of The Gong Show. The president of Venezuela is auditioning as a sidekick for a certain drunk morning talk-show host. A certain drunk morning talk-show host caused a constitutional crisis among NEWS HACKS when a certain megalomaniacal news reciter went on his air "drunk." All of these are asinine, and more. We have asinine Democratic "leaders" uttering stupidities at the top of their lungs and basking in the face time. Most pundits and bloggers are asinine. The regulars at The Corner DEFINE asinine. The whole age is asinine.

Happily, not everyone wishes to be asinine. Take our president. He is not asinine. What he is, however, is something else. He is our president. So was Washington. So was Lincoln. So was FDR. He could not stand in a room with any of them without having to rush out, his tail between his legs. Midst the Founding Fathers he'd be honored to be a bootblack. "LACKEY!" the impatient Founders would yell at him, as he messed up their papers. Con-SER-va-tives will scream, "He's an MBA from Harvard!!" To which one could note, 1. Since when has learning buzzwords been a virtue? and 2. What did Bill "Mr. Bach B-Minor Mass" Buckley say about that skool? No, in an asinine age, he is beyond asinine. And in that we have the leader we deserve.