Michael Barone showing off his brains

I only have a couple of seconds, right now. But I do have one or two things to say about the pitifully self-pitying wannabe intellectual Michael Barone.

Michael wrote this pathetic pro-Andrew Jackson - you mean the same Andrew Jackson who slaughtered all those Native Americans and embarrassed himself in the White House, so much so that the Founding Fathers could hardly believe that such an ignorant asshole could ever take up residence there? That's the one - anti-Obama/pro-Clinton/pro-McCain piece in this week's U.S. News and World Report, the bastion of thoughtful argumentation, that stinks of all of the bullshit, self-deceiving, self-pitying "I'm tough, therefore I don't really need to be as smart," whining that has come to characterize Michael Barone's writing.

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Michael Barone's writing always stinks to high heaven of both self-pity that intellectuals don't recognize the giant intellect that he does not have and of partisan deception. And this piece is no different. He pretends to be a moderate. Really he is a conservative. He pretends that he is trying to be even-handed. Really his pieces are always pretedermined in their outlook almost without exception. He pretends that he is an academic. But his anti-intellectual bias is borne out in almost every piece he does where he talks about academics. And he pretends that he has more to offer intellectually, because he paid all that money to go to Harvard and Yale, when really he just very little original to say.

Michael carries this enromous chip on his shoulder in almost everything I have read from him. I almost want to feel sorry for him if he wasn't such a dick.

"I really am smarter than all those people who are smarter than me. I really am one of the great intellects of my time. Come on guys. Give me my due. I am really am smarter."

OK, Michael. We heard your whine. We hear it every fuckin' time you write any two words. It's never really all that hot. Hard America, Soft America is one long argument for why all those soft academics just really don't understand the world like Michael Barone. It's the most pathetic form of self-glorification I have ever seen or read.

Michael thinks if he holes himself up in his own little intellectual cocoon then he will not have to deal with all the disagreement that he encounters, especially that of those who are smarter than he is. Hence his obsession with tough in lieu of smart. Because there's got to be some reason that all those smart people don't like my arguments.

It couldn't just possibly be because they're weak.

It's the saddest and most pathetic spectacle in the known media world. A grown man who can't engage honestly those who disagree with him, pretending that it is because he is so tough, when really it is because he and his arguments are so fuckin' weak.

Grow a fuckin' spine, Michael. Engage all those smart people. Who knows? You might just learn something.

But if you don't, Michael, when they don't like your arguments, it's not because you're conservative. So are Milton Friedman, E.O. Wilson, David Gergen, Francis Fukuyama, Fredrick Kagan, John Keegan, and a million other really brilliant conservative thinkers. And it's not because you're tough. Tough minds engage the debates, like grown ups. It's only weak minds that try to whine their way out of the discussion.

It's because you're not all that brilliant.

And you'd be better off trying to get smarter.

Buck up, little soldier. Tough guys know when to engage a fair debate. Self-pity and weasling your way out of the discussion is for the weak. I know you're stronger than that. So cut it the fuck out. Because you're wasting your goddamn time with these weak-ass arguments and trying to pass them off as deeper and more thoughtful than they are.

And if you don't, so sorry that people don't like your arguments.

Maybe it's because they aren't all that strong.