On Nov 4, 2007, at 7:05 PM, Michael Pollak wrote:
> Yes. But it's based on education not on riches.
No, it's based on family and cultural affinities. In the right- populist handbook, it's ok to be rich as long as you're not a snob. Snob = effete = intellectual. ("An effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals," as Safire had Agnew say.)
> And in this case, once you see it's based on education level (or on
> the
> habitus that goes with it), the mystery of how they could pin it on
> Kerry
> and not on Bush disappers. Based on riches, they're the same.
> Based on
> education, they are wildly different.
Huh? Bush and Kerry were a year apart at Yale. They were both Skull & Bones. Kerry went to St Paul's and Bush to Andover, so Kerry wins the snob race on that one. Bush has a Harvard MBA - I don't think Kerry has graduate education. Kerry's mother is from the Forbes family, whose blood is pretty blue, but the Walkers and the Bushes are pretty hematologically blue too. On paper they're pretty much the same then. Kerry spent time in France. He acts like a bit of a wuss, even if he did go to Vietnam. Draft-dodger Bush acts like a shitkicker, which Michael Lind says isn't an act but which sure seems like one to me.
Doug