Racing to the bottom

When Rick Santorum famously called Obama a snob for espousing the right to a college education, it reminded me back to when adolescents started wearing torn, homeless-people clothes and the bling and low-slung jeans of the ghetto. Although Santorum would cringe at the analogy, the message was the same: I reject your right to tell me what's good for me, even if it really is. It's a normal stage of adolescent development; in adults, it's embarrassing.

Over the years, children slowly learn the value of putting aside childish things, like calling names, bullying when they don't get their way, or not listening to people who have more reasoned ideas about things. Santorum's arrested development serves him well--he is rewarded with publicity, and has successfully worked people up who agree with him on a gut level and don't really want to think about it too much. There are a lot of people out there who firmly believe that education is elitist, who are sanctimonious about their firmly-held, uninformed, gut beliefs. I have met people like this--you cannot argue with them because they know what they know, but they don't know why because they haven't really thought about it.

I have seen enough political craziness in my lifetime to know that this man could, in fact, one day be our president. At least the kids will be happy.