Oh Anointed Ones, Tell Us What To Do and Think

Being so much smarter and wiser than everyone else on planet earth, or atleast in America, this received wisdom from Walter Cronkite and Studs Terkel shows the self-anointed elite starting to lose it. Appearing on Larry King live on September 30, 2005 Walter said:

If we expect this country to work, it depends on an informed, an intelligent electorate. You know, Thomas Jefferson said very early on in our republic that the nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects it never can and never will be.

We're an ignorant nation right now. We're not really capable I do not think the majority of our people of making the decisions that have to be made at election time and particularly in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency of course. I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger.

In this past Sunday's NYTimes in this article about aging and wisdom Studs Terkel said:

"As long as you're not senile or retarded and have some faculties left there's going to be memories you have that set a pattern for what to avoid and eliminate" in your life, he said in a phone interview.

But this will never guarantee wise behavior, he. said, showing that age doesn't mellow a lifetime of political advocacy. "We certainly know there are a whole lot of old boys and old girls out there who have been voting against their best interests, the way this country is going."

I guess that it's just not possible that the Wisdom of The Crowd could exceed that of these towering individuals!