I’m impressed, and I’m unimpressed
Rep. Rush Holt, Democrat from New Jersey, beats Watson the supercomputer, at “Jeopardy.” Watson previously was unbeaten, even by former mega-champs Ken Jennings and Rutter.
Color me impressed. Holt is himself a five-time winner on the show, and a nuclear physicist. Hmm. What’s a guy like him doing in a place like Congress?
Then there’s Newt Gingrich’s not at all unexpected hint that he’ll be announcing his presidential candidacy soon. Color me unimpressed. He is a very stale commodity with very high negatives.
Color me impressed. Holt is himself a five-time winner on the show, and a nuclear physicist. Hmm. What’s a guy like him doing in a place like Congress?
I’m wondering what he’s doing as a Democrat!
Occam’s Beard: I wondered the same myself. But after reflection, I decided the answer is that a lot of people who are very academically smart are Democrats. Even scientists.
I suggest that Rush Holt, a nuclear physicist, is in a very theoretical pursuit (doesn’t get much more theoretical than quantum mechanics).
I find that as a general rule (that’s GENERAL rule), conservatives tend to be found more frequently in the applied disciplines such as engineering, architecture and accounting.
“a lot of people who are very academically smart are Democrats. Even scientists.”
“Academically smart?” This is a distinction without meaning. They are smart, period.
giantslor: what you say is, to be blunt, absurd.
By the way, my credentials for being “academically smart” are excellent. I have been immersed for most of my life among the academically smart. And there is no question that there is a difference between academically smart and having common sense or even sense. Sometimes there is an interface—the two are not mutually exclusive—but anyone who has spent time in academia and looked around cannot fail to notice, if he/she is being honest, that the two are far from synonymous.
Neo, I agree about Newt….”stale” is the perfect word for him.
I worked for many years in the nuclear power industry. Later in life I worked for 5 years at a major research university. At the university I encountered many nuclear physicists; bright people when it came to theory, not so sharp when it came to practical situations. Give them a geiger counter or an ion chamber and they can instantly tell you why and how each works. Tell them there is a 3 meter tall pile of yellow cake within a 10 block radius and they couldn’t find it with the geiger counter, ion chamber, flashlight, and a mirror.
That’s the difference between being academically brilliant and helpless/clueless in the real world.
Newt is not only stale; he’s deficient when it comes to personal integrity.
Parker, I think the problem with scientists is that they are primarily interested in their own research. On other topics, they swim with their fellow academics without giving much time to informing and analyzing beyond superficialities. Thank heaven my husband is also a political junkie and often swims against the grain in our circles, but a friend and colleague of his spent a good chunk of money putting solar panels on his house here in CLOUD cuckoo land.
The question I had was: What the hell is he doing in Congress?
We have plenty of politicians. The guy’s clearly gifted in other areas. Why throw all that away to be yet another Democrat from NEW JERSEY???
Trust me, Rep. Holt, they’d have found a suitable surrogate if you’d stayed out.
expat,
During my time as an advisor to academics (my job was to assist them in devising experiments in compliance with radiation safety standards) I came to highly respect their intellect and expertise (often beyond my grasp) and discovered they are so narrowly focused on their area of interest they see the forest but keep bumping into trees if not guided by practical people. They certainly contribute to the accumulation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake (a good thing IMO), but they can not be trusted to operate with common sense in the everyday world. I cherish their abilities, but would never want them in charge of anything beyond the confines of their laboratories.
“I’m wondering what he’s doing as a Democrat!”
Must have something to do with anti-matter.
Dear Neo-Neocon —
I stop by almost every day and I enjoy your blog very much.
I appreciate your point of view and all the work you do writing this blog. (I also enjoy the dance and music and cultural things you write about. And, I bought some things from Amazon from your site as a “thank you.”) I think this is my first comment here.
You say Gingrich is stale. I would ask you to look at the ideas Gingrich proposes. The ideas are actually fresh, innovative and very comprehensive. The ideas are very practical and would undo many of the unintended consequences of leftist meddling with our laws and public policy.
Part of what I think the left depends upon is that they are creating multiple caches of alternate power based — like the Obama’s czars, the “stimulus” money slush funds, the public-employee collective bargaining, the take-over of GM, will create so much complexity and so many layers of bureaucracy, and so many clients of government pay-outs, that their meddling will never be undone and they will therefore win in the end, despite our best efforts to return to fairness and the rule of law.
Gingrich understands in the most practical terms how government works. We need people who know how government works, who can see where the mischief has been hidden and undo all the harm of the left-leaning, extra-legal, leftist, would-be tyrants.
Some people like to say he is morally deficient. I don’t know. Maybe he is. I really don’t know about that and I am interested to know more about it. I don’t know if Gingrich would be the best candidate for president.
But I do see that he has kept working steadily for all these years, looking for solutions in spite of being sneered at by the MSM and even people on the right. He is a visionary in a lot of ways.
I think it is possible that if someone you didn’t dislike offered this broad range of solutions, you might consider the ideas brilliant.
Before you label him stale and dismiss him, I would ask you to watch some of his speeches. Start with the Detroit “Change or Die” speech. It’s on YouTube. There are other speeches up at his organization, “American Solutions.”
In “Change or Die,” you will find out what he means by “2+2 = 4” and how it relates to our freedoms, and that it is emblematic of how the world actually works, not how some idealistic leftist theorist thinks it ought to work, and how it related to freedom in Poland and the end of Soviet rule there. And he talks about so much more — what we have to do to compete with China and India, how new technology is requiring that we transform education, that we must be honest about the economic and moral effects of the last 50 years of federal public policy about home ownership, and much more. He is offering an amazing range of ideas for solutions to an amazing range of problems.
His ideas are based on real, in-depth, on-going study, with some of the best people we have, of how thing actually work in practice, in the real world.
I don’t know him and I have no connection with him of any kind, or of any organization having anything to do with him. This is just my personal opinion. I would ask you to look at his ideas and give the ideas a chance. The ideas are worth your consideration.
Thanks.
S
s,
I doubt that Neo meant that Gingrich’s ideas are stale. But I think for most people he is associated with the government shutdown under Clinton and his marital problems. And these happened so long ago that most people don’t want to go back there. I personally am glad to have him as a one-man think tank, but I’m not sure he can be the one to implement his ideas.
Rep. Holt may be a nuclear physicist but in his going head to head with Watson he proved why intellectuals and especially intellectual democrats are ineffectual leaders. Let’s imagine a one on one between Watson and say Alexander the Great. It might go something like this; Alexander, “So, am I to understand you are the fastest and most powerful computer in the world?”. Watson; “Yes, I am that”. Alexander; “And you have the capability to defeat any human in a matching of the wits”, as Alexander draws his sword, “No matter the might of that human to conquer?”. Watson; “That is right, station has no importance.”. Alexander; “Then let it be noted in the annals of history that upon meeting Alexander, Watson was known as a Super Computer”, Alexander brings down his sword rending a mighty blow to Watsons power cable, severing it in two, where upon Watson goes dead, “And that after meeting Alexander Watson was known as Junk”.
Trebuchet,
That is so awesomely to-the-point.
S,
I, too, think that Newt is brilliant and has great insight into how the govt works and how to remedy some of the problems. I think of all the Republican hopefuls Newt is best positioned to “slice and dice” Obama in apresidential debate.
He can never get the chance to do any of that if he’s unelectable. He has the same millstone around his neck that Sarah Palin does, he engenders antagonism and people will not vote for an antagonist. Obama is a case in point, he had absolutely nothing to recommend him, but he campaigned as a nice guy; McCain was a grumpy older man trying hard to hold his tongue.
I think Newt would be best served in some cabinet post which would allow him to implement some of his ideas. If he did that successfully, then THAT could provide a springboard for a future presidential run.
Trebuchet,
A further comment: It is exactly this paradigm which is currently being played out on the international stage with Obama, the most intellignet man ever in the oval office, in the guise of Watson.
Be afraid–be very afraid!
Rush Holt is a Leftist and a rubber stamp for the Dems. Intellect does not equal wisdom nor morals.
His district (12th) contains several universities including Rutgers University; a marxist breading ground, home of Paul Robeson and some of the first anti-war protests of the 60’s (Princeton is also in his district) The 12th district is comprised of the suburbs surrounding the capital of Trenton and is home to thousands of state workers. Jon Stewart, an example of the leftist mentality bread in central NJ, is also from the 12th district.
s:
It’s Newt himself who’s stale, and Americans are sick of him. Nothing to do with his ideas. Candidates are a great deal more (and sometimes less) than their ideas.
Newt may be a great example of powerful intellect minus smarts. If he was smart he’d know he can’t get elected. If he was smart he wouldn’t have done a global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi.