Word: stupids
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Every time a seismic shift takes place in our economy, there are people who feel the vibrations long before the rest of us do, vibrations so strong they demand action--action that can seem rash, even stupid. Ferry owner Cornelius Vanderbilt jumped ship when he saw the railroads coming. Thomas Watson Jr., overwhelmed by his sense that computers would be everywhere even when they were nowhere, bet his father's office-machine company...
...bristles when it actually gets some. But ride with the Guv in his Lincoln Navigator, and you find that even the chastened Ventura is more candid than 99% of pols. On the Cuban trade embargo he says what self-styled truth tellers like Bill Bradley don't: "It's stupid. Fidel's outlasted eight Presidents. Is it an ego thing? Do we have to wait for him to die?" He's the rare non-Democratic Governor who gives Clinton generous credit for the economy. Try getting George W. Bush to do that...
...clear whether Wednesday's fiasco was the start of a major assault, a reconnaissance probe of Chechen defenses or just a stupid mistake. Up to now, Russian forces have marched across the republic with, they claim, little resistance. Their battle plan called for slow, steady advances until the rebels engaged them. Then they would let their vastly superior artillery and air forces bomb the Chechen fighters and strafe their village hideouts, until they fell back and Russian troops could move safely forward again. Since late September, a Russian force that now numbers 100,000--just about every viable fighting...
...league there's no team I have to lose money on every week, as I do with the Eagles, my hometown fave. I'm emotionally incapable of betting against them. I don't think I could have learned these companies fast enough without facing the prospect of looking stupid against my fellow coach. And if I hadn't, I would have missed a couple of 50-point moves in real life from application of my Rotisserie knowledge...
...least it has seemed so until now. One of the New Republic pieces, by Jonathan Chait, argued that, partly because voters seem to be in a mood to prize personal authenticity over ideas, candidates see some advantage in presenting themselves as, if not flat-out stupid, at least aggressively nonintellectual. It's true that when Bush first got into the race he joked a bit about his academic shortcomings in college, and when his Yale transcript was printed in the New Yorker, the impact on his campaign seemed so negligible that I was moved to write a couplet that went...