No, Tom, the hilarious part is that it's RightWingers who constantly accuse us Liberals of being intellectuals. It's sad what the cherished insults of the Right reveal about "you guys".

"Liberal" and "smart" seem to be synonymous in the demonology of the extreme right. And Joe Sixpack, the Avatar of Republicanism, just eats it up.

Can you possibly aim any lower than to use a drunken couch potato as your poster boy? Can you be any more contemptuous than to conflate that drunken couch potato with "the working class"?

Of course, that conflict is easily resolved if you assume liberalsRepublicans have a deep contempt for such people but just lie to them to gain political power.

Moving right along....

You tell me how somebody might have a set of hard-won principles that conflicts to some extent with all the viable choices in an election, but happens to conflict much worse with one of them.

What does that have to do with sleazy smears? Which of your principles guides you when you mindlessly parrot the McCain-Palin campaign's crypto-racist lies depicting Obama as "not like us"..."he pals around with terrorists!"?