President Bush is no stranger to criticism from the academic
world. Labeled as more conservative than his father by political
scientists, his push for war and stances on abortion and
affirmative action have polarized him against many in largely
liberal university communities.
But the criticism runs deeper. Academics don’t just
denounce his policies, they blast him as an
“anti-intellectual” as well.
In fact, many express fears that the president ““ a man
with degrees from both Harvard and Yale ““ is intellectually
ill-equipped to deal with what Bush called “a time of great
consequence” in his State of the Union address Tuesday.
Professors repeatedly refer to Bush’s frequent grammatical
and rhetorical slips, as books and calendars devoted to his
malapropisms, dubbed “Bushisms,” fill bookstores.
But even with the prevalence of these jokes across the country,
the president still remains popular among the general
population.
Bush himself continually refers to his slips.
But in academia, criticism of Bush is more fundamental. Bush
does not enjoy widespread support in the political science
department, according to professor Robert Hennig.
“Bush is not stupid ““ the criticism is that he is
not curious,” said political science professor Robert Hennig.
“Can you find something that is more counter to
academics?”
Hennig, who refers to Bush as “insecure,” compares
him to “a C student who doesn’t try because he
doesn’t want to try and fail.”
Calling him an “anti-intellectual,” Hennig said Bush
has always been at odds with the academic community.
But many think Bush has been named an anti-intellectual because
of petty attacks on Bush’s public speaking skills.
The rampant Bush jokes that fill universities are similar to the
stereotypical jokes people make about certain minorities without
knowing anything about them, said political science professor
Thomas Schwartz, who says he is the only registered Republican in
the political science department.
As hotbeds for political discourse, universities have
traditionally taken the role of criticizing the office of the
presidency in general ““ regardless of the political party of
the president at the time.
But several surveys show that professors in the social sciences
and humanities are predominantly Democratic.
And the dominance of Democratic professors over Republican ones
leads some professors to believe that President Bush probably
receives more antagonism than President Clinton ever did.
Academics were not as harsh on either Clinton or the first
George Bush, said nationally syndicated radio talk show host Larry
Elder, because their views were not as conservative as the current
administration’s are.
The criticism of Bush, conservatives say, may be more about the
president’s ideology than his intellectual capacity ““
an ideology that members of the university communities typically
oppose.
Though Congress is nearly divided between the two parties, at
UCLA, over 90 percent of registered political science professors
who identify with one of the two major parties are Democrats.
College graduates tend to vote as Republicans, but people who go
on to attend graduate schools are usually Democrats, Hennig
said.
Many academics are hard-pressed as to why professors tend to
favor the Democratic party over the Republican one.
But both Hennig and Elder, who identifies as a libertarian, say
liberal tendencies come from the idealistic nature of being in the
teaching profession.
“When you are a dreamer, you view the world in ideal
terms,” Hennig said.
Elder agreed, saying professors are sheltered from “the
realities of the real world” in the university.
According to Hennig, professors ground their political beliefs
in “research and in a higher level of knowledge.”
Elder denounced this rationale of believing something to be true
just because a large group of people do, citing instances in the
Arab world where the majority of the population does not believe
al-Qaeda is responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
With reports from Charles Proctor, Daily Bruin Contributor.