[Note]: Although I concur completely with the point of Ian's diary from yesterday, "The best article on America's Elite", right now I'm struck by almost the exact opposite point: America's elites are so dumb, they couldn't have graduated from grade school where I grew up.
Because it's impossible to understand with his pea brain. From Digby:
Chris Matthews had former CIA operative and journalist Jack Rice and constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein on today in a failed attempt to educate himself on the basic tenets of the Bill of Rights. He simply doesn't understand why, if we know that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is guilty, we should bother with a trial.
One of the two mentioned it in passing, but I think it's worth noting more explicitly, that the government presumably always "knows" that someone is guilty before they indict him or her for a crime. At least it should. The point of the trial is to make them prove it. They have to put their evidence on the table and convince 12 people that it's enough to take away someone's freedom or, in this case, execute them. And because trials are public, this demonstration of proof creates trust in the justice system and the rule of law among the population at large.
Evidently Chris and many others see absolutely no value in proving to the American people, much less the rest of the world, that KSM actually did the crimes of which he's accused.
Now, I don't know about you, but I have this vague recollection that I learned this in grade school. I vividly remember the Revolutionary War re-enactment--or at least I remember the interminable rehearsals. And I know that we had a pretty good idea why the British were so hated. Part of it had to do with their use of Blackwater mercenaries German Hessians, and part of it had to do with violating the rights that the Colonials (that's us!) felt that they had as British citizens--which is why we ended up with most of the stuff you can find in the Bill of Rights. And a good part of that has to do with protecting your rights if you're charged with a crime--or even suspected of one. So let me summarize: When I was around 8 or 9, everyone in my class had been exposed to the basic civics that Matthews seems utterly oblivious to. I can't remember precisely how it was presented to us. I only know we were taught it assiduously, and then to make it stick, we were organized into a school-wide pageant to act out the military "fun" part.
Not withstanding my grade school partial amnesia, I damn sure know that both US history and civics was taught to me in Jr. high & then again in high school. I had it dribbling out of my ears. As far as I could tell, there was no way one could actually graduate from high school without knowing this sort of basic American civics.
And yet, Chris Matthews, a former staffer for House Speaker Tip O'Neil, cannot grasp this. A lack of knowledge so fundamental that he conceivably could have failed 3rd or 4th grade (can't remember which) back when I was in the none-too-remarkable Mooreland School District.
Now, it may well be true that no one in Versailles could have passed the third or fourth grade where I went to school as a kid. (I had no idea the education I was getting was that rigorous!) But I'll tell who does know that stuff--and until quite recently admired the hell out of the US because of it: 1.2 billion Moslems world-wide who are the prime targets of al Qaeda's recruitment efforts in their attempt to mount a holy war against us.
Al Qaeda wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell if Chris Matthews and his Versailles cohorts could graduate from fourth grade. Al Qaeda wouldn't stand a chance if Chris Matthews and the rest of Versailles didn't hate America so much.
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