Abstract

'Big Ideas Need Sharp Elbows'

The article focuses on the reelection of United States President George W. Bush. We may never reach a consensus on just what it was about Bush that led so many millions of Americans to ignore his Administration's dishonesty, incompetence, ideological fanaticism and corruption and vote for the guy. Evidently, thirty years of attacks on liberals' national security credentials have taken their toll. Unless liberals find a way to reverse this trend, they will forfeit election after election. At the age of 96 and 87 respectively, liberals John Kenneth Galbraith and Arthur Schlesinger Junior have participated in as many of the great political and intellectual battles of postwar U.S. history as any two men alive. A lifetime of loyalty to intellectual inquiry helped to infuse each man's career--both inside and outside the political arena--with an abiding respect for the difficulties involved in remaking men and women according to ideological precepts, as well as with a strong sense of modesty about just how much mere politics could accomplish.