Last month I wrote in this space about the “Two Nations” contained within America’s borders—not the rich and poor nations of John Edwards’s anachronistic fancy, but the clever and the stupid, the complicated and the simple, the sophisticated and the boorish nations symbolized for many in the now ubiquitous red and blue map of the election results. Of course, no one supposes that there are not clever, complicated, and sophisticated people voting for Kerry in the red states and stupid, simple, and boorish people voting for Bush in the blue states, but bright Kerry supporters versus dim Bush supporters was the accepted model wherever you looked in the media, many of whose sour post-election commentaries were based on the assumption that the blue states had for some reason been blessed with majorities of bright people while the red states were correspondingly cursed with majorities of thickoes. More than one liberal commentator...

 
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