GOP Continues to Excel in Ignorance

My search for the utimate in ignorance has ended in the winged words of Dick Army.

Armey’s resurgence has occurred not because the Republican establishment loves him but rather because the debate has moved back to what he considers his turf. After high school, he worked a year for the local electric utility, stringing wire, then earned an undergraduate degree at ​Jamestown College, about 120 miles due south of Cando, and a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Oklahoma. He spent the first part of his working life as a professor, rising to chairman of the economics department at North Texas State University. “I’m an economist and, I don’t mind telling you, a damn good one,” he told me over breakfast. He added, “President Obama is a talented person who showed up at exactly the right time, but I don’t believe the man has ever been exposed to a serious economic idea, and I’m not sure anyone around him ever has, either.”

I pointed out that Obama’s circle of advisers includes some decorated economists, including Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard — a controversial figure but not one generally regarded as an intellectual slacker. “I don’t consider Larry Summers a serious economist,” Armey said. “You can get a Ph.D. from Harvard without ever having seriously considered the subject.”