Be ye therefore imperfect?

Carol Iannone writes:

Why is it permissible to make personal remarks about Romney being too perfect, too refined, too studied, too measured, too this and too that, and not to say things about the considerable personal and physical IMperfections of the other candidates? Is it a kind of envy? Reverse “look-ism”? That is, we are jealous of good-looking people who have a finished and cultivated demeanor and happy family lives and favor people who are imperfect, inelegant, and in some cases even repellant? Is it because the latter make us feel more comfortable with our messy selves? Is it the new ethos by which the worse your background, the more you are championed? John Fund writes in the current Academic Questions of how a young Hispanic ruined his excellent chances of getting into an Ivy League institution when his family moved out of the barrio into a better neighborhood.

Picture if our forefathers had used these measures to disqualify the carefully cultivated George Washington:

“I don’t know, my dear Priscilla, I want to like General Washington, but his height, his looks, his demeanor, his restraint, his gentlemanliness, his courage, his obvious self-control, his polished manners, his considerable accomplishments, his benignity, his magnanimity, his selfless readiness to serve, make me wonder. Truth to tell, dear, they make me feel a little uncomfortable. I think I would prefer a man who wipes his good old Anglo-Saxon snot on his sleeve.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 11, 2008 04:58 PM | Send