Obama's new egghead

Ralph Alter

If you are in need of a good laugh, take a gander at the Bloomberg editorial lauding Obama's selection of "eminent labor economist," Alan Krueger to head his Council of Economic Advisors.  As if what our country needs right now is another big Obama helping of pointy headed academics. Especially a guy touted by nitwit economist Paul Krugman. Krueger is just another Keynesian wonk who has never worked a day outside of academia or a government office and who used to write forthe New York Times (2000-2006).

Here is Bloomberg's take on the return of Alan (Don't call me Freddy) Krueger:

...Barack Obama's choice of Alan Krueger...is an inspired one...He also has strong policy making credentials.....he helped devise the first stimulus program, the cash-for-clunkers effort, and the Build America Bond program....Krueger was on the right track when he called for a fresh round of infrastructure spending....

And these are positive attributes? Only a dyed-in the wool egghead would continue to believe in and pursue policies clearly working to the detriment of our economy. Unfortunately, Obama has no connection to the real world of producers and potential job creators in America. His insular administration is stocked with and advised by only academics, crony capitalists and green jobshangers-on.

Unfortunately, the term "egghead" has gone out of fashion since the 1960's. As defined by American novelist, Louis Bromfield, there is no more apt description of the type of person that fills the teaching rosters at our universities and grinds out the regulatory apparatus of government that is strangling our economy and our way of life:

A person of spurious intellectual pretensions, often a professor or the protégé of a professor. Fundamentally superficial. Over-emotional and feminine in reactions to any problems. Supercilious and surfeited with conceit and contempt for the experience of more sound and able men. A self-conscious prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.

Such eggheads, Bromfield further proclaimed, had supported traitors like Alger Hiss, allowed Stalinism to thrive in America and appeased Communism abroad.

It is time to turn the control of our government over to men and women who are actually able to do something. To modify the old bromide: Those who can, do. Those that can't do, teach. And those than can't teach go to work for the Obama administration.