The Scandal of the Republican Mind?

In our evangelical circles there's a famous book by Mark Noll called "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind." Many of us in Christian higher education have spent our entire lives trying to overcome that scandal.

What David Brooks points out is that despite much previous effort to establish a solid conservative mind, the Republican establishment in recent years has increasingly tossed aside its philosophical and intellectual roots in favor of cultivating the "common touch." 30 years ago, for example, Buckley was the Republican intellectual leader in various media outlets. Now it's Rush. I like Sarah Palin a lot, but when she rejects not just D.C. but the entire east coast (where almost 50% of all colleges and universities are located), and the Republican party lauds her for saying it, we appear to have our own "scandal of the Republican mind" going, from which, I fear, it will take us a very long time to recover.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10brooks.html?em