To The Moon

Kristof notes another sea-change, the one we've been waiting for:

The second most remarkable thing about [Obama's] election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.

... We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.

... President Bush ... adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas.