Stupid Republicans
This showed up not to long after elections. If I were a histrionic right winger I'd say that it was consolation for the "liberals" after losing the election. It's ironic that perception is that "liberals" (for lack of a better term) are considered the intellectuals (or, at least, consider themselves the intellectuals) when the Republican party is a top down heirarchy of idealogues, politicians, yes-men, and religious folk.
A few months ago I ran across The Intellectual Activist while I was looking for pictures of graveyards in Philadelphia. This daily contains a round up of conservative journalism for the day, blended with little snippets of art at the end of the publication. The trial mode gives you a great feel for it but at $74 per year, it's best suited for those that benifit directly from the permanent tax cuts on dividends.
This is representative of the sort of subtle, but undeniable intellectual side of the conservative. Take away the "aw, shucks" folks, and the anti-abortion straight ticket, and you find some interesting minds behind it all, forging a path that blends "values1" with some very concrete ideas that tend to be better shaped and defined than anything "liberal."
American policy is also being sculpted by similar intellectual conservatives. What we know today as "Operation Iraqi Freedom", and the "Axis of Evil" were cooked up in think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute by people like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. These are not back country folk. Their biographies are peppered with references to USC, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and other prestigious schools. In their political life they aren't really elected; they are powerful bureaucrats.
Months ago I saw Thomas Frank do a reading on his book What's the matter with Kansas?, in which he took every opportunity he could to point out the sheer stupidity of "the right," who he thinks of as "...evangelical Christians, antiabortion activists, gun-nuts, and Bubbas." The audience, sympathetic to his frustration and eager to consider themselves educated, laughed frequently.
And to a degree one can see where it comes from: Rush Limbaugh reminds me of a chimpanzee in a Nairobi zoo named Sebastian. Sebastian had one trick: someone had taught him how to smoke. It was fascinating and pathetic at the same time. I felt sorry for Sebastian, especially after other animals started to overshadow him. There's also Anne Coulter, so eager for publicity and attention that any wild claim for TV time will do.
But serious thinking, research, and scholarship are what direct American conservatives. They are clever, try as you might (want?) to think otherwise. Their biggest enemy, it seems, is not the "liberal," nor is it overseas in a place like Iraq. Their biggest enemy, like most highly successful folks, is their arrogance2. You will find the thinkers everywhere, from the New York Times to the National Review to the Wall Street Journal. It's hard to read it and not become influenced.
1All of our decisions are based on values. It is, rather, a priority of what we think is valuable.
2The Wikipedia article points out that Perle thought the US could take Iraq with 40,000 ground troops.
12:24:47 AM 
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