Earlier today, I heard a speech on the radio that disturbed me.

It happens to be a speech by a national political figure, so I hesitate to speak or write about it, because I don't in any way wish to say anything about the speaker's political views. But because the comment isn't so much about political views as it is an expression of an attitude regarding intelligence and its role in leadership, I feel compelled to respond. The speech included the following sentence:

“We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at a lectern.”

It occurs to me that a statement of this kind was probably uttered many times during the presidential campaign of a genuine war hero who ran against an intellectual senator from Illinois who was known as an intellectual . I'm referring to the Dwight D. Eisenhower's successful campaign against Adlai Stevenson.

It makes me want to go back to Richard Hofstadter's book, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life." I don't believe I ever read that book in full. -- I only skimmed it. Now, I want to read it from cover to cover.