WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: “To listen to many bien pensant American intellectuals and above-the-salt journalists, America faces a shocking problem today: the cluelessness, greed, arrogance and bigotry of the American public.” I can certainly see the appeal of believing everyone is dumb except for me and my colleagues and friends—especially as I belong to one of the “elite” professions myself—but I’m afraid Mead is right when he says, “it is the Establishment, not the people, that is falling down on the job.”