Today the Allentown Morning Call reported on a study of congressional speeches done by the Sunlight Foundation. The study found that those congress members speaking at the lowest grade level were the Tea Party Republicans.
Three of the Tea Party Republicans, near the bottom at the 8th grade level, were Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, Rob Woodall of Georgia, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Mulvaney was quoted as saying, "I don't think polysyllabic words--or the number of words--in a sentence as a sign of our intelligence."
The Constitution is considered to be at the 17.8 grade level. I'm fairly sure that Mulvaney has problems understanding it.
Richard Hofstadter, the author of Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, argued back in the early 60s that politicians scored points by bragging about their ignorance. How prescient he was.
Joe Walsh also scored low in this study. One of the head Tea partiers.
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