Vacuous airheads are born in every generation…..and even silents can’t contain the loathing many of us from all generations living today have for the vacuous Ms Palin….

I don't think anti-intellectualism is a trait of Generation X. It's more of a trait that has always held currency in the conservative movement, but not always within mainstream conservatism. GenXers in general often seem very interested in knowledge and very interested in seeking out knowledge. It's true that GenXers don't limit their self-education to only 'intellectual' sources, but neither do GenXers dismiss out of hand 'intellectual' sources.

However, GenXers do seem to have a flaw in being over-opinionated. Many GenXers are mistrusting towards any authority who claims to know more than they do: professors, scientists, etc. At worst, this becomes intellectual laziness or even outright anti-intellectualism.

On another note, I'm not exactly a fan of Palin's ideas either, or even her speaking style, and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read the Margaret and Helen blog entry. Speaking as somebody who usually gets along with Silents, though, I'm led to think the only part that's generationally-motivated would be the pompous moralizing: epithets about Todd's brand of condoms, "babies out of wedlock" in the family tree, etc.

Though even here, I'm still not sure whether it's a case of imposing a First Turning set of values onto the product of a Third Turning culture, or if it's intended as an indictment of Palin's avowed stance as a religious conservative (i.e. a group which desires to lock the world into a perpetual First Turning of their design). It's a pretty fine line here, and I think it could cut in either direction.