If he's a professor he must be a Democrat, right?

I caught this comment in the NYTimes article on the announcement that Ben S. Bernanke will be the nominee to replace Alan Greenspan as the Federal Reserve chief. Bernanke has been a professor of economics at Stanford and Princeton.

"When the news first came that he was a candidate to be named a Fed governor, I thought it was interesting that the Bush administration would nominate a Democrat," Mr. Frank said. "I was surprised. I worked with him and did not know he was a Republican."

The speaker is Robert H. Frank, "a liberal professor at Cornell" and co-author of an economics text book with Bernanke. Mr. Frank's immediate assumption that an intelligent friend who taught at a major university would obviously be a Democrat, is actually a common one. In some parts of the country, most anyone who seems like an educated and "nice" person is assumed to be a Democrat. That Bernanke would keep his political affiliation close to the vest is no surprise, and may not be a reflection of his personality, as the Times suggests. To be openly affiliated with the Republican party might be career suicide in an academic environment.

There are plenty of "stealth Republicans" in the more liberal or "blue" areas of the country, and I imagine there might be areas where Democrats live in stealth-mode, fearing that their neighbors and friends at church might not accept their politics. It's a shame that this sort of broad-stroke demonization of all opponents is so popular these days. When one of the liberal pundits, or even the Democratic leadership, makes charges against all Republicans, I know they are speaking out of ignorance. I know loads of Republicans, including some very conservative party members, and I know from personal experience that they are not what some would allege. The exact same can be said for those conservative pundits who make broad-brush statements about Democrats. The people of my neighborhood and even my church are largely Democrats, overwhelmingly so, in fact, and they are also overwhelmingly fine citizens and good people.

The aforementioned Robert Frank, I note with relief, did not renounce his friendship with Bernanke when he discovered his secret identity as a member of the enemy party. Good for him. That a liberal professor and a republican who speaks with G. Bush can get along, ought to set a good example for the rest of us.