Liberals pretend they hate elites. I say "pretend" because they really don't hate them; liberals are often quite wealthy and well educated. They make up most academics (aren't they always telling us they know more?). Yet, when it comes to politics, liberals fashion themselves as the champions of the little guy, even when their policies make life difficult for little guys.
That's what makes it so funny when I see liberals decry being labelled accurately. Take Echidne of the Snakes, for example. She doesn't like it when Karl Rove accurately describes Barack Obama as an elitist. Here's the pull quote from the Rove story:
ABC News' Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as "coolly arrogant."
"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."
Well, we know Obama smokes and he has a certain disdain for gun owners, religious folks, and other staples of middle America. He also has many questionable associations and friends, as well as business associates. Not the sort regular guys cavort with, don't you know.
But, apparently, pointing out that Obama has an elitist quality about him--best schools, advanced degrees, plenty of money--is just wrong because, well, he's black, and, historically, black people haven't been elites. In other words, let him be elitist because black people can't be elitist since they've been barred from participation in elitist life for centuries. This is sort of the "minorities can't be racists" argument that most people recognize as bunk.
But Echidne, who dislikes Karl Rove for successfully running political campaigns, has more complaints.
That whole statement is intended to provoke teenage feelings of resentment among those who hear or read it, to spread an odd veil of emotional envy towards Barack Obama, to poison the air with the ideas that it is he who is the elitist and not McCain even though McCain has considerably better qualifications for that role.
It's an odd complaint from a liberal, to be sure. After all, class envy is the stock and trade of the Democratic Party. And it is a particularly strange argument given the drumbeat of criticism that President Bush only became president because he had the privileges associated with wealth and power.
I love watching Democrats have to face the very arguments they've made for years, don't you? Now, being a millionaire doesn't make Obama rich (although he has stated the rich start at $250,000), since the McCains have more money. Oddly, they didn't care about this issue when trophy husband John Kerry was their presidential candidate.
And in 2000 and 2004, we heard nonstop about how one needed military service to be POTUS. That was, of course, when the Democrat candidate had military service and the Republican candidate did not. But now that Obama is the Democrat pick, we get defenses of Obama's ladder-climbing and political ambitions. Suddenly, even though we are in the middle of a war, military service isn't necessary. In fact, we're told having a military background makes a candidate less qualified. Come again?
It's normal for political parties to make the best arguments for their candidates that they can. But when liberals complain that conservatives can effectively use their arguments, that's just whining and hypocrisy.
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