Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Sunday, April 13, 2008 2:27:10 PM
Sen. B. H. Obama's has
recently stated that the federal government has effectively abandoned Pennsylvanian's and left them with no prospects, such that "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people
who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade
sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Many in the punditocracy are declaring this as just another example of Sen. Barry's elitism. I find I am persuaded by
Roger Kimball's simultaneous defense of elitism and clarifying attack on Obama.
That some people are elite and some are not is an uncomfortable fact of life that many, on both the Left and Right, would like to ignore. Kimball quotes William Henry's book, titled
In Defense of Elitism,
the simple fact that some people are better than others—smarter, harder
working, more learned, more productive, harder to replace. Some ideas
are better than others, some values more enduring, some works of art
more universal. Some cultures, thought we dare not say it, are more
accomplished than others and therefore more worthy of study. Every
corner of the human race may have something to contribute. That does
not mean that all contributions are equal… . It is scarcely the same
thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.
If anyone should understand this it is conservatives.
Kimball then makes clear why Obama's comments and subsequent denial that he meant exactly what he said were so odious. It is not because they are the elitist utterings.
It was smug; it was self-righteous; it was blinkered, bigoted,
emotionally impoverished, and otherwise odious; it but it was not in
any normal sense of the word “elitist.”
[Sen. Obama] regarded most Americans as bitter, small-town, gun-toting, God-fearing, xenophobic, unemployed isolationists who needed help.
That is bad enough. Even worse, however, is the disgusting pretense
that he actually meant something more emollient. Most of us have gotten
used to being treated with contempt by politicians. But Obama has upped
the ante. It isn’t pleasant. But it is, at any rate, useful to know
just how stupid he thinks we are. I for one will not forget it.
And neither shall I.