A Setup & An Attempt At Redifining 'Elitism'

The word "elitist" means a person who sees themself as among a select few in power and intelligence, above the rabble on a fundamental level. It describes a class of people who believe, by virtue of their superior intelligence, that they know what is best for the rabble, irrespective of what the rabble may think. That of course is from the dictionary definition.

Let's see, Obama embraces $4 a gallon gas prices as a way to force conservation on the rabble. Obama speaks to a crowd of rich left liberals about how "bitter" folk in the U.S. are misguided. They only embrace religion and constitutional rights because they are not rich. He clearly has little desire to mix with our military personnel. He sees the U.S. as the moral equivalent of imperealist Russia. I could go much farther, but no need. This all sounds pretty elitist to me. Not a single thing that I have mentioned has to do with material wealth.

But Obama and, in a front page article, the Washington Post, seek to wholly redefine "elitism" as being simply a bottom line comparison of the balance sheets. Since McCain - or actually his wife to be accurate - is richer than Obama, a person wealthy by any definition, well clearly its McCain that is an elitist. Dictionary definitions be damned. Orwell trumps Webster.
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Yesterday, a reporter from Politico asked McCain how many houses he owns. Can any objective observer tell me what that has to do with issues at hand, or how the answer would reflect on the character of McCain?

Clearly it was a set up question and it was one that could only have been asked to set up the argument the Obama camp was planning to make. There is simply no other reason for this question to have been asked. And there is little possible other way to explain the speed at which Obama's campaign began to produce documentation on the houses.

Nonetheless, McCain tried in good faith to give an accurate answer - he didn't know, his wife did. McCain stays in a home in Washington and one in Arizona. Those two and the other six homes owned by the McCain family are owned by his wife. She has a lot of money. What does that have to do with elitism? Nothing - unless you are Obama or a part of the MSM who are doing all they can to see him elected. He is WaPo's front page article, repeating uncritically the Obama line:

House Add Up To A Snag For McCain?
Campaign Has Cast Obama as Elitist

Sen. John McCain's inability to recall the number of homes he owns during an interview yesterday jeopardized his campaign's carefully constructed strategy to frame Democratic rival Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist and inspired a round of attacks that once again ratcheted up the negative tone of the race for the White House.

A week dominated by vice presidential speculation and the run-up to the Democratic National Convention was quickly overtaken by the McCain miscue. In an interview with Politico.com, the presumptive Republican nominee was asked how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, heir to a beer distributorship, owned.

"I think -- I'll have my staff get to you," McCain replied. "It's condominiums where -- I'll have them get to you."

Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee pounced with remarkable speed. By mid-morning, reporters had received a video log featuring Cindy McCain's childhood estate in Phoenix, an Architectural Digest spread on another property the McCains had owned previously, and tax records and photos detailing seven houses and condominiums -- in Coronado and La Jolla, Calif.; Phoenix and Sedona, Ariz.; and Arlington. By 11 a.m., the Obama campaign had produced a television advertisement titled "Seven" and was answering the question McCain could not.

"It's seven, seven houses, and here's one house Americans can't afford John McCain to move into," the ad concludes over an image of the White House. (If a California beachfront condo that Cindy McCain purchased for their children this year is included, the number of homes owned by the McCains rises to eight.) . . .

For a Democratic candidate suffering from a barrage of attacks on his "celebrity," McCain's inability to recall the scope of his family holdings was a timely break.

"I guess . . . if you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong," Obama told an audience in Chester, Va. "But if you're like me, and you've got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have a different perspective." . . .

This was a planned attack. Had McCain responded with a statement that his wife owned eight houses, there is no doubt in my mind that the substance and timing of the attack on McCain would have been the same. The only thing that would have changed is the wording of the narrative. "He owns eight houses and he's calling me elitist?"

As I said in my post below, Obama can only hurt himself by going down the road of attacking McCain. He may score a point against McCain here and there going on the attack, but Obama will open up the floodgates. And inviting a comparison between the character and associations of McCain with those of Obama is just an incredibly stupid move on Obama's part.

More on the lack of substance in Obama's latest attack from Big Lizards.