Why won’t you post my comment I tried to publish for this thread? I tried to contact you through the Contact webform, but I can’t do it for some reason. What’s going on?

Actually, Brad, Somerby takes Robinson to task for his column. To wit:

But right beside [Richard] Cohen in the Post, Gene Robinson bungles this simple point too. You can’t be more clueless than these guys:

ROBINSON (4/15/08): Clinton bristled, though, when a reporter had the temerity to ask at a news conference when she last attended church or fired a gun. “That is not a relevant question for this debate,” she said. “We can answer that some other time. This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?”

Um, so the issue isn’t whether you regularly sit in a church pew or even occasionally go hunting, but whether you can manage to seem like the sort of person who does? I think I need a shot and a beer, too. Just give me whatever the lady’s drinking.

That’s right, Dumb-*ss! The issue isn’t whether you go to church—the issue is whether you look down on those who do! We think Obama is being thrashed too hard for a single off-hand comment. But Cohen and Robinson show no sign of understanding the basic shape of this problem. But then, this is a typical failing of liberal elites—of people who have never given a thought to the feelings or views of the small-town rubes who keep screwing up our elections.

In fairness, Cohen and Robinson are hardly alone. All around the liberal world, we’ve seen “thinkers” in the past few days who seem to have no earthly idea what “elitism” even consists in. (Click here for Theda Skocpol. We think Josh’s own post makes basic sense, though we wouldn’t agree with every viewpoint.) Here is Robinson, making another characteristic error:

ROBINSON: Clinton spent the weekend bashing Barack Obama for not seeming to be enough of a regular guy—not for any actual deficit of regular-guyness, mind you, but for giving the impression that such a deficit might exist.

The former first lady, whose family has made $109 million since her husband left the White House, then made a show of demonstrating that she’s actually just a regular gal. The point wasn’t really to convince anyone that she, Bill and Chelsea commute between their two lavish mansions in a five-year-old Ford F-150 pickup with a gun rack and a “Jesus Rocks!” bumper sticker. Her aim was to prove to the nation—or at least to Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana—that she’s better at feigning regularness than Obama.

Little there comprehends the problem. But in the highlighted passage, Robinson does what a string of “liberal” “thinkers” have done in the past few days (including Cohen, in the passage we’ve quoted); he suggests that a person with a high net worth is somehow automatically part of this problem. This, of course, is very similar to the claim that John Edwards can’t possibly care about poverty since he lives in a very big house. In the highlighted passage, Robinson shows that he doesn’t have the first idea what “elitism” even consist in. Elitism isn’t a question of the how much money you have. It’s a question of how you behave toward others who may have less money.

Truly, it has been embarrassing to watch some liberals attempt to come to terms with this matter. Just as an obvious matter of fact, condescension toward average people has plagued progressive movements at least since the late 1960s, when Dr. King stopped being the public face of progressive change and various Middle America-trashers took his place in the public imagination. (Abbie Hoffman, for instance.) In his brilliant public ministry, Dr. King confronted people who turned dogs and hoses loose on children; blew up churches where children were praying; threw him in jail on tortured pretexts; and eventually chased him down and killed him. But quite aggressively, Dr. King refused to deny the soul of the Bull Connors—of those who behaved in such fallen ways. Within a few years, it became possible to tag progressivism with the face of those who loudly showed the world how much they hated the mores and life-styles of their horrible mommies and daddies. From that day to this, progressive politics has been damaged by a sometimes-accurate perception—the perception that progressives and liberals are a bunch of snooty snobs.

What do you think of what Somerby had to write, Brad?

…if there wasn’t a demand, there wouldn’t be a supply.

If the FACTS were as salable the as salacious bullshit and noise, CNN would be like Democracy Now and Glen Greenwald would be president of the Washington Post.

This essentially rehashes Megan McArdle’s argument from this recent thread, right down to the-public-doesn’t-want-what-Glenn-Greenwald-is-selling comment.

I don’t buy it. I don’t see any indication that the endless reportage about minor verbal gaffes and other trivia is satisfying some irresistible public demand. Hell, I don’t see any indication that most people even remotely give a shit about this stuff. This is just another journalistic circle jerk, of the MSM, by the MSM, for the MSM.

Incidentally, the bad reporting we’ve been seeing is not ‘salacious’, unless you find low bowling scores sexually arousing.

Somebody else’s, of course. Never their own.

The best part about this is the reporters reading supposedly snarky emails from viewers on CNN stating things like, “Oh really? I’m now “bitter” as well as “racist”? I can’t wait to find out what else I am!” PULEEZE! Think about what you are you morons! Why would anyone who’s not an elitist possibly feel these things about much of “small town America”? UGH…if these people try any harder to throw insults at Obama without actually hurling what they’re itching to throw it’ll be a miracle! Pardon my inability to see that such heavy criticism of Obama has nothing whatsoever to do with his ethnic heritage, I just don’t buy it from most people out there.

Gary–only real fags call people fags. Don’t you know any, you effing fuckshit? I am taking over the heartland. I’m just very small.

Stop the presses! Robopimp Glenn Reynolds defends…John Yoo…

Perhaps Reynolds was partly motivated by imagining the pleasure he’d derive from a leather-clad John Yoo CyberGimp

But put it this way: if there wasn’t a demand, there wouldn’t be a supply.

I believe it was H.L. Mencken who said, “no one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the common man”.

If the FACTS were as salable the as salacious bullshit and noise, CNN would be like Democracy Now and Glen Greenwald would be president of the Washington Post.

As much as I respect and admire Obama for wanting to be a politician who talks to his constituents like they were grownups, I despair that he can actually make it work. Because there are damn few “grownups” among the voting public.

Perhaps Obama should give another “major speech” over this one, like he did for the asinine “controversy” over Wright. And get used to having to do it a LOT.

But he should definitely lay off the “Annie Oakley” jokes about Clinton. He sounded as lame as she did.

“Shut up, that’s why”…the official motto of thin-skinned Gary Rupperts of this country. Face mullets, lousy lives, a google times more bitter and resentful than Obama could ever divulge.

A perfect disgrace
Horrible living
Political patheticness
Pandering people
Lame liberals
A big fraud
Government badness
Shameful hatred
Progressive bad stuff
Find out how YOU can sell your kidneys for less! Call now!

Is there a snark-generator somewhere on the innertoobs for such times as these.

Enter a few relevant keywords and then choose a setting from, say, “pithy rejoinder” all the way up to “scathing diatribe”.

DALE CARPENTER DEFENDS JOHN YOO from something that looks very much like a witch hunt. (Funny how those are increasingly carried out in the name of “human rights.”)

Yeah, it’s gotten so a fella can’t indulge in the occasional hate crime or conspire to commit crimes against humanity anymore without everyone getting all, “You can’t come to my party.”

What a disgrace.

I do that all the time anyway.

We would be stupid to vote for wimpy faggy peacenik surrender monkeys, poverty pimps, classwarriors, godless commies, who would only impoverish us.

No bitterness there, nuh uh.

Just the label alone sounds way cool. I am definitely converting.