[angkor]

Thomas Friedman’s 11,000 square foot home:

http://eyeball-series.org/friedman/friedman-mansion.htm

[dennisw]

Thanks. Tom Friedman’s mansion is huge. Does he run a publishing empire out of it? I know for sure he’ll tell you that it is not just a home...It has office and work space.

Heck he might even be a blacksmith and pressing apple cider there

[GOPJ]

Or does the hypocrisy grow out of a sort of class snobbery? Do elites hector the crass middle class because its members lack their own taste, rare insight and privileged style? Judging from the police report, Mr. Gates seemed flabbergasted that the white Cambridge cop did not know who he was "messing" with.

No - the elites stand with the poor as a way of keeping the middle class down. It's similar to the old joke about why grandparents and grandchildren get along so well: common enemy.

In banana republics - thugocracies - elites use the poor to prop them up against a raising middle class.