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I had to check my paper copy of the Wall Street Journal today to make sure this wasn’t some elaborate prank. Then I double-checked what year it is, to make sure I hadn’t been slingshotted around the sun and found myself back in 1975. That’s about when I remember it last being routine for Rust Belt lawyers to publicly disparage the skills and education of people from the South. The only thing missing from the op-ed by Chicago-based lawyer Thomas Geoghegan is the word “hick” or “hillbilly.” WSJ is to be applauded for its determination to feature different viewpoints, but...

<p>Here is video of Democrat Howard Dean speaking at the Leftist “Netroots Nation” Conference last week. Dean bashed the Tea Party, people who are “over 55,” “white and Christian,” saying “the future” does not belong to them. Ironically, he accused them of “hate,” referring to them as “religious bigots,” even as he spoke with disdain of all things conservative and Christian.</p>

Subbing for Ed Schultz on MSNBC this evening, Cenk Ugyur suggested that the roughly 70% of Americans who oppose the Ground Zero mosque are "ignorant." Ugyur was debating the mosque matter with Republican strategist and former Newt staffer David Winston. Winston suggested that the people behind the mosque could, in light of the overwhelming oppposition of Americans to the plan, show sensitivity by agreeing to site it elsewhere. That provoked Cenk's snide insult, which, as you'll see, actually revealed his own lack of knowledge on the subject . . . Constitution Is Big Barrier

Video of Rick Sanchez discussing Fox News getting the front row seat in the WH briefing room with CNN's Ed Henry, it takes about one minute for Sanchez to take a cheap shot at Fox, Ed Henry actually defends the Fox News WH reporters (Video)

The Tea Party is nothing new. It represents a relatively small minority of Americans on the right end of politics, and it will not determine the outcome of the 2010 elections. In fact, both major parties stand to lose if they accept the laughable notion that this media-created protest movement is the voice of true populism. Democrats will spend their time chasing votes they will never win. Republicans will turn their party into an angry and narrow redoubt with no hope of building a durable majority. The news media's incessant focus on the Tea Party is creating a badly distorted...

CNN’s Martin: ObamaCare Opponents ‘Probably Can’t Spell Communism And Socialism’

"Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds." So began an article published at CNN.com Friday guaranteed to anger conservatives from coast to coast. The piece continued, "Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs." Folks are warned about proceeding further, for the content might be really offensive to some (h/tips to NB readers Stan and Chesley):

Meanwhile, over in San Francisco, Sherlock Holmes is alive and well and posting from The Chronicle’s SFGate blog and he thinks he might have cracked the case – it’s those pesky ignorant rednecks at southern universities who just hate anything intellectual….they could have provoked her with their country music and confederate flags…

Leftists can only succeed if good men don’t point at them and laugh. Ridicule, sneers and insults aimed at the right have become a trademark of MSNBC’s commentators, but Rachel Maddow took them to new heights last week providing an opportunity to turn the tables. Proving herself to be agenda-driven and ignorant, Maddow launched an uninformed assault against Alabama Tea Party candidate Les Phillip, a black businessman and Navy veteran who immigrated with his parents from Trinidad in his youth. Following Meghan McCain’s recent appearance on ABC’s The View, which NRB covered here and here, where the ‘Valley Girl’ equated...

When Sarah Palin delivered the keynote speech at the T.E.A. Party’s first national convention in Nashville last Saturday, she touched on many of the Obama administration’s policies which were delivered on the empty rhetoric of the “Hope and Change” campaign he ran last year. As she addressed the enthusiastic crowd of delegates by citing all of the President’s promises for “change” in how Washington politics would become the most transparent in the history of the republic, while eliminating all partisanship that had “gridlocked” the Beltway for so long, Palin reminded the American people that Obama’s administration, coupled with Congressional Democrats...

Author Kurt Andersen came out swinging this week in New York Magazine against democracy in action! He hates the Tea Party Movement in particular. Andersen, a novelist who at one time was New York Magazine’s chief editor, prefers when “a calm club of like-minded wise men (and women) in Washington” is calling the shots, not the people. Andersen agrees with Elitist-in-Chief President Barack Obama who believes the opponents of his far-left policies should just sit down and shut up. Andersen liked the good old days when: the elite media really did control the national political discourse…Until fifteen years ago, presidents...

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

The poor, benighted little people. They just don't understand what a wonderful hopey-changey world Pres. Obama is offering them . . . Andrea Mitchell has suggested that the problem Pres. Obama is facing in selling his health care plan to Americans who already have coverage is that people "may not know what's good for them." [H/t reader Restless 1] Mitchell made her condescending comment on today's Morning Joe. View video here.

Don't know if you saw the TV news clip last week about Barbara Boxer admonishing a Brigadier General because he addressed her as Ma'am and not Senator before a Senate hearing. Anyway this is a letter from a Guard Aviator and Captain for Alaska Air Lines. He hits the nail directly on the head. Maybe we all should send a copy of this letter to the SENATOR Here is my final draft to Barbara Boxer. Please give it your widest dissemination. I want the world to know at least one scoundrel who masquerades as a wise solon and a congress...

The right-wing blogosphere is abuzz over the supposed smackdown between Sen. Barbara Boxer and Harry C. Alford, who portrays himself as an "African American and a veteran" who is insulted at Boxer's alleged racism and calls her on it... Alford is also an ardent opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act—no surprise, since he also sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading EFCA opponent. He's been claiming that EFCA would harm African-American-owned businesses. His April op-ed for Roll Call on the issue of enabling workers to form unions is an example of how he is...

YOU DECIDE: After coming under fire from almost all quarters for her snippy request should the senator take a deep breath and apologize to the general? Share your thoughts: First, vote in our poll and then click on “Leave a Comment” below.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, gave an Army brigadier general an order this week during a committee hearing: Call me "senator." Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers had addressed male senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee as "sir" during the Tuesday hearing. When the time came to speak with Mrs. Boxer, the panel's chairwoman, he called her "ma'am." Mrs. Boxer quickly interrupted him. "Do me a favor, can you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am'?" Mrs. Boxer pointedly asked the general. "It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd...

enator Barbara Boxer (D., Cal.) has been schooled in the peculiar etiquette that Jill Biden observes. As a result of her Ed.D. degree, Biden insists on being called "Dr." by sodiers who unknowingly refer to her as "Mrs. Biden. (Dr. Biden explains) "Ya know, I worked hard for that degree." Now Poliitcs Daily reports that Senator Boxer shares a similar pride in her work: At a sometimes contentious Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), had a request for Army Corps of Engineers division leader, Brigadier General Michael Walsh. During a terse...

I'm still a little obsessed with the Sarah Palin's family. I'm most interested in 7-year-old Piper Palin and the way she treats her baby brother, Trig. I thought her attempt to spit-smooth his hair at the Republican convention was cute as kittens, of course. But I'm riveted every time I see Piper holding the baby—at the convention, at the vice-presidential debate and most recently at an ice-cream shop in Colorado where she was lugging the little guy around in one of those heavy car-seat carriers. It's clear to me that Piper loves her little brother; it's less clear that she...

Having encountered an actual blue-collar member of the proletariat, the white-collar bourgeois Kossacks recoil in horror at what they see: Finally we heard the talk of real Americans! Too bad that talk ended up being more racist drivel... This again comes down to racial identity. McCain can be trusted; Obama cannot. The white man can be trusted, even when his words and deeds show otherwise; the black man is clearly a Manchurian Candidate waiting to ambush this country and its poor plumbers. Joe the Plumber may not want to think this way; he may not even realize that he thinks...

Former beauty queen Sarah Palin has breathed new life into the American frontier legend giving her instant appeal across America. Advertising herself at the Republican convention with the words “We grow good people in our small towns”, Palin has used her fresh face and unmistakable voice to inject a dose of pure nostalgia into the American presidential mix. The continual search for re-birth and newness is a familiar theme in American politics and Palin’s positive reception reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s quip that “The youth of America is their oldest tradition”. Outside of America, Palin’s paltry number of passport stamps...

Fox News recently picked up on a piece by the National Post’s Jonathan Kay which takes on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) because one of its columnists, Heather Mallick, recently included incendiary comments in her September 5 column, on CBC's Web site, "A Mighty Wind blows through Republican convention," about Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, contending that Palin has the "toned-down version of the porn actress look," and attacking people in small towns as she charged that Palin "added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies...

During this US election cycle we are hearing a lot from the pundits and candidates about "heartland voters," and "white working class voters." What they are talking about are rednecks. But in their political correctness, media types cannot bring themselves to utter the word "redneck." So I'll say it for them: redneck-redneck-redneck-redneck. The fact is that we American rednecks embrace the term in a sort of proud defiance. To us, the term redneck indicates a culture we were born in and enjoy. So I find it very interesting that politically correct people have taken it upon themselves to protect us...

'Meet the Press' transcript for August 31, 2008 **SNIP** MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Well, they, they think now that they have a story. They have a story of a working mom, she is a colorful character, an Annie Oakley, you know, Annie get your gun. They love her story. But when she tried to talk about Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, in western Pennsylvania yesterday at a rally with conservative Republican voters, Hillary Clinton was booed. So she can use the Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro analogy if she wants to in interviews. She cannot use that at Republican rallies. She is...

Not surprisingly, something went unnoticed in the establishment media's coverage of Barack Obama's latest gaffe. What got the play was that Senator Obama had a great-uncle, not an uncle, who was involved, in some way or another, in the liberation of Buchenwald, not Auschwitz. Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. What didn't get much, if any, play was the Illinoisan's observation that his now great-uncle was, presumably, so traumatized by the experience of liberating a death camp that, when he returned stateside: "...he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months, right....

Jonah Goldberg has defined correctly what Americans are upset with in Obama's San Francisco speech. Goldberg said today on Fox News that elitism can be good (for instance, you want the best, most elite surgeon to do your surgery) and using the word "bitter" isn't the problem with Obama's speech; however, the problem comes with Obama's use of the word "clinging" in describing small town America's reverence for God and support of the 2nd Amendment. So, the problem with Obama is not so much elitism but arrogance.

This has been a long Presidential campaign, but often usefully so. The Democratic Party fight is helping us learn that there's more to Barack Obama than the eloquent, post-partisan, disciplined purveyor of "hope" that he typically projects. There's also the Barack Obama who attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright's ("God d--- America") church for 20 years, the one who emerged from the Chicago Democratic machine with friends like Tony Rezko, the one with the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate, and now we learn the one with a Harvard-eye view of American angst. At an April 6 fund-raiser in San...

It was reported yesterday that on April 6, Sen. Barack Obama made the following remarks about the white working-class: “It’s not surprising, then, 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.”Catholic League president Bill Donohue wasn’t amused:“Commentators are already saying that Obama’s remarks are an attack on small town America. But they are more than that. “Just as words can be taken out of context, it is equally wrong to dismiss the context in which words are spoken....

In their attempts to spin away from Barack Obama’s stunningly stupid remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser last weekend, Democrats and the Obama campaign have focused on only the least objectionable portion of the comment as a means to frame the national discussion. In a single sentence where Obama called small-town Midwestern voters overly religious bigots who cling to their guns out of frustration with George Bush, the Democrats have decided to build their defense on “bitter”. Here’s the original remark: And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who...

<p>You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.</p>

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - Sen. Barack Obama was criticized Friday by his two fellow presidential candidates for statements he made recently at a San Francisco fundraiser that could be viewed as derogatory toward rural America. "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said Sunday, according to the Huffington Post web site. "And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate...

McCain camp hammers Obama on small town comments The McCain campaign, finding a gift in its lap, tees off on the eye-opening comments by Barack Obama from a fundraiser last week in San Francisco (of all places). Asked to respond, McCain adviser Steve Schmidt called it a "remarkable statement and extremely revealing." "It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking," Schmidt said. "It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans." Said Obama, as recorded by a HuffPost writer in attendance: "You go into...

Hillary Clinton and John McCain both ripped into Barack Obama Friday for reportedly saying residents of small-town America “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” out of bitterness over lost jobs, a remark his opponents interpreted as arrogant...

The Huffington Post's Mayhill Fowler reports that, at that same San Francisco fundraiser where Obama revealed his previously unknown college sojourn to Pakistan, the junior senator from Illinois seemed to try to get inside the mind of small towners in Pennsylvania, with a dose of sociology and a dollop of dime-store psychology. "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration...

Shame on Virginia Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw. A man who has spent the better part of three decades in the legislature in Richmond ought to have more sense than to insult any state resident – let alone an entire group of them. Saslaw, a Northern Virginia businessman and the leader of the newly minted Democratic majority, is in hot water for an ill-considered remark on an elevator at the capitol last week. His comments were either an insult to gun-rights supporters or rural voters or both. NO MATTER who was the target, the remarks were certainly not statesmanlike. Saslaw...

-- snip -- But telling Obama to wait his turn is a tricky proposition. It sounds patronizing and condescending, awakening the kinds of racial grievances white liberals have spent half a century fanning -- only to find themselves now singed in the blowback, much to their public chagrin. Who says there's no justice in this world?

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) – Hours after Democrat Hillary Clinton was sharply critical of rival Barack Obama in an interview on NBC's Meet The Press, the New York senator struck a different tone on his candidacy in a predominantly African-American church in South Carolina. "Probably many of us thought we would never see the day when an African-American and a woman were competing for the presidency of the United States," Clinton said at the Northminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia. "I am so proud of my party I am so proud of my country and I am so proud of Sen....

by Mark Finkelstein September 4, 2006 - 08:03 The Brahmins might no longer rule the Bay State, but their tradition lives on in the editorial room of the Boston Globe. And what better occasion than Labor Day for the elitist Globe to condescend to workers in a manner that might have brought a smile to the lips of a Lowell or Cabot? The topic of Labor Day, 2006 is one in great fashion in MSM circles: the horrors of Wal-Mart - and the joys of unionism. According to the Globe, "unionized workers earn on average $1.52 an hour more than...

Black Dem Blasts 'Plantation' Hillary Clinton A high profile black Democrat in New York City is blasting Hillary Clinton for playing racial politics with her Martin Luther King Day tribute, saying her use of the term "plantation" was "condescending" to African Americans. "I think her speech was contrived and condescending," City Councilman Charles Barron told ABC Radio's Sean Hannity on Tuesday. "I don't like the idea that she used 'plantation' with a black audience," Barron complained. "I think that's a very serious analogy and I understand when we [blacks] use it from time to time. But that has been a...

I must admit that I never knew the lyrics to "Silent Night," that most famous of Christmas songs, until I was well into the prime of my life. There was no reason I should have, though. Growing up in a tightly knit Orthodox community in New Jersey, I attended Jewish day schools and Jewish camps and was active in Jewish youth movements, as insulated from the Gentile world as anyone could possibly be. My first real contact with non-Jews came during my college years in New York, but even then, most of my closest friends were Jewish, and my Christmas...

Mondo Cocktail: A Shaken and Stirred History Christine Sismondo McArthur & Company, 250 pages, $24.95Christmas is fast approaching, and with it, the dilemma of what to give the less likable people in our lives: office mates, ex-spouses, born-again Christians. You could enroll them in the Potato of the Month Club, something my friend Nancy once did to her in-laws. You could give them exactly the same thing you gave last year, as clear a signal as any that your relationship is safely stuck in neutral. Or you could give them a pretty little book about a frivolous topic: Toronto writer...

You just never know what a Liberal will reveal under the influence of a little turkey and a little wine, but it's almost always worth taking the opportunity to find out just how deep the madness goes. Such was the "conversation" I had with a Liberal over Thanksgiving dinner, during which she confirmed her eligibility for a padded cell. At some point during the conversation (which had been pleasantly inconsequential until this point) the Liberal went out of her way to mention that she "adopted" a black family through her work, donating some small part of her paycheck towards handouts...

Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, in an appearance Friday on CNN's "Larry King Live," said Americans are too dumb to vote for the right candidates. "We're an ignorant nation right now," Mr. Cronkite said. "We're not really capable, I do not think the majority of our people, of making the decisions that have to be made at election time ....in the selection of their legislatures and their Congress and the presidency, of course." ...... "I don't think we're bright enough to do the job that would preserve our democracy, our republic. I think we're in serious danger."

Ever have a teacher who tried way too hard to be "down" with the kids? Who never knew that he was using out-of-date lingo or patronizing the intelligence of the people he wanted to befriend? If you have a masochistic desire to spend hours with that kind of person, you could tune into Current TV, a new cable channel that debuted in 20 million homes nationwide Monday. (In South Florida, Current is available on DirecTV.) For a channel that is supposed to be aimed squarely at 18- to 34-year-olds and reflect their views and concerns, Current (whose chairman is Al...

It has been common knowledge for quite some time that the Democrats have a completely condescending attitude towards the general public. Therefore we thank the DUmmies for actually spelling out this attitude in this THREAD titled, “Democrats must understand that American people are dumb and ignorant.” This is the condescending attitude that almost all professional Democrat politicians have. They think that the American public is just too STUPID to understand the “enlightened” socialistic programs that the Democrats propose and thus ignorantly vote for the Republicans as a result. As a result the Democrats HATE the electorate. This is why...

As we discussed last week, mainline Protestants have much to learn from conservative evangelicals about passion, community and engaging the culture. But it's equally true that conservative evangelicals can take plenty from mainline Protestants. We all have a lot riding on their learning curve. Conservative evangelicals in mega-churches, independent Bible churches and Pentecostal assemblies are driving the nation's politics, and none of us benefit if they drive the country into a ditch. For that reason, I suggest they take a page from the Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians who ran the country for a long time. With some exceptions, they were...

It was a crucial mistake to send out the entire constitution to every French voter, the architect of the EU's first constitution Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has said in an interview. In an interview with the New York Times, his first since the French rejection of the constitution two weeks ago, the former French president apportions most of the blame to president Jacques Chirac for failure in the referendum campaign. One crucial mistake was to send out the entire three-part, 448-article document to every French voter, said Mr Giscard. Over the phone he had warned Mr Chirac already in March: "I...

The other day columnist George F. Will took a swipe at what he called "Kuttnerism" -- the sin of liberal condescension toward middle Americans ["Redefining Liberalism," op-ed, Dec. 12]. I have long observed that when Democrats and liberals honor the pocketbook struggles of regular people, social tolerance is more easily advanced. For instance, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy championed workaday Americans -- and were able to expand minority rights at a time when most whites needed some prodding. In that spirit, I wrote in the December American Prospect magazine: "Bill Clinton won election by declaring, as a...

I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. My predecessors in this conversation are thoughtful men, and I honor their ideas, but let's try something else. I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant,...

I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used...