He meant Gore, Kerry and Bush
But when I read his article on the disadvantages of an elite education, I immediately thought of President and Mrs. Obama who seem hopelessly out of touch with the common man.
The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day [attempting to small talk with a plumber], is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it. Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate. William Deresiewicz
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3 comments:
Lol! Outside of their time spent at these schools, who do you think they associated with? The Bushes???
What gated community was Michelle from? Why does she give such emotional pep talks to black girls from the inner city?
How out of touch did Obama's working class Kansas grandparents make Obama as they helped raise him? How elitist was his teenage mom?
What kind of an out of touch elitist has student loans?
What was the high power elitist job that Obama took during and after law school?
The president's blue collar roots run deep and they are more in touch with the common man than any other first family in recent memory. Your willful ignorance and avoidance of the facts is breathtaking. Palin-like, in fact.
This gentleman was talking about his own college education--Yale, Harvard, etc., and their products. And yes, Michelle and Barry definitely had any common touch drummed out of them and have taken on the veneer of the elitist. That, oddly, was his appeal to many of the whites who voted for him. The movers and shakers among both Republicans and Democrats considered Palin too common.
I don't know if this is related or not, but...
I was at a gathering of friends and family over the 4th. I noted to my very liberal sis in law who teaches at an elite private school that it was neat to see such a diverse group of kids playing soccer together. This was after one of my bi-racial relatives gave the Amish neighbor a high five. My sister-in law responded as if she didn't see any diversity among the Americans at play: African-American kids adopted by German american families playing with bi-racial kids playing with their nordic looking cousins playing with their Amish neighbors...
I'm afraid it is probably because my sister-in-law (educationally elite) ignores anything to do with devout Christianity. My nephew had asked her earlier that day what Amish was. I know for a fact that this nine year old already knows all the nuances of Islam, Hinduism and Name-that-sect-, etc.
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