[battousai]

Before some one else chimes in.. What is a France and who cares :)

[.cnI redruM]

Yep, George Bush, George Soros, no real difference. Good point there Mr. Franks. Yeah, right!

The dividing line between elitist snobs and all-Americans has to do with outlook and philosophy. Not necessarily wealth.

[Viking2002]

'Scuze me whilst I go stomp on a Frog......

[smoothsailing]

Mon Dew?

No,thanks.

I'll have an RC.

[Rocky]

Yeah, sure. We'd much rather have a commoner like John Kerry, a self-made man, for president.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

absurd.

[randog]

...Howard Dean, was blasted for being the choice of the cultural elites: a "tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left- wing freak show" who had no business trying to talk to the plain folk of Iowa.

What a hoot that was! Wheaties spewing everywhere the morning I heard that commercial.

[Slings and Arrows]

I love the sound of a leftist with his panties in a bunch. It sounds like...freedom!

[Chris Talk]

Kerry's mother was French.

[Cicero]

How do you say "tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left- wing freak show" in French?

[Billthedrill]

Well, Tom Frank blew his economic prognistications concerning the recovery, (he humbly cites himself in note 2) but part of this article is, in fact, a cogent criticism of the left for eschewing its former populism in favor of the very elitism he decries (quite incorrectely) on the right.

Unfortunately his own insights are fatally flawed by the very same preference for the superficial that is killing the left at the moment. For example, he cites the "brilliant" M. de Villepin knocking down position after U.S. position in the UN and that he speaks five languages, but we are not told what a single one of those positions were so that we might judge for ourselves, only that M. de Villepin is smarter and hence must have been right. That is the sort of smug superiority complex that sends the eyes rolling in anyone who actually does care to consider these matters on their merits and not on the basis of who is proposing them.

It is a sad but not uncommon thing to see an otherwise intelligent person succumb to a deliberate self-blinding in order to maintain his sense of superiority to those whose opinions differ. That is one malady of the left that Mr. Frank did not mention, being a victim of it himself.

[Rhetorical pi2]

Y'know, at times down deep in the article, he gets it right on occasion. (Except when, with a glaring exception, he thinks tht Americans regard the French at polite. Have you ever heard ANYONE who thought the French were polite? Never!)

As for the elites - he almost gets it at times. But he fails to see what we see and feel. We detest the elitists he talks about who do not try to lead people, but correct them.

Also we see the business elite differently than we see the academic and government elite. We see business people as having ACHIEVEDand earned their status. Many of the academic and government types are not perceived as achievers...and Americans love achievers.

We think of people who achieve their elite status through competition as justified in trips to Europe, and living lavishly. We are appalled if government/political people do this.

Americans have also seen the damage that unions do to the economy and to their company. They also see the hypocrisy of the rich and government "limosine liberals". They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk.

[Republican Wildcat]

I still don't understand what the Club for Growth's strategy was in getting involved with the Iowa Caucuses and helping to take out Dean.

[marron]

Until the American left decides to take a long, unprejudiced look at deepest America, at the kind of people who think voting for George Bush constitutes a blow against the elite, they are fated to continue their slide to oblivion.

I agree with some of the other posters here. Americans don't resent the "rich" because they see wealth as the natural result of a productive life. Not everyone becomes "rich" but its not that far out of reach. Some mechanics start their own body shop and become millionaires in terms of assets, although they will likely work every day of their working life. Or start a restaurant, and if they manage not to go bankrupt they may also qualify as a millionaire although they too will never miss a day's work.

The people at the top of the corporate ladder had a long hard slog to get there, and no one really envies them. And if they are good, they deserve to be where they are, and if they aren't, some college drop-out is working on something in his garage that is going to eat their lunch.

The left, and the Euros, don't understand that the working class in America doesn't see himself as part of a permanent underclass. He certainly doesn't consider himself less than those that purport to fight for him. He more likely than not holds such people in utter contempt.

And the poor in America are only a permanent underclass to the extent that they sign on to the programs intended to help them. Hit bottom, depend on family, friends, and your own wits and you will rise to fight again. Hit bottom, and depend on the professional helpers to save you, and you are probably trapped for life, you will never get out.

Most people see that. So far from seeing the professional helpers as morally superior folk, they see them as toxic.

Still, there once was room on the left for real Americans. There is a kind of "Christian Socialism" or "Christian Democracy" movement which exists in Europe which once would have fit comfortably within the Democratic party, but the visceral hatred by the left for anything remotely Christian has driven believers out. Only the Socialists remain, the Christians have gone or soon will. And with them has gone any connection the Dems had with normal people.

[McGavin999]

The French are always characterised in American popular culture as a nation of snobs: they drink wine, they eat cheese, they’re polite.

There is nobody on this planet who think the french are polite!

This guy is so full of it that it's laughable.

[Tamzee]

We are being lectured by a country that had an appalling number of deaths from a HEATWAVE...people even died after reaching the hospitals because medical workers couldn't make ice.

[ApplegateRanch]

Let's see: 2004 - 30 = 1974.

Bush 2 = 4 2000
Clintoon = 8 1992
Bush 1 = 4 1988
Reagan = 8 1980
Carter = 4 1976
Ford -> 2 1972

Yep, 30 years of Right Wing victory, IF you are a contortionist, looking from the perspective of a "Centrist" Frog.
Only a Frog could croack out that Billous & Mr. Peanut were Right Wing!

[JCB]

I don't care what the Islamic Republic of France has to say anymore than I do Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or North Korea.