Reply #24: Potomac Myopia [View All]

[hatrack]

I'm convinced that the vast majority of the pundits see the world as a small, square map.

It's bounded by Rockville and Silver Spring and Anacostia and Prince George County. Beyond the edges of the map lurks the dark unknown. Elegantly rendered illustrations along the borders of the map display menacing NASCAR tracks, scary strip malls, frightening factories and trailer parks of terror, all neatly labeled with the inscription "Here Be Joe Sixpacks".

They know nothing - NOTHING - of the concerns and worries of ordinary people. For that matter, they don't know any ordinary people.

How much time do people like George Will, Cokie Roberts, David Broder, David Horowitz or Jonah Goldberg spend in truck stops along I-80 in Nebraska, in small town diners in the mountains of Arkansas, at dollar stores in the Central Valley of California or in medical clinics in East LA? Simple - zero. You can't even pretend to have your finger on America's pulse if all you do is pontificate on television and spend the remainder of your time reading the National Journal, checking poll numbers, doing book tours and going to each others' cocktail parties.

The punditocracy collectively remind me of nothing so much as George I, stunned and amazed at computer scanners in grocery stores.

They wouldn't know an ordinary American if he or she walked up and kicked them in their pampered butts with a steel-toed boot. Fuck 'em.