Watch original video:

If you answer "Phelps," does that make you an elitist?

Most of us, in one plan of conduct or another, aspire or have aspired to be part of an elite, to be really good at something. That’s the definition of the word. "Elite," according to the American Heritage Dictionary, means "a group or a member of of that kind a group or class enjoying of the intellect, social or economic status … the best or most skilled members of a group."

Not bad. But "elitism": bad. The "ism" word has evolved over centuries to mean, according to the same dictionary: "The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority … the sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group."

Bad.

In other words, Michael Phelps can be admired for reality a better competitive swimmer than I was (a long time ago), but I’ll exist mad if he thinks he’s better than me.

So it goes. "Elitism" has become maybe the most potent negative issue in American party politics in our time. George Wallace, the racist former governor of Alabama and would-be president, used it to great superior situation outer part in the 1970s, attacking "pointy-headed intellectuals who can’t even ride a bike straight." He went a long way bragging that he was dumb and didn’t approve smart people. George W. Bush got further by playing the periodical fright — or at least the chiefly periodical of presidential sons who went to Yale — against the intellectual pretensions of Al Gore and the wind-surfing of John Kerry.

Both Wallace and Bush and a accident of other politicians coming from the right have clobbered liberals by means of claiming to be dumb and dumber. Lefties regard been less successful, in newly come elections, in grievous to attack economic elitism.

Which brings us to this year. John McCain, the son and grandson of admirals, was doing just fine as antidote to a few weeks attacking Barack Obama, he of humble if exotic origins, as an elitist for he excelled at Harvard Law School and uses and understands a lot of haughty discourse — and made some money writing books completely by himself.

Regular guy McCain — Obama is definitely not a orderly guy — seemed to have being doing straight not a little in yelling that the guy with the ludicrous name was not one of us. (There might subsist racial implication in that, but you couldn’t be much whiter than Gore and Kerry.) And Obama, analogous Phelps, is not in the same manner as most of us. In his business, he’s better.

Now McCain seems to have tripped over his concede elite valuable wife and real estate status.

One of the most interesting things about following politicians is their bravery (or arrogance) in putting everything on the row of words every time they unsettled their mouths. One or couple wrong dispute, and they can lose everything. A risky vocation, as McCain learned again on Thursday at the time Politico.com asked him how many homes he owned (with his wife) and he didn’t know.

His answer on the houses was: "I think — I’ll have my staff get to you," McCain replied. "It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you."

He sounded and looked as bad as he looked good when, in his first congressional race in Arizona, he was accused of being a carpetbagger who had not at any time actually lived in the state. That was true, but McCain had a killer answer ready: "I’m from a military family; I’ve moved around a lot. Actually, the fortress I lived longest was in Hanoi."

The Obama campaign, like McCain in that first race, was ready to talon, having researched the decimal points of McCain’s millions. They had the answer and television scripts to fare with it: "Seven! — and maybe a couple more."

Gotcha! A gaffe. But it was a revealing one. As Bob Drogin and Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles Times began their report in succession McCain’s tumult: "A political gaffe, it is uttered, occurs whereas a politician inadvertently tells the truth."

This time, the knife of elitism has divide both ways. Both of these guys are qualified and ambitious men in a killer craft. As they should be. Politics, it is said, ain’t beanbag. And the presidency is not for the faint of heart.

Previous: BROKE AND BROKEN IN AMERICA
Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20080822/cm_ucrr/avoteforelitism