This piece by Timothy Egan on "How Obama Saved Capitalism and Lost the Midterms," which I think just ran online and not in the print paper, has been the most e-mailed story on the New York Times Web site for the past couple of days. My favorite sentence in it is this one: "But more than anything, the fact that the president took on the structural flaws of a broken free enterprise system instead of focusing on things that the average voter could understand explains why his party was routed on Tuesday."
What a great summation of the left-elitist mindset. The big issues — TARP, the auto bailout/takeover, health care reform, stimulus, financial regulation — are all not "things that the average voter could understand," in Mr. Egan's view.
I actually think the average voter understands these issues quite well, thank you — better than a lot of the folks serving in the Obama administration or writing opinion pieces for the New York Times. If average voters are not capable of understanding these issues, it kind of undercuts the whole case for having elections or democracy.
I anticipated and predicted this "the voters are ignorant" message in the pre-election post here on "how the left will spin the election results."
What do Mr. Egan and the people e-mailing this piece to their friends from the New York Times site think they are if not average voters? Above-average voters?
It's classic.
