On first looking into Kos' blog (from the archive)

On my daily stop at NFL.com today, I was reminded of something very sad: the start of the regular NFL season is still an interminable four and a half months away. In the meantime, I'm left with nothing better than politics, an utterly inadequate substitute. But play the hand you're dealt, I've always said.

So, Barack Obama. Last week he said something kind of dumb. I'm sure everyone's already heard it, so I won't quote him. You know the soundbite I mean, the one where he told wealthy San Francisco liberals what they already know: that blue-collar, "heartland" Americans are a bunch of podunk rubes who love guns, hate immigrants, go to church instead of college and don't even have the sense to vote in their own economic self-interest. If you have the misfortune to be exposed to as much news, punditry and water-cooler bull sessions as I am, you've already heard the big outcry, both from the Hillary Camp and John McCain Land. Suddenly Obama, heretofore the healer of all our woes, the uniter of all our differences, sounds a tad condescending, even "elitist."

Elitism from a Harvard-educated lawyer worth millions of dollars? No! I for one refuse to believe it.

So I'm bored with this story, except for one seldom-mentioned aspect. I hear Obama supporters defending his remarks, explaining that they were "poorly phrased" but "fundamentally true," and I can't help but chuckle. Because I know that somewhere, deep down in their psyche (or maybe not so deeply buried), they're going, "What's the big deal? He's right! They ARE just a bunch of podunk rubes." Most of them won't admit to it on TV or in print, but I decided to look elsewhere for confirmation. And I found it, in the Daily Kos.

Sure, I had to search a bit. This was my first trip to Kos (surprise!), and frankly, I was unprepared for the all-out internecine party warfare being fought out there in the blogosphere. I don't know how many people are posting on that site, but judging by the frequent updates and the never-ending string of verbal sniping at Hillary Clinton (sorry, couldn't resist), I quickly figured out that this is ground zero for the Hillary/Obama battle. Mentions of "bittergate" weren't hard to find, but practically every one emphasized what a non-story this is, and ended by exulting that Obama's remarks haven't hurt him in the Pennsylvania polls. More than a few bloggers seemed to be hyperventilating over how unworthy of mention this story is, because it's just the latest futile attempt by the Hillary campaign to find a chink in the Obama armor.

But finally I found what I was looking for. A blogger named "Asinus Asinum Fricat," who appears to be some sort of European correspondent for Kos, summed up the "bitter" fracas thusly:

I suppose I am an elitist since I care about our planet, as does the Senator from Illinois. ... Ignore the clamoring repukes [sic], elect Obama and get on with it. We are all elitists and proud to be!"

So now I get it. It's GOOD to be an elitist, as long as you're part of the MORAL elite. Remarks like this one, coupled with Kos' oft-repeated declaration that the "bitter" story is "nonsense" and mud-slinging, dovetail pretty neatly with what I assumed from the beginning.

But what I really learned from my first foray into the world of Kos is that this country is a dreadful mess. The present recession is worse than anyone realizes, nobody has any money, because it's all going to "the top," nobody's got health insurance (except one or two Kos bloggers) and if Democratic Congressman Edward Markey is to be believed, the planet is going to be "cooked" because of global warming by the year 2025. (I didn't realize Markey had a degree in climatology; guess I didn't read his Web biography carefully enough.)

Bottom line: This place sucks, and I had no idea. I was under the general impression that we live in the most prosperous, democratic country in the world, at the most prosperous and democratic moment in that country's history. But now that I think about it, maybe I should be bitter too!

God I can't wait until football starts. This country will be so much better off come September. Once they get old enough, I propose a Peyton/Eli Manning presidential ticket to bridge the AFC/NFC divide and bring in a lot of those bitter blue-collar midwesterners. The Manning brothers are good ol' boys from Louisiana, and unlike Hillary, they don't have to fake a heartland accent.