There’s the educated class and then there’s “the rest of us”

I read this column by David Brooks in the NYT  last week, H/T to HotAir.com, and it infuriated me. Since then, Michael Barone and Michelle Malkin have  taken this guys premise on.

David Brooks has said that he divides people into “those who talk like  us, and those who don’t.” In his column he again categorizes people as those in the  “educated class” and the rest of us.

Here’s an example of Brooks’ elitist/education based prejudice from Michelle Malkin’s site; take note of the college pedigree’s:

Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.).

The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law)…

In Brooks’ opinion, only those with M.A.’s and higher after their names, should be governing us.

In his most recent column, Brooks compares the Tea Party members (the uneducated class) to the Obama educated class. And apparently the Tea Partiers are not smart enough – yet – to realize that we need those guys to lead us. To Brooks, it’s almost as though, those who do not support or belong to the educated class are just being contrarians for the sake of being contrary:

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

I guess it’s not possible in the educated brain of Mr. Brooks that maybe “the educated class” is wrong on all these issues! I guess he doesn’t know that all those issues that the “educated class” supports are UNCONSTITUTIONAL! “The rest of us” (the uneducated class) seem to know and understand more about that document than his ilk does.

Instead of contrasting the smart guys and “the rest of us”, Barone compares those who follow style (Obamatrons) and “the rest of us” who follow substance:

…it sounds like Brooks was indulging the conceit of so many liberals that they are, well, simply smarter than conservatives.

But when you look back over the surges of enthusiasm in the politics of the last two years, you see something like this: The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama_s-rapturous-style-versus-tea-party-substance-8756474-81280502.html#ixzz0cZzuqeSJ)

If you’re a devotee of style, you’re buying every issue of Vanity Fair or People rag/mags to see Mrs. TheOne’s new spring fashion wardrobe or her new way cool hairdo, or gawking at TheOne’s serious six-pack and pecks.

If you’re a follower of coolness, you’re a twenty-something watching mindless Jersey Shores reality tv on  “Rock the Vote” network.

If your motivation is substance, you’re reading the Constitution, the health care and crap and tax bills and getting smart enough to debate candidates, congressmen and senators at town hall meetings.

Tell me again Mr. Brooks, who is the educated class in this country?