Posted on Fri, May. 16, 2008

One thing we've established in this Democratic primary season: Elitism is a bad thing. Elitists are lurking everywhere these days, if you listen to the politicians.

"Bush brain" Karl Rove recently dismissed President Bush's many critics as "elitist, effete snobs."

In this election year, elitism and elites seem to be the favorite whipping boy, the cause of all of America's problems.

Barack Obama has been labeled an "elitist" for his comment about "bitter" small-town folk and for the crime of eating arugula.

It's raw populism that's winning the votes and the news cycles.

The more down-home, unlettered and aw-shucks humble a candidate is, the better.

Hillary Clinton (graduate of Wellesley College and Yale Law School) has thrown herself into elite-bashing of late.

"Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," she drawled, when experts bashed her gas-tax holiday as a shameful pander.

"We've got to get out of this mindset, where somehow, elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans," she said.

Those economists -- what do they know?

In the wilds of Pennsylvania, she downed shots of whiskey and beer and dropped her "g's" and talked as tough as Ma Barker. She enthused about guns and hardworking white folks.

She stopped just short of blackening a few of her teeth and taking up the banjo.

And the act paid off big-time: She won by a landslide Tuesday in West Virginia. But does expecting politicians to act like "Hee-Haw" characters really serve our country well?

I think elitism is getting a bad rap.

One definition of "elite" is people who benefit in life from upper-class birth and privilege.

Like, say, George W. Bush.

Does anyone really believe Bush would have been president except for Poppy Bush's connections?

Bush cultivates a man-of-the-soil image, wears cowboy boots and speaks in fractured sentences. But he grew up with wealth, was a member of the elite Skull and Bones society at Yale, just like Poppy -- and like John Kerry, too, who was tagged an elitist for marrying a rich wife, knowing how to speak French and going windsurfing.

Look, politicians of either party are almost by definition members of the elite.

It costs millions of dollars to win a Senate seat these days. Most of them are filthy rich by average Americans' standards. Many are graduates of elite Ivy League colleges and universities.

Calling a politician "elite" is like calling a fish scaly.

What's more important is what they've done with their lives and who they've championed in politics.

Franklin D.Roosevelt was a child of privilege and wealth, but his policies helped millions of poor Americans survive the Great Depression.

As for Bush, he made this comment a few years ago at a dinner for well-heeled supporters:

"This is an impressive crowd -- the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite -- I call you my base."

Bush was joking, but it also struck many as an unguarded statement of truth.

Obama, the elitist, grew up in humble circumstances, earned his way to Harvard Law School on merit and spent most of his adult life working to get people out of poverty.

Is it more important that he's a lousy bowler and sips his beer instead of gulps it?

There's another sense of "elite": people who actually know things and excel in their chosen fields.

I'm all for elitism and expertise in fields such as science and technology and medicine. Aren't you?

In politics, an elite, as best I can tell, is an expert who tells us things we don't want to hear. Such as: Humans are causing climate change.

Do we really want to dumb down the presidency?

George W. Bush won in 2004 because Americans thought he was the guy they'd most like to have a beer with. Well, the frat-boy presidency didn't work out so well.

Call me an arugula-lovin', latte-drinkin' elitist, but I'd like to have a smart president in the White House, one who inspires us to excellence, not mediocrity, who understands complexity and doesn't speak down to us.

If that's elitism, then we desperately need some of it.

Randy Scholfield is an Eagle editorial writer. His column appears on Fridays. Reach him at 316-268-6545 or rscholfield@wichitaeagle.com.