That was the title of a story by Judy Rudoren, née Wilgoren, published in the NY Times on June 21, 2004. In it she breaks down the cost of certain items of Kerry's Father's Day weekend in 2004. She mentions the cost of some scallops at a restaurant ($36); the cost of kite-surfing equipment ($2,500); the size of his campaign plane, etc. To what end, you say. She compares Kerry's Nantucket weekend with Bush's Crawford TX ranch:
"It was reminiscent of President Bill Clinton's vacations in borrowed houses on nearby Martha's Vineyard, and a sharp contrast to President Bush's frequent brush-clearing forays on his sweltering ranch in Crawford, Tex."
This from a writer who grew up in a tony suburb of Boston, attended Yale, and worked in a cushy big-city newspaper job in Chicago. and who I'm sure lives in a house worth more than the 1.4 mil mentioned as the average price of a house in Nantucket. Who has to be so different that she combined her and her husband's surnames, and whom, I have no doubt, shops at Whole Foods.
Today, almost four years later, another NY Times writer puts out a piece on how the Democratic candidate is rich and belongs to the moneyed class. Maureen Dowd, who I'm certain, is no stranger to Louis Vuitton and Prada, and lives in a multi-million dollar Georgetown townhome in DC, wrote what amounts to a 'why-doesn't-Obama-eat-Velveeta-and-Hamburger-Helper-like-those-Rubes-in-the-sticks-do' piece. Here's the passage that is most representative of this offense:
"At Joe’s Junction gas station in Indianapolis, Obama did his best to shoo away the pesky elitist label. Accused by an Indianapolis reporter of looking like a GQ cover, he said he has only four pairs of shoes and buys 'five of the same suit and then I patch them up and wear them repeatedly.' But his campaign refused to reveal the brand, presumably because it’s not J. C. Penney."
What is it with these well-off Ivy League educated reporters and labeling Democrats who've been successful in life as elitist? Where do they get off exactly? Thanks Ms. I-plunk-down-5-large-for-a-designer-dress Dowd, for letting us know that Barak doesn't shop at JCPenny (I think she meant Wal-Mart, as even JCPenny is getting too expensive for most Americans).
I should hope Barack doesn't shop at JCPenny. Here you have, in Barack, a guy who grew up in a single-parent household, who’s mother was on food stamps at one point, and who’s become a successful upper-middle class individual, who's written a couple of best-selling books, and you're telling me Ms. I-own-a-luxury-townhouse-in-the-most-expensive-neighborhood-in-DC Dowd, that he's not allowed to wear an expensive suit. Isn’t he the very embodiment of the American dream, the kind of person who most Americans hope their own children become. I wonder if Ms Dowd even knows how to spell foreclosure, something many Americans are acquainting themselves with.
What do her working-class-Irish-by-proxy roots tell her about that? "But if they don't have homes, where will they park their Priuses, which I'm sure every working-class American owns."
Yet she doesn't mention how McCain, an Admiral's son, got into the Naval Academy, or that his wife is very rich, and that he doesn't exactly wear JCPenny suits either. No doubt she's waiting until the nomination is over so she can write her McCain hagiography, and how he's all salt-of-the-Earth.
What is it with these people. You'd think they, of all people, would be backing the progressive candidate. But I guess these reporters are rich snobs first, and Liberals second, and really they're financially better off under Republicans anyway, am I right.
ed: 04/28 03:42PM added tags.
ed: 04/28 03:49PM fixed typo.
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