The odor of elitism is like onion breath: It's quick to acquire, hard to mask. Try as he might, Barack Obama cannot camouflage the political stink he exhaled when he dissed small-town Americans as "bitter" Neanderthals "clinging" to their guns, faith and belief in strict immigration enforcement. It wasn't the first time the effete Snob-ama revealed himself.

In Philadelphia, he passed up the hometown cheesesteak -- gloppy, artery clogging and blue-collar (yum!) -- for a nibble of Spanish-imported, $100/pound ham. In Iowa, he moaned to voters about the price of arugula at Whole Foods market. (Fun fact: There aren't any Whole Foods markets in Iowa.) And at an Altoona bowling alley, he couldn't even score his age. Superficial but telling glimpses of a condescending core.

Obama is reportedly flummoxed that his remarks have been interpreted as arrogant. After all, he was a "community organizer" who came from a single-parent home! He is The Everyman. The Uniter. The Soul-Fixer. The Vessel of All Hopes and Dreams. How could he possibly be perceived as out of touch?

Well, Beltway elitism isn't about biography. It's a corrupted state of mind. Obama can at least console himself with the knowledge that he has plenty of out-of-touch company in both parties in Washington.

Let's face it. Hundred-million-dollar Hillary "I'm not Tammy Wynette" Clinton, John "$400 Haircut" Edwards, John "French" Kerry and Al "$30,000 utility bill" Gore make Obama look like a peon of pretension. And it's hard to top the imperiousness of Reps. Cynthia McKinney, Patrick Kennedy and Sheila Jackson-Lee, who all abused law enforcement or service workers while demanding special privileges as "public servants."

But Republicans are just as susceptible to the Democrats' do-as-I-say virus.

Take Obama's GOP presidential rival, John McCain. The New York Times-endorsed media darling got a standing ovation from the nation's newspaper editors at a big journalism powwow in Washington this week. Some maverick. While McCain eagerly criticized Obama as an "elitist" for his derisive comments about small-town Pennsylvanians, Obama's got nothing on McCain when it comes to insulting average Americans who oppose illegal immigration. Continued...