Let’s put aside the fact that David Letterman’s jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughters were sexist, as NOW and other feminist groups have acknowledged. We should also ask why he thought it was a cutting insult to compare Palin to a flight attendant—and other normal Americans that upper-crust liberals would never associate with.
The obvious answer: they’re snobs.
It’s why they laughed along with another Letterman monologue likening Palin to members of the lowly working class. “She looks like the waitress at the coffee shop who draws a little smiley face on your check,” he said. “She looks like the dip sample lady at Safeway. She looks like the nurse who weighs you and then makes you sit alone in your underwear for 20 minutes.” This was funny to people who look down upon nurses and grocery store workers.
It’s why the status-obsessed Keith Olbermann brags about his “Ivy League” credentials when he actually went to a state school affiliated with Cornell—as if there were something shameful about a public education.
It’s why Michael Moore writes book after book haranguing Americans for being racist, lamenting in Stupid White Men, “[I’m] trying to clock how long it is before I spot a black man or woman who isn’t wearing a uniform or sitting at a receptionist’s desk.” But as of 2005, Moore was spending two-thirds of his time in Central Lake, Michigan—a town that doesn’t have a single black resident.
Obviously, penning sanctimonious screeds about American racism is the job of rich liberals. But actually living in racially diverse neighborhoods is for the working class. (This also explains why popular vacation destinations for the liberal elite, such as Aspen and The Hamptons, are almost entirely white. Conversely, you’ll never see Ted Kennedy or Nancy Pelosi hanging out at the Jersey Shore or other spots frequented by riffraff.)
It’s why a group of Hollywood aristocrats, including Barbra Streisand and David Geffen, illegally constructed fences to keep ordinary people off the public beaches near their Malibu homes. They’re all about the interests of the “little guy”—just as long as the peasants don’t obstruct their view of the ocean.
It’s why the Queen of Liberal Pomposity, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, suggested that George Bush was unfit for the Presidency because her friends made disparaging remarks about him at a Georgetown cocktail hour—as if any normal person cares about liberals’ insipid chitchat at their little parties. (The average home price in Georgetown: $1,435,180.)
It’s why they sneered at former Representative Tom Delay for building a successful pest extermination company (how blue-collar!). They instead admire people who inherited or sued their way to wealth, like John Kerry and John Edwards.
It’s why the liberal media elite fawn over Michelle Obama’s designer shoe collection, while joking that Sarah Palin looks like she belongs “at a TGI Friday’s happy hour.”
Hilarious, but only to liberal snobs who wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out at TGI Friday’s—or any other place they might encounter the “little guys” they claim to represent.
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