Extending the "Presumption of Decency"

William McGurn has an absolute must-read piece here on the Wall Street Journal editorial page -- one that so perfectly expresses my feelings that I wish I had written it myself. Here's a snippet:

[M]oralizing about the ugly motives of the American people has become common. Whether it's a federal judge declaring there exists no rational opposition to same-sex marriage, a mayor railing against those who would like a mosque moved a few blocks from Ground Zero, a Speaker of the House effectively likening the majority of her countrymen who did not want her health-care bill to Nazis, or a State Department official who brings up the Arizona law on immigration in a human-rights discussion with a Chinese delegation, the chorus is the same: You can't trust ordinary Americans.

I have argued in the past thatObama's real problem isn't that Americans, increasingly, don't like him. It's that, increasingly, Americans are realizing that he doesn't like -- or respect -- us.

But McGurn's piece makes a convincing case that it isn't just Obama who feels that way . . . the mistrust and contempt for regular Americans has leeched deeply into the ranks of the elite.