Obama's Condescension

"Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," President Obama said today in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

This is very revealing--not about the American people's mood, but about Obama's view of the American people. Which is that they're children. They didn't elect Barack Obama because they agreed with candidate Obama's critique of Bush policies. They didn't elect Scott Brown because they are disappointed with the policies President Obama has pursued, and because they preferred Brown on the issues to Martha Coakley. No. It's all about "mood"--and, Obama must believe, candidates who are clever enough to exploit it.

There's been a lot of talk about whether Obama can and will "pivot" in his second year in office. I'd say that to do so successfully he would have to abandon his fundamentally condescending view of the American people and learn to respect them.