Matthew Yglesias- soon moving to the Atlantic- on how silly the whole "limousine liberal" fallacy is:
"One should note that there's a trap here designed to make it impossible, in practice, for anyone to advocate effectively on behalf of working class Americans. It's simply not possible, given the way the American political system works, for a person to be in a position to run for president without having achieved high socioeconomic status. A person will, in that position, be condemned by the press as a hypocrite if he acts like someone with money, and condemned by the press as a phony if he acts like someone without money (indeed, Edwards even got in trouble earlier for acting like a working class person who got rich and bought a tastelessly large house). Meanwhile, someone like George W. Bush who eschews the interests of working class Americans in favor culturalist posturing can get a free pass on sailing in Kennebunkport, and a free pass on phony working class affectations. No real person can uniformly avoid these "errors" -- it's the media dynamic that needs to change."Isn't it better to be a rich person who cares about the poor than a rich person who doesn't care about the poor? Posted by Stephen Silver at April 23, 2007 04:57 PM