Those who are concerned about which member of the landed gentry would take up the cause of flacking John McCain now that Carly Fiorina's been taken off duty for her momentary lapse of honesty yesterday needn't worry their pretty little heads. Coming to the Maverick's aid is the Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who, despite having been a Clinton backer and a contributor to the Democratic Party Platform Committee, has had it up to here with all of the Democrats' elitism.
The Lady's political shift was something one could have seen coming, if one had suffered through the simpering take on contemporary politics she offered on that fora for middle-class thought, the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. "If Barack Obama loses the presidential election," she opined, "it may well be the result of a public perception that he is detached and elitist -- a politician whose expressions of empathy for hard-working Americans stem more from abstract solidarity than a real connection to the lives of millions of citizens."
I'd say that for de Rothschild, who "splits her time living in London and New York," to criticize anyone's "abstract solidarity" with the working class is precisely what it means for the pot to call the kettle black. But, after the whole "lipstick on a pig" episode, I know that doing so would probably get me accused of racism. Nevertheless, it's true! For more on de Rothschild, let's go to the lede of Lloyd Grove's interview with her, in Portfolio:
When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference- - the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger -- she was already a woman of major means.
Honestly? We're to take seriously a critique of elitism from a woman whose marriage was yentaed by Henry Kissinger at the Bilderberg conference?
Mickey Kaus, who normally can be counted on to talk himself out of coherence, managed to stay on point when handed de Rothschild's WSJ piece: "You lost me at 'de.'" But if you struggled your way past the byline, you got this:
I'm a longtime Democrat. I worked for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and supported Sen. Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign. But I must face the uncomfortable truth that liberal elitism has been a weakness of the Democratic Party for more than half a century. In 1952 and 1956, for example, Adlai Stevenson emerged as the presidential candidate of the party's "new politics" wing. But while Stevenson's stylish, articulate, high-brow manner thrilled the nation's intellectuals, he could never connect with large numbers of working-class Democrats who found him aloof and aristocratic.
So, wait. Her personal snit with the Democratic Party's "elitism" dates back over a half-century, during which she gladly participated in the party, and only now does she decide to abandon it? What can I say? NOTHING ABOUT THIS WOMAN MAKES A LICK OF SENSE. One thing's for sure, with de Rothschild's melodramatic departure, the Democratic Party has become substantially less elite this morning.