the hauteur factor

[update: that hissing sound you hear is the mania balloon deflating: Hicks nix clique's shticks. ]

Leon Wieseltier called it a few weeks ago—the insufferable pedantry of Barack Obama has gotten under the skin of a lot of people.

Now (almost) everyone is piling on.

Kaus goes to town.

I used to think working class voters had conservative values because they were bitter about their economic circumstances–welfare and immigrants were “scapegoats,” part of the false consciousness that would disappear when everyone was guaranteed a good job at good wages. Then I left college. …

Plus: the Obama Bitterness Crisis is a very hot item on Memeorandum. Sample headlines:

Isaac Chotiner / The New Republic:
Obama’s None-Too-Bright Remarks

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Opponents Call Obama Remarks ‘Out of Touch’

Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice: Democratic And Republican Critics Blast Obama’s “Small-Town” Comments Calling It Presidential Disqualifier

Ben Smith / Ben Smith’s Blogs:

Hillary hits Obama on faith, guns

The Obama stalwarts march forward bravely, though.

Ezra Klein:

OBAMA TURNS ALL THOMAS FRANK ON US

Andrew Sullivan:

These remarks by Obama in San Francisco are, to put it gently, not the most felicitously phrased.

Marc Ambinder tried to straddle the two camps (among the Dems, that is; the GOPs have probably decided that this is the end of Obama):

Obama’s “Gaffe:” Some Perspective

We’re dealing tonight with a classic Kinsleyian “gaffe,” where a candidate says what he means and then is forced to account for it.

Except, as Kaus points out,

Because Obama’s comments are clearly a Category II Kinsley Gaffe–in which the candidate accidentally says what he really thinks–it will be hard for Obama to explain away. [He could say he was tired and it was late at night?–ed But he was similarly condescending in his big, heartfelt, well-prepared “race speech” when he explained white anger over welfare and affirmative action as a displacement of the bitterness that comes when whites

are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition …

Obama’s new restatement confirms the Marxist Deskwork interpretation of the race speech, removing any honest doubt as to his actual attitude.

The prize for circling-the-elite-wagons, though, goes to last night’s panel on CNN: