As soon as I turned on Morning Joe today, I heard “presumptuous” mentioned twice. And last night it was mentioned on both Hardball and Anderson Cooper.
Keep in mijnd that the GOP does not do this stuff for a knock out. They operate on the death of a thousand cuts. Little criticisms, relentlessly played, dribbled out over time designed to create a running theme. This one is obvious: elitist, aloof, and — presumptuous. That last carries quite an amazing amount of freight — presumptuous, uppity, doesn’t know his place. It applies neatly to any Democrat who deigns to lead Broderville but the historical, subliminal American memory that attaches to such a word when the person in question is black is particularly powerful. (I smell the mark of Rove on that — he’s really good at stuff like this.)
I do, too. In fact, I’d bet on it. It’s easy to envision Rove sending an e-mail to his media address book asking, “Is Barack being too presumptuous? Hmm. Oink.”
UPDATE: Christy Hardin Smith defines ‘presumptuous’:
I’ll tell you what is presumptuous: people who summer on the Vineyard telling me no one should question the way things are or want to work — really work — on our problems.
And happy birthday, Jane Hamsher! Cheers.
