11/05/2004 06:53:45 AM|||Toni|||This just shows why the left of center people have no clue or reality as to why GW won the election. I also think this demonstrates how UN-DIVERSE the East Coast Media Elite and the West Coast Hollyweirdo's truly are. But of course, we in middle America are the idiots, not them. One needs to nuanced and pro-socialism (read: Progressive) to be considered intelligent.
Hmmm. Right!

From James Taranto:

The Blue Cocoon"I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won," the late film critic Pauline Kael is said to have observed after the 1972 election. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." Pick up the New York Times 32 years later, and it's obvious that big-city liberals are as out of touch as ever. "Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush," reports the paper's Joseph Berger in a Metro section story on New Yorkers who are "disconsolate" over President Bush's re-election:
"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' " . . .
"I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country--the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country--in the heartland."
"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said.
It's the same story in John Kerry's hometown, as the Boston Globe, a Times sister paper, reports:
Jessica Johnson, 59, of Cambridge, who said she had volunteered for Kerry, said she was filled with optimism on Election Day, telling herself: ''When Kerry gets into the White House, this stone, this weight on my chest, will be lifted."
''He could have made a great president," Johnson said. ''Many Americans have nothing between their ears. Americans are fat, lazy, and stupid. I don't like this country anymore."
Notwithstanding the state's history on the presidential stage, some Bay Staters seemed surprised by Kerry's defeat. ''He's local. It's too bad," said David Griffith, manager of Destination Boston, a Hub-themed T-shirt and sweatshirt emporium at Quincy Market. Displaying a shirt featuring photos of President Bush and his father with the words ''Dumb & Dumber," Griffith remarked in some bafflement: ''We sold hundreds of these, and yet he still pulled it off."
The Times also quotes Beverly Camhe, a film producer, who "explained the habits and beliefs of those dwelling in the heartland like an anthropologist":
"What's different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can't ignore each others' dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness," she said. "When you're in a more isolated environment, you're more susceptible to some ideology that's imposed on you."
As an example, Ms. Camhe offered the different attitudes New Yorkers may have about social issues like gay marriage.
"We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors," she said. "They're not some vilified unknown. They're our neighbors."
But she said that a dichotomy of outlooks was bad for the country.
"If the heartland feels so alienated from us, then it behooves us to wrap our arms around the heartland," she said. "We need to bring our way of life, which is honoring diversity and having compassion for people with different lifestyles, on a trip around the country."
Angry Left blogger Eric Alterman sums up the attitude:
Let's face it. It's not Kerry's fault. It's not Nader's fault (this time). It's not the media's fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It's not "our" fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the "reality-based community" say or believe about anything.
Who exactly is parochial here? Times columnist Thomas Friedman offers this observation:
This was not an election. This was station identification. I'd bet anything that if the election ballots hadn't had the names Bush and Kerry on them but simply asked instead, "Do you watch Fox TV or read The New York Times?" the Electoral College would have broken the exact same way.
We're guessing he's wrong about this; despite the Times' pretensions to being a national newspaper, it seems likely that Kerry states outside the Northeast have more Fox viewers than Times readers. But even so, Bush supporters are hardly lacking exposure to the liberal media: the broadcast networks, stories from news wires and syndicates (including the Times') in their local newspapers, Hollywood movies, etc. Red-state residents may disdain Kerry as much as blue-staters do Bush, but we'd venture to say the former have a better-informed view of the opposition.
Bush voters tend to see big-city liberals as arrogant elitists, and the above quotes make clear that they are substantially correct. If those liberals were as sophisticated and open-minded as they fancy themselves to be, they would make an effort to understand why most Americans disagree with them rather than simply dismissing them as idiots.

Here's the other thing that bugs me. Nothing is EVER their fault. It's always someone else's fault and that belief pretty much transcends the buggaboo with the left of center intelligencia.
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