The President of Condescension

Among the excellent commentary on the latest episode in the president’s televised series of meltdowns, this observation  by William Kristol in The Weekly Standard stood out, under the apt title “Baby Talk”:

I was struck by these sentences in President Obama’s speech:

Now, what makes today’s stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling – a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.

Understand – raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up.

Consider the condescension implicit in the president’s statement—“a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.” These “people outside of Washington” are not little children being lectured on an obscure subject by a worldly adult. These people outside Washington are … citizens…

It would be nice to have a president who spoke candidly to his fellow citizens as adults.