People who know what they're talking about? Fuck 'em.

Here she goes, again:

"Clinton raised questions about Obama's ability to connect with working-class Americans while dismissing economists who have said her plan to suspend gas taxes over the summer would do little good.

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Clinton said when asked to name an economist who backed her proposal.

"We've got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans," said Clinton."

From the pandering with pointless damaging tax-cuts to the casual dismissal of legitimately knowledgeable experts in favor of the aforementioned pandering, the woman's looking more and more like one of G-Dubs' Bushista Republicans, every day.

It's really somewhat impressive in a bang-your-head-against-the-nearest-wall sort of way: In one stroke, she manages to not only regurgitate the anti-Obama "elitist" smear (I can only imagine that working Jeremiah Wright into the conversation was too much of a stretch) but reinforces the altogether tragic trend of American anti-intellectualism.

In 28 little words, Clinton takes the position that there's not only a divide, but an actual antagonism between informed opinion and "the vast majority of Americans." Her pathetically transparent populist poseur routine is bad enough, but the fact that she's--once again--recycling GOP attack lines is reprehensible. Al Gore and John Kerry both lost their respective White House bids due in no small part to their resistance to bumper sticker-length policy statements. In the current climate, that left them vulnerable to the Karl Rove-led smear machine narrative that anything more than the most over-simplified soundbite was academic double talk and, as such, not to be trusted.

Because, after all, who wants leaders that publicly recognize the complexity of the issues with which they're dealing, right? It's much better that we entrust the ship of state to someone whose positions mirror those of the least-informed, as opposed to the best. That way, it's easier to feel smarter, ourselves.

Are we, as a people, really that intimidated by individuals whom we perceive to be more intelligent than we are? As suicidal as that may seem, given the stakes of our leaders' decisions, it certainly appears to be the case.

And if it is (especially after witnessing the past eight years of El Presidente's bungling), shame on us.

But if, rather than push back against this incredibly damaging bit of conventional un-wisdom for the good of the country, Clinton chooses, instead, to parrot it for the good of her personal ambitions...then shame on her, as well.