Politico lends an assist in the perpetual Republican meme of condescending, elitist liberals, frowning on anyone without an Ivy League degree. Three immediate problems spring to mind.

First, the Republican’s headliners this year (Palin, Boehner, the others spotlighted by the article) are ignorant, and that is dangerous. Second, those candidates, and others, embrace the label in a truer way than even Andrew Jackson did. And third, such condescension, if it exists, is not exactly one sided. Liberals look down on conservatives for not thinking policies through beyond the visceral level (often a fair point); conservatives look down on liberals as un-American monsters either ignorant of the country’s uniqueness, or happy to sell it for a slice of Old World glamor. The former is a debating point; the latter, an attempt to actively divide the nation; and neither, of course, is fair. But why is it that the right gets a free pass, daily, when it writes us off?