the so-called elite

David Ignatius has a good column today inspired by the obituaries of several aged 1950s-era public servants and the snotty attitudes of today's political elite -- Republican operatives. Best quote:

The Bush political operatives have become the people the Republicans once warned the country against -- a club of insiders who seem to think that they're better than other folks. They are so contemptuous of government and the public servants who populate it that they have been unable to govern effectively. They are a smug, inward-looking elite that thinks it knows who the good guys are by the political labels they wear.

Yep. These Young Republican types -- some not so young anymore, like Grover Norquist and Jack Abram -- run Washington and still run against Washington. They are superior to the rest of us, and they know it, even as they (in public) spout platitudes about the wisdom of the common person. As Ignatius said, "The Republicans have made a bed of political arrogance..."