Left Shows Contempt For Working Class in DeLay Attacks

(Hat tip: Capcomm)

The shameless attacks on Tom DeLay, which would end tomorrow if the GOP called for an ethics investigation of the entire House of Representatives, has been instructive in how the left presently views the working class. One of DeLay's sins, if the slurs are any indication, is his pre-politician career as an exterminator.

Rich Lowry at National Review Online delves into the left's departure from populism, and the intellectual elites disdain for "dirty work" professions, like garbagemen, plumbers, painters, mechanics, and of course, exterminators.

All these professions can't pass what might be called the "yuck" test: If a graduate student or Manhattan professional can't help but think "yuck" when he considers a given job, it flunks the test. Everybody so employed should know that their jobs are fit for ridicule, and if they ever attain elected office they can expect demeaning nicknames related to their former professions. Even though it's not clear why any of these professions are less honorable than the one that typically produces politicians — lawyering.

It used to be that liberals celebrated California labor leader Cesar Chavez for his impassioned advocacy on behalf of people who did nothing all day except bend over and pick grapes. What nickname, one wonders, would the likes of Joshua Marshall come up with if one of these people were ever to come in his political sights after having made an unglamorous living toiling in the dirt and sun all day long?

As time goes by, the Democratic Party becomes more and more the party of the working class. That is, as long as those working don't get dirt under their fingernails.