David Frum rips Charles Murray a new one but also points out that where there’s smoke (obfuscation) there’s a smoldering fire:
Murray is of course right that there exists an American elite. Murray may be right that this elite has pulled further away from ordinary people than the American elite of say 1960. Murray does not prove the case, he does not even try. But intuitively, Murray’s case makes sense for a reason that Murray omits to mention: the American upper class of 2010 is so very much, much richer than the American upper class of 1960.
But here’s another difference between the elites of 2010 and the elites of 1960: The current range of elites have done a much, much worse job of governing the country than did their predecessors.
For a decade, almost all the news from the nation’s political and economic leaders has been news of failure and mistake. From 9/11 through the stimulus, we have careened from one mistake to another. The one success of the entire period from my point of view was the TARP – and even that success was only necessary because financial and political elites had steered us toward the worst financial collapse since 1931. Kudos to those who averted the worst catastrophe, but their work should never have been necessary in the first place. And even TARP leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth, because the price of rescuing the US (and world) financial system was another round of outsize financial rewards to those who had created the mess in the first place.