An interesting line of attack against Obama coming from Karl Rove:

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Obviously Rove's point is that Obama is elitist -- which is, pardon the pun, par for the course in GOP presidential attack politics. But it's the use of the "country club" metaphor that has Jake Tapper wondering:

Interesting that Mr. Rove would use a country club metaphor to describe the first major party African-American presidential candidate, whom I'm sure wouldn't be admitted into many country clubs that members of the Capitol Hill Club frequent.

Maybe so. But Hyde Park, where Obama has lived for 20 years, isn't your usual South Side Chicago neighborhood. It's a university enclave that prides itself on its affluence. The Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson took a trip down there recently to see what the story was and came away with a distinct impression:

The neighborhood is better known as a haven for the black upper class, especially those who don't want to move to an all-white suburb but also don't want the crime risks and miserable schools associated with the neighborhoods to the immediate south, west, and north. Some of these people are famous--Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, lived in an apartment by the lake, and Muhammad Ali lived down the block from Louis Farrakhan, who lives in Elijah Muhammad's old digs, around the corner from the house of Joe Louis's widow. Most are lawyers and business executives from the Loop, doctors and technicians from the university hospital center, administrators and professors from the university--united to the white upper class through shared politics and aspirations, and delighting in, congratulating one another on, their unique neighborhood.

So while Rove and the GOP might want to steer clear of the "country club" metaphor for obvious reasons, they don't need to shy away from the elitist tag.

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