This excerpt, from Amy Chosick\’s shake-your-head-in-disbelief article for the New York Times about Hillary Clinton\’s sensitivity to being called elitist, is a classic example of a punch line that writes itself:
For the past several summers, Bill and Hillary Clinton have done what New York City\’s moneyed residents have done for decades: They spent their vacation amid the prime beachside real estate of Long Island.
In 2011 and 2012, there was the eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot East Hampton rental with a heated pool that the couple took for part of August, the kind of house that typically goes for $200,000 per month, according to local real estate listings.
Then, in 2013, they opted for an equally pricey six-bedroom mansion in Sagaponack with a private pathway to the beach. (Mrs. Clinton worked on her memoir, “Hard Choices,” from a sunny office with an ocean view.)
Last year, when speculation about Mrs. Clinton\’s presidential run reached a fever pitch, the former first couple chose the comparatively lower-key town of Amagansett, just up Montauk Highway from the lobster shacks and fishermen at the end of Long Island. The seven-bedroom bluffside estate with sweeping views of Gardiners Bay, the kind of house in that area that rents for $100,000 for the month of August, was next door to the home of the Clinton friend and donor Harvey Weinstein.
But the Clintons\’ go-to vacation spot for the last several summers now seems problematic, as Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, delivers a populist economic message that the deck is stacked in favor of the wealthiest Americans and that she plans to “reshuffle the cards.”
Thus, it may not be ideal for Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to be photographed mingling at summer cocktail parties with the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Alec Baldwin, Steven Spielberg and other wealthy Hamptons regulars.
I have to believe that Ms. Chosick – who, in the past, has openly complained about the lack of access she and other journalists have to Hillary Clinton – sees this not as a straight news story, but as some kind of self-parody. And I agree: given the ludicrous spectacle of an A-list elitist like Hillary Clinton trying to flimflam voters into thinking she\’s “just one of the goils”, what else could it be?
I mean, honestly: isn\’t this one howler of a self-created punchline? Hillary Clinton, along with Hubby Bubba, is treating $200,000 a month as if it were just an honorarium for making a a little spee….oh, wait.
But at least she toned it down last year, and lived that middle class life she is touting…at the mere pittance of $100,000 a month in rent. What an exercise in slumming! I\’ll just bet there was Section 8 housing right down the block.
Tell me: is this a punch line that writes itself, or what? Can Hillary Clinton possibly be so out of touch? So obtuse?
Y\’know, maybe elitism is more than a problem for Ms. Clinton. Maybe it\’s a definition.
