Barack Obama's condescension reveals a man out of touch with the rhythms of American life to a degree that's hard to fathom. As Michelle says, they "chose" to "leave corporate America", and Barack became a "community organizer" and she wound up a 350-grand-a-year "diversity outreach coordinator". I've no idea what either of those careers involve, and most of us seem able to get along without them. But their remoteness from the American mainstream perhaps explains why the Obamas seem to have no clue how Americans live their lives.

And yes, I'm a foreigner. But it takes one to know one.

At a campaign stop in Philadelphia today, Hillary Clinton proposed an anti-crime package that would put 100,000 more cops on the streets of the U.S.

It’s a good thing, too: Another part of her package calls for letting imprisoned crack users back out on the streets to mix it up with the extra cops. According to the Los Angeles Times, this is all part of a plan to reduce recidivism and achieve fair treatment for blacks and whites under the law. Crack users “are disproportionately black,” and “the law punishes them more harshly than powder cocaine users, who are predominantly white.”

What’s wrong with stiffer penalties all around? Wouldn’t that take care of the imbalance and encourage less recidivism, at least in theory? The problem is, though, it wouldn’t help Hillary achieve her real goal—which is, as always, taking every position so that everyone approves. She wants more cops walking the beat to show she’s tough on crime, but she wants to reduce crack-related sentences to show she’s sympathetic to certain segments of the criminal population. This isn’t about anti-recidivism. It’s about a return to the big house. Another Clinton wants to be president and is employing Clintonian triangulation to get there.