Eggheads for Obama

In her New York Times column this morning , Maureen Dowd sets out to defend Senator Obama against the claim that he is an elitist snob. Along the way, though, she admits he has some problems relating to the common man: “Asked about his friendly relationship with the former Weather Underground anarchist William Ayers,” she notes, “Obama defended him with a line that only the eggheads orbiting his campaign could appreciate. Ayers, he said, is ‘a professor of English in Chicago.’”

Dowd is right that this is what Obama said, though, in fact, Ayers is a professor of education —which, in eggheady circles, is a little less boastworthy than being a professor of English. And it’s interesting the direction in which Obama misremembered: unconsciously promoting his friend to higher intellectual bracket. Is that what she means by a line that only eggheads could appreciate?