Obama is part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract … but having contempt for them as human beings

However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years

writes Thomas Sowell.

He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.

"The working class," said Karl Marx, "is revolutionary or it is nothing." That is, they mattered only insofar as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.

Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the "detestable" people who "have no right to live." He added: "I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves."

Similar statements on the left go back as far as Jean Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century and come forward into our own times.