Hart, in a rumination vaguely linked to Obama vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard: “I fear we have departed from a society where the genteel moneyed set once held sway. This traditional role has been usurped by corporate lobbyists, fast money hedge fund pirates, actors (who often confuse being famous with being important), and corrupt political hacks who have inserted themselves into the epicenter of modern society.
Maybe this upward mobility is for the best, but I am not sure.
Historically, power and charm were the hallmarks of well bred members of society. Unlike Obama, most made or came from money and valued that heritage as important, not only for their own ascension, but as a means to provide for others.”

I’ll agree that the people who occupy the center of society aren’t exactly inspiring, but come on, when were they ever? The Americans who got themselves into “the genteel moneyed set” weren’t a superior breed, they were, many of them, as cutthroat a band as anything ever seen in business (way beyond the schemes of an average hedge fund manager). They dabbled in crime, in politics, in labor exploitation, in industrial espionage, you name it.
As one writer put it after the Titanic went down, some of the men in first class might be noble enough to give a seat in a lifeboat to a poor immigrant, but on dry land they’d work them half to death in sweatshops without batting an eye.
And of course, they ruthlessly excluded anyone who wasn’t right: No blacks, no Jews (there are still a few ritzy places where that holds sway), no non-WASPS … in fact I seriously doubt a guy from a hick state like Tennessee like Hart would have been terribly welcome. That’s not meant as an insult to Hart, only to point that the kind of mannered gentry he idolizes were a bunch of snobs.
Which is why I find it odd: He’s actually mourning the loss of a social order that might have looked down its nose at him?

Even weirder is his statement that Obama “constantly seeks the favor of the social class he could never have come close to had it not been for the kindness of this nation.” What kindness was that? Electing him? Treating him as if he was as good as a white person? Is he suggesting that allowing Obama in Martha’s Vineyard is an act of charity by his superiors?

And just who is it who was being so kind? We have vast numbers of Republicans, ranging from the local Daily News to big names like Sarah Palin who’ve accused Obama of being not legally qualified for the presidency, of plotting to put handicapped children to death, of insisting he’s a communist/fascist/socialist/Nazi, etc. If they’re being kind, what would Republicans being mean look like?