(via Jay Nordlinger)

Barack Obama is pretty interesting when he gets in front of his money-givers — his biggest fans, I guess. In New York, he said, “Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinkin’ for yourselves.” Last year, in San Francisco, he said of Middle Americans, “It’s not surprising … they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them …”

He speaks a lot differently — a lot more respectfully — when he has one of his big national addresses: Then, we’re not red states or blue states but the United States, blah, blah, blah. Well, which is the real O? The nice, inclusive guy or the sneering, contemptuous partisan? I vote the latter: I think it’s the real O, unfortunately: the one who speaks to Democrats in New York and San Francisco. But I am not much of a psychiatrist.

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By the way, which side imposed speech codes on campus? Liberals or conservatives? Not conservatives, that’s for sure. If liberals are such a noisy, rowdy, opinionated, pluralistic, uncontainable bunch — how come they’re for speech codes, for shutting down the other side?