So now Hillary Rodham Clinton, educated at Wellesley and Yale Law, earner (with her husband) of $100 million in the last seven years, is talking about the "elitist" Barack Obama, formerly of the Harvard Law Review and possessor of a much smaller pot of money. Newsweek is out with a cover story on Obama's "Bubba Gap," and is mocked for eating "designer salads."

In the words of a former president, "There you go again." The fake elitist meme that travels like an infection through the body politic is now working its ill ways. Drinking liquids and taking aspirin won't cut it. What we need here is something to restore memories that have apparently been wiped out on a large scale, principally in the elitist media, but also with others in the political world.

For the record, I like the fact that Hillary Clinton is a well-educated, accomplished woman. I like the fact that Barack Obama is a well-spoken, accomplished man. They shouldn't hide what they are. They should be proud of it. I've always been amazed by this cultural phenomenon of pushing our children to be the best and brightest they can be, but that those same kids are insulted as "elitist" if they do make it to the best schools, earn money and want to enter public service.

Remember the great question from the past two elections - which candidate would you want to have a beer with? Al Gore wasn't likeable, the media declared. Too stiff. John Kerry, God help him, ordered the wrong cheese on his cheesesteak. He couldn't possible identify with the common man, the media declared. He went windsurfing. How soon we forget.

Now we've had eight years to figure out how the bar-tab test has worked. Gasoline is near $4 per gallon, whether our drinking buddy president has heard of it or not. Our kids are getting killed and maimed in Iraq and will be for the foreseeable future. Our economy is in the pits. Our government has been trashed from the inside by a cadre of incompetent, corrupt loyalists. Our standing in the world is at rock bottom. Goodness gracious, that will make for some interesting chat over some brewskis, won't it?

I don't care if Hillary Clinton throws back shots of Chivas, or if Barack Obama can't bowl. I care, and so should you, and so should the reporters covering the campaign, about which direction the country will be led during a Clinton or Obama presidency. (And during a John McCain presidency as well. Cindy McCain has managed to hide her income as Theresa Heinz Kerry couldn't. John McCain comes from an elite military family. Cindy McCain comes from an economically elite family.)

We were fed the superficial for the last seven years, we were pandered to by the media and by the government for the last seven years, and we are worse off for it. A politician can be formal and reserved, as is Gore and as is Kerry and, frankly, so is Obama. That's not the fatal character flaw that it's made out to be. Why should a candidate who has good ideas about how to lead the country out of Iraq, or out of this economic morass, be forced to be someone he or she does not fit the image that reporters demand?

Is this really Hillary Clinton saying she won't pay attention to economists and experts? She has to, because she got trapped in a shallow pander to appear to be doing something for people when in reality her gas-tax holiday won't do a thing. She has to appear to care because she's expected to appeal to the "common man." There are lots of better ways to do that. Cheap tricks may help in the short run, but they won't do anyone much good over the long term. I'd be willing to be a Clinton Administration would have more than a couple of economists, some of them from Ivy League schools, around.

Why not promise to reverse the last seven years trend of ignoring facts and ignoring science? Why not promise to restore the integrity and quality of our government by bringing in dedicated, smart people to clean up the mess and set new policies that, horrors, abide by scientific and economic facts, rather than by guided by ideology or cronyism?

If I want reality, I'll watch "Survivor" or "Project Runway." What I want to see in a campaign is authenticity. Candidates who aren't ashamed or afraid of who they are, reporters who will focus on what's important and, just maybe, an electorate that will see through all the garbage and vote based on who a person is and what he or she will do, rather than what sport they pursue or whether are good for a drink.