When elitists face criticism from those deemed less worthy, the push back often reveals their true feelings about the rest of us common folk.
To be sure, when you're sure your special, it's hard to keep your true colors from shining through.
Not that plaintiff's lawyer-turned-state-Supreme-Court-candidate Menis Ketchum is elite by any definition of the word or in the minds of a majority of West Virginians. But he thinks he is, a newsworthy fact with a popular election seven weeks away.
Ketchum is running in that election for a position of honor and trust on our state's highest court. Now we know that he's also quite bitter about it, angry about the personal sacrifices this campaign has required.
"I resent having to spend a half-million dollars of my children's money," Ketchum reportedly told a board of editors at the Charleston Daily Mail this week discussing his campaign costs.
Uh -- "having to spend"?
Did we miss the "Draft Menis" petition drive? Were any of you among the begging masses, whose persistent overtures towards this Huntington personal injury lawyer finally convinced him to toss his name into the hat?
We didn't think so. Ketchum's ego apparently thinks so.
In the other-world reality he's constructed for himself, Ketchum reluctantly is spending "a half-million dollars" of his own fat bankroll on the race.
Not that he has a personal interest in the prestige of a seat on our High Court, rather, he's doing it for the benefit of us mere mortals. He is bestowing his jurisprudential genius upon us, volunteering for public service at our behest because the people of West Virginia desperately need him, so he seems to think.
Consider that. Menis Ketchum is rich. He could retire to the south of France or go sailing off the California coast. He could do anything he wants. But he's choosing us!
Now we just have to choose him.
For him, that's a given, right? Wrong.