......we should be through already with the regular guy myth?

I just finished watching an excerpt from an interview with former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. (click here for video and accompanying article) The interview is part of a forthcoming documentary in which John Ziegler examines the media coverage in the never-ending 2008 election. The entire point of the gushing tribute to Palin, although Ziegler admitted to being a fan even before she became the nominee, is how unfair the media coverage was in regard to Palin.
I have to admit that I'm getting tired of this story. The coverage was very much what you might expect. The "fair and balanced" channel loved everything about her and her good old down to earth, regular girl, hockey mom persona. The other news outlets followed from whatever angle their particular brand of bias would allow.
In this piece, Palin complains about getting hacked apart both personally and professionally. The unfortunate part for her was that much of it ended up being about her family. She seems to not realize however that when you are a virtually empty shell professionally there is not much left for a voracious media to plunder except your private life. I am not here to go into the private life of Palin, I think that for figures such as these those areas should be off-limits to certain degree. The problem is that she was so unqualified for the job that she was nominated for that it was almost surreal. They Republican machine that put her up to such scrutiny has truly had the wheels fall off in the waning years of the Bush Administration. She did so very few press conferences and q&a sessions that there was nothing to talk or write about. All of her speeches were little cheer leading rallies and were sure to include plenty of winking, maverick references, and generic America rah rah, they did not however contain anything about what she or they would actually do were they tapped to govern this country.
I know nothing about Sarah Palin as a person. She is probably a very nice woman and wife and mother. But I would love to know the answer to one question.

When did we start thinking that it is a problem to elect someone who is elite? That is smarter than everyone else in the room? That drinks fine wine instead of beer or Crown Royal?

The president of this country should be better than the average citizen. So should the vice-president. We are coming off of 8 years of being governed by a "regular guy." Our country is in the worst state since Hoover left office nearly 80 years ago. Let's stop pretending that we want to be governed by the guy we would like to have a beer with and admit that we will all be better off when we elect the people who wouldn't associate with most of us.