Oh, no ... not this again:

During unguarded and even some staged -- but inadvertently revealing -- moments, Obama has allowed unintended glimpses into his thinking. At various times, his offhand comments have led critics, and many voters, to view him as an ardent leftist or an elitist or -- most recently -- a partisan Democrat.

That's right, one more turn on the “Obama's an elitist” dead-horse merry-go-round. In an op-ed for Politico, blogger Keith Koffler brings his own twist to this hoary old chestnut with some inane armchair psychoanalyzing:

These Freudian slips, uncovering the man beneath the spin and the speeches, are embedded in Americans' subconscious, if you will, because they seem to come directly from the president's inner self. Obama can change his policies, but he cannot easily erase these perceptions. And because of his cool opaqueness -- noted even by his own staff -- and his relatively brief track record on the national stage, voters have little else to go on.

It must be trying to leap from subconscious to subconscious like that to arrive at the conclusion that Americans ineluctably view the president as an “elitist.” If we're to believe Koffler, the country is still obsessing over campaign 2008 talking points and sideshow acts:

First, there was his condescension toward blue-collar Midwestern voters. At a San Francisco fundraiser, he said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The remark suggested he is an elitist, so far removed from the concerns of average Americans that he presented a harsh stereotype of what they are like. This perception of Obama's being removed from mainstream voters was not helped by Michelle Obama's own Freudian slip. “For the first time in my adult life,” she said early during the 2008 campaign, “I am proud of my country.”

There was also the case of Joe the Plumber. “I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama told him, “it's good for everybody.”

The statement raised eyebrows -- not because of the principle, which many agree with, but because of the terminology. “Spread the wealth” sounded scarily like a socialist tract people are forced to read in college.

While we're talking about 2008, let's discuss a key bit of information from that year that Koffler opted to leave out of his Politico piece -- the exit polls. In the 2008 election, voters making less than $50,000 voted for Obama over McCain 60-38 percent. When asked if they thought Obama was “in touch with people like you,” 57 percent said yes. Those aren't poll numbers an out-of-touch “elitist” typically enjoys.

But why dwell on actual evidence of voter attitudes when you can pretend to be attuned to the national “subconscious”?