In what has to be one of the most egregious wastes of inch-count ever in the "Paper of Record," novelist Dave Eggers laments Hillary Clinton's victory (in raw popular vote, at least) over Barack Obama in the California Democratic primary.

Given Obama's triumphs in states like Kansas and Idaho and Virginia, this outcome, Eggers suggests, is ironic. California, you see, is supposed to be more "progressive" than Kansas and Idaho and Virgina. And Barack Obama, as every sentient person knows, is the most "progressive" candidate in the race. Therefore California has been, in Eggers terminology, "out-progressived" by the normally benighted peoples of the South and Midwest.

"It was hard not to detect, at least here in the Bay Area, the sense of disappointment in our state after the subsequent primary results. To be out-progressived by Alabama, Maryland and North Dakota? Painful," Eggers writes.

"Syllogistic" is what I think they call this kind of reasoning.

Something tells me that if one were to shake Dave Eggers by the lapels and say, "It's more complicated than that" — there are demographic factors, such as race and class and education levels, at work here — he would just tune me out. Barack Obama's emergence as the "change agent" (or should we just come right out and call him a prophet?) is nearly complete.

Much as I find Obama personally charming and decent, this is what fatally turns me off about the Obama candidacy — namely, the condescension that is at the core of his overeducated elite supporters.

To oppose Obama — for Clintonites, as well as Republicans — is to stand in the way of The Way.

Gag.