His arrogance

Because I have always felt that Charles Krauthammer's writing conveys a tone of cynicism and self-righteousness, I am always struck by how he creates an attitude of writing from a position above the masses. I was therefore amazed at his June 13 column where he condemns President Barack Obama for holding himself above "mere mortals" ("Hovering on High: Obama Surveys the World"). Of course, I should not be surprised because he was always so unwaveringly supportive of the Bush administration and is so unrelentingly critical of the Obama administration.

What Mr. Krauthammer fails to recognize is that if the president has been elevated to some higher level, it is the people who have placed him there. This has not happened because Mr. Obama has shown superiority. Human nature would not accept that. One need only look at the low approval ratings given to the former president and vice president to note how arrogance is received by the people. When President Obama left a prayer at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, he asked for humility. That quality shines through his public persona.

This column contains another piece of evidence that Mr. Krauthammer seems to hold himself above others. It contains uncredited phrases that he obviously "borrowed" from Matthew Arnold in the poem "Dover Beach." Arnold's lines read: "And we are here as on a darkling plain/ Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/ Where ignorant armies clash by night." Mr. Krauthammer speaks of Mr. Obama as gazing "benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night ... " Why did he not include attribution for these phrases?

ANNA BOWMAN
North Versailles