Scenes From the New Upper Class

In Part 5 of my Murray review, I mention eating dinner Tuesday night in a very expensive Mayfair restaurant. I was in London to give some speeches (the reason I have been remiss writing about Rick Santorum's big win—I'll repair that omission shortly).

After the last of them ended late in the evening, I staggered into a place recommended by friends as open later than most in the area. (Now that most of the houses in Mayfair are owned by absentee Russian oligarchs, the district that used to be the center of London nightlife is ghostly quiet after the hedge fund guys go home to South Kensington at 8 pm.)

Wincing as I read up and down the menu column, I ordered the prix fixe special, then settled to jot my last thoughts on Murray and to read the next book on my list, Adam Goodheart's (outstanding) 1861: The Civil War Awakening.

By the time my main course arrived, the restaurant was nearly empty: just me and another table—a very loud older American man and two younger European friends, a man and a woman. He was explaining American politics to them. For what it's worth, his accent was more New Jersey than South Carolina.

"This man Obama is a communist. Not just a socialist. A communist. And his wife—she goes on these shopping sprees—it's like we're ruled by the Mugabes or something. We're going broke, and they're spending everything in sight."

He was so pleased by the Mugabe comparison that he repeated it twice more before the dinner ended.