At the risk of ruining in advance any political career I might have otherwise, I am going to confess now to what is, apparently, the unforgivable political sin: I am an elitist.

The charge of elitism figured prominently in the attacks leveled this week by Hillary Clinton and John McCain at Barack Obama for his remarks at a recent San Francisco fundraiser.

Apparently, Obama said "it's not surprising that" blue-collar whites in declining industries should "get bitter" and, in consequence, "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."

In reply, both Clinton and McCain called Obama's comments "elitist" and "out of touch." They're right to be critical. But they're wrong to blame Obama for being an elitist. Of course he is. They are, too. And, deep down inside, if we will admit it to ourselves, most of us are elitists.

To be an elitist is either to believe that the few who are best able to do a thing are the ones who should be doing it or to believe oneself among the excellent few who should be in charge of getting things done or both of those things.

Every sports fan is the first kind of elitist. Every Patriots fan wants to see Tom Brady as quarterback and Bill Belichick as coach. Because they're the best.

Politics is a lot like sports, and not only in that both put a high value (sometimes too high a value) on winning. Just as not everyone has what it takes to play quarterback in the NFL, not everyone has what it takes to be an effective leader. That's why we use elections, not lotteries, to choose who gets to hold important positions of leadership in our country.

The second kind of elitism is tough to take when it comes from others, but it is also a more common feeling than one might think. It is, naturally, distasteful to hear someone boast about how great he is.

But anyone who takes pride in his work feels at least a small measure of this kind of elitism -- because, in every line of work, not everyone takes the trouble to do the work well, and there are usually a great many more people, beyond these, who can't do it at all.

Obama is an elitist in both senses. He thinks -- as do we all, really -- that not everyone is qualified to be president of the United States. On top of that, Obama thinks that he is qualified to hold the highest office in the land. If he didn't think that, he shouldn't be running.

Of course, Clinton and McCain think the same: that they have what it takes to be president.

And, on the whole, all three are right to think so. Each of them possesses to a vastly greater degree than most of us the knowledge and skills needed for effective political leadership, which is why the charge of elitism, coming from either of them, rings so false.

The real problem with what Obama said during that unguarded moment in San Francisco is that it fatally undercuts the whole rationale for his candidacy.

His campaign is premised on the genuinely inspiring idea that he can transform the American political landscape by inspiring and enabling the American people to become more active citizens who will be co-participants with him in the project of implementing the policies he favors. That is what he means when he calls for his audiences to "be the change" they want to see.

In San Francisco, however, he effectively said the American people are dupes and fools, unaware that when they "cling to" their religion or demand that their right to bear arms be respected, they are not motivated by faith or principle.

They are, instead, seeking to assuage economic anxieties -- anxieties that he thinks they don't really understand either, which is why they (erroneously, he implies) blame immigration and free trade for their troubles.

If that is what Obama really thinks about the American people -- and his constant, reckless pandering to "anti-trade sentiment" suggests that it is -- then all his talk of calling people to "be the change" by becoming active citizens is truly "just words." Or what he said in San Francisco was "just words."

Either way, Obama's problem is not elitism; it's hypocrisy.

Joseph R. Reisert is associate professor of American Constitutional Law and chairman of the Department of Government at Colby College in Waterville.