or is this truly a remarkable way for an official of the United States government — still a republican democracy last time I checked — to speak about his fellow citizens? By now I’m sure you’ve read this from our energy secretary on greenhouse-gas emissions:

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act,” Dr. Chu said. “The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” (In that case, the Energy Department has a few renegade teens of its own.)