Joe Klein’s idiocy vainly trying to explain away Obama’s transparently obvious elitism on Charlie Rose? Klein’s out of touch elitism merely poured JP-5 fuel on the incident. (Obama was really, according to Klein, speaking to the families with two jobs and who closed the cash register at 11:00 PM and turn on the TV looking to “we” the elites to save them. Hence, guns, religion and bitterness). Even the Crown Prince must have winced at that “help”.
We always called the Crown Prince for what he was: over his head, by background and education trained in institutional condescension, and frankly far more instinctively radical than his “I will please ever audience all the time” facade will reveal for now. The key to us was his wife’s candor that his nomination was the first time she ever felt proud of being an American.
YMMV.
Comment says
The above Comment is a different Commenter than this Comment and the other. Perhaps we should change our tag to CommentOC. But maybe the new guys using the name ‘Comment’ would consider coming up with an original name.
We think the BET guy was wrong – Ferraro was wrong. Gerry was selected. She never ran on her own except for when she ran for the Senate and lost twice. She keeps trying to compare herself to others and she keeps making herself look worse.
Here’s the problem Obama has – Who was that guy who worked with Newt – he was GOP majority leader. Dick Armey! Yes, we just found a book he wrote – with his own hand. Reading it – we found it seemed to be written by a someone who had trouble getting thru college – Alas, Armey long marketed himself as a Professor and an Intellectual. Now if you compare this Armey book with the first book that Obama wrote and you put aside any preconceived notions about either person you would think Obama was written by a seriously intelligent adult and the other (Armey) book was written by a slow student struggling to maintain his affirmative action scholarship. This a reversal of what mant are used to. No accident Armey was spittling re Obama lately.
Comment says
Not “turn to”, but “cling” to. Big dif.
Obama’s remark was a swipe at Hillary via Bill:
“You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said in an address to fundraisers in San Francisco last week. “And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.”
This wasn’t any revealing analogy. How could it be? People are “bitter” because jobs have not returned? Shocking, I know. They “cling” to a common denominator, not turn to just guns and religion.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they 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.”
Barack made a silly, stupid remark to what he thought was a safe audience. He framed his statement, a clumsy swipe at Hillary, for their consumption. They just happened to be affluent west coasters. Ooops. Not ready for Prime Time Barack scores again.
Tbilisi says
Dr: an image for your spicy, aromatic, and zesty montage above.
http://www.beer-pages.com/stories/news/images/bt.gif
DrLeoStrauss says
I think my friend you miss the causality in the Crown Prince’s comment: these people (working stiffs) turn to guns and God *because they are bitter*. It is the casual link that is so appalling.
As for Kristol, he is unreliable now as always. This race always was going to come to racial turn out anyway. As the President of BET said the other day, Ferraro’s problem was she is a white woman. Everyone knows what she said is true and he himself said it again and noted he would never be called out because of his racial heritage.
The effort to make Bobby’s life all about the Mean Streets is another tissues of fabrication. Perhaps a movie can come of it. Alas, he will likely be the candidate and even the President who in World Historical terms is engulfed in the coming deluge. Perhaps McCain and Clinton would be in that sense better off in the Senate. He certainly has demonstrated no capacity to govern other than giving a nice speech.
Tbilisi says
Here’s something else to be bitter about:
Al Jazeera English has a ‘Witness’ program on Black Farmers in the US. 30 years ago, 14% of farmers were black. Today: less than 1%. There are only 18,000 black farmers left in the country (out of 1.8 million+ total, I assume). Same trend for small farmers in general.
The Clinton years were not good for everyone. And Obama, as an elitist mediocrity, is the perfect reflection of who did well under Clinton.
The truth doesn’t hurt as much as it used to.
Anonymous says
Anyone who hasn’t had their head in a cave for the past 20 years knows damn well the ‘heartland’ is full of bitter people who vote for God, Guns and (homo|negro|xeno)-phobia over their own economic interests. The fact that the Obama camp is being tarred as condescending for pointing out the elephant crapping in the room is the real problem here.
Comment says
Speaking of bitter – there is an enormous amount of bitterness in western Pennsylvania – Politicians who say otherwise are liars. Well to-do media personalities know that they have chuckled along while the powers that be allowed middle America to turn into a rust belt, then a meth belt. They know they chuckled along as people in the heartland, the slums, and the ghettos were lied to.
Bill Clinton yesterday said they were not bitter – He said otherwise in ’92 – Ironically when rural America was better off.
Even the lower end of media personalities are wealthy compared to people in rural wastelands and slums. They privately believe what Barack said – The transparent phoniness is apparent to everyone.
That ridiculous ad that HRC put up will backfire on her. She was the original liberal snob and she ain’t kidding enough people with her boilermakers and her talk about the Holy Father. Everyone recalls what they said about Paula Jones using those laws meant for upscale campaign supporting feminists.
Comment says
Doc, you make sense on a lot of things, but if you really thing living and working on the south side of Chicago is easy work filled with condescenion, then you’re losing your edge. Go year by year in Barack’s life in Chicago and try to imagine Cheney being able to survive a minute. It’s not even a debatable proposition. It’s hard to describe how bad some of those neighborhoods were and are.
Comment says
We disagree – First of all, we notice that most people we know who have complained about Michelle Obama have note even quoted her accurately. In other words, they do not have enough confidence in their critique of Michelle – so they drop the “adult lifetime” and they convert her quote to be first time ever proud or first time in her life.
Obviously – her “adult lifetime” means the last twenty years – Still a controvsial gaffe, but a hell of lot different than the one she is misquoted on.
In terms of Bittergate – It’s more a reflection of the anxieties of overpaid white Tweety-types in the media. In fact, Tweety inadvertantly confirmed that when he was asked by Abrams if it was all media hype and Tweety said “no its all on the radio.” As if “radio” is not media.
The Bittergate will be a net positive for Obama – He’ll probably lose PA by the same percent as before, but he exposed HRC as total phoney and now everyone is diggging up Bill Clinton quotes from 92 and 96 that mimic Barack’s partly true unartful words.
Also – It’s interesting that most of the people who are mad it Obama are not actually religious people, but people who find religioun to be useful in a transactional way – Basically, Kristol called Obama a Straussian.
John McCain made a big mistake attacking Obama at the AP conference in that false pious style that he adopts for such things – McCain will now be called to account for things he has said in the past.
To the extent it matters – It was devasting for HRC in the black vote – Her suppport has disappeared and she is unconvincing Limbaugh
Dr Leo Strauss says
As an aside, interesting logistical take on what a bug out from Iraq would really mean in terms beyond prestige:
http://www.afji.com/2008/04/3317383