By embracing his comments I'm not sure what he does for himself. I mean calling people bitter and resentful is not the best way to get them to vote for you.

I was born in a small town too and even after moving to the Big Bad City, the differences weren't huge.

The food was better in the former, though. We always had farm-fresh eggs and dairy and unbelievable bread, right out of the local bakery's wood-fired oven.

We moved to the market district of Scenic Undisclosed Location and got the benefit of fantastic fare from "small town" merchants who came from similar places all over the world, so YUM.

I agree with everyone who says they were insulting, stereotyping, elitist.  But they were also (again) deflecting attention from an obama shortcoming.

Because what he was asked was why is he having trouble in pennsylvania.  And his response - rather than saying he had more leg work to do or he had to break through or whatever - was to basically say "these are a bunch of ignorant folks who don't know what their real problems are and don't know I will make it all better."

So it's THEIR fault they haven't seen the light and it's THEIR fault he might lose.

"Barack Obama is a remarkably eloquent man and turning into a remarkably capable politician.  But if the Senator believes it's smart to insult voters from a state critical to your success, he's hit one of the worst false notes yet in his campaign.

Yeah, I know what his campaign said, and that may have been what he meant. But a sophisticated candidate doesn't refer to voters in language that can be construed as derogatory or insulting.  Obama asserted Pennsylvania voters are bitter and so simple and lacking in maturity and intelligence that they address their frustration by clinging to primitive and reactionary crutches rather than addressing their problems in constructive ways.

It's divisive.  And not the way to attract the voters you need most."

I just finished a piece on the latest Obama imbroglio:

http://www.villarrealsports.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=359

Where does he address, let alone apologize for this comment?

in an award winning bid for the "a boring constancy is the hobgoblin of little minds." prize, he never does, ever.

if you go back through all the "bumps" in his campaign thus far, the common thread is his absolute rejection of personal responsibility for any of them.

he never comes out and says "i screwed up, sorry about that.", or "my staff erred, but i take responsibility, since i am ultimately in charge."

it's "gosh, no i didn't say that.", or "this is what i actually meant.", or "someone on my staff did that, i'm not responsible."

sen. obama has laid claim to the mantle of john kennedy's heir apparent. if so, he better damn well start acting like it. pres. kennedy, for all his faults (and they were legion), stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for his administration.

the "bay of pigs" fiasco is a classic example: he could have, with considerable basis, laid the blame for that failed venture at the feet of pres. eisenhower and cia director john foster dulles, responsible for authorizing and planning it respectively. kennedy did no such thing, he accepted full blame for it, even though he was a less than enthusiastic supporter. as a consequence, both the press and public gave him a bye.

i just don't see sen. obama doing this. he'd be blaming everyone under the sun, disavowing knowledge of it and placing the responsibility on underlings.

And what was that bit he inserted about gay marriage?  Voters are discouraged about the economy so they vote on issues "like gay marriage and take refuge in their faith"?  Way to suck up to the bigots.

The creative class who are they?  The children of the boomers who were the children of the Gi's who got the GI Bill education, then moved into an FHA house, then got a higher standard of living cause our economy was doing great in the 60's.  All of us the huddled masses now spawned a class that thinks they are better than those that did not get the benefits of the meritocracy.  

And us, the silly boomer parents, all we did in the 80s and 90s is find ways to retain the merits for the next generation.  And now the little putzes think all the struggles before them were idiotic and so last century.  They diminish the people that did not make it up the merit ladder as gun carrying losers, stuck in some other time and bent on their knees.  

Yet those who benefit from the spoils of America, do not risk their sons and daughters to the wars or the permanent caste of the under class that is criminalized , medicated and discarded.  

He also talked about gun violence, and reminded the crowd that he had just come from Montana, where "everyone has guns." He said as a practical matter we will not be able to outlaw gun ownership in the foreseeable future, and that trying to do so at this time is not politically feasible. That being said, however, he indicated that we can and should work to address the loopholes in gun show sales and the types of guns that are available. His stance on this reminds me of the work he has done on capital punishment. Recognizing that it was not possible as a practical matter to eliminate it, he worked very effectively to minimize its application.

How does the above jive with this?

Obama in Boise on Feb 2 2008:

"And then there are people who say, `Well, he doesn't believe in the Second Amendment,' even though I come from a state _ we've got a lot of hunters in downstate Illinois. And I have no intention of taking away folks' guns."

"a President who looks down on them"? And especially for the McCain campaign to call out Obama as acting "arrogantly", is just extraordinary.

If Senator Obama acknowledged his own bitterness as the reason for clinging on to Reverend Wright and sitting in his congregation for 20 years, his comments about rural Pennsylvanians would have seemed far less offensive.

It is my HOPE that in this new millennium, political candidates as well as A-Typical citizens of the world, not only talk the talk and walk the walk, but  practice what they preach. Elliot Spitzer was not asked to resign because of his misconduct, but because he did not abide by the same laws he strongly enforced.  

"Out of touch?  Out of touch?  I mean, John McCain--it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch?  Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch?  No, I'm in touch.  I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I know what's going on in Indiana. I know what's going on in Illinois.  People are fed-up. They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America."

the more ads, the worse the economy is because that is one of the last things people sell when they need money.

This would be a hoot if it wasn't such a sad commentary on media today:

BLITZER: All right, Gloria, he's already being hammered by Hillary Clinton and John McCain for that matter for supposedly being an elitist and speaking ill of the people of Pennsylvania by suggesting that the economic problems there are causing them to become bitter and buying guns and becoming xenophobic and all of that. What do you think? Is this a real issue out there?

GLORIA BORGER: Well, Hillary Clinton said today, you know, I don't see bitter people out there, I see struggling people or whatever it is, but she said the people aren't bitter. But I think the people are angry - and maybe Obama's terminology was in artful but I think he's expressing a sentiment of mad-as-hell-voters, not going to take it anymore, that we've seen throughout this election. And that's why perhaps voters are saying over and over again that they want to change. So I think Hillary Clinton is trying to make him into the elite candidate but he's talking about people being angry.

BLITZER: All right, and Hillary Clinton responded to the Obama comments this way; Jeff. Let me play her little sound bite. . . .  All right, Jeff. What do you think?

JEFF TOOBIN: I think that is so ridiculous. I mean that is not at all what Barack Obama said. I just think this is an example of how a campaign between the two of them can be purely destructive. And not elevate either candidate. I mean, Hillary Clinton is clearly distorting what Obama said. And by the way, what Obama said is factually accurate. It's been true throughout history that people who have economic problems lash out against various others. I mean, I just think it is an embarrassing for the Clinton campaign to hang on this as if it's some sort of gaffe by Obama.

BLITZER: It's not just the Clinton campaign, Jack, it's also the McCain campaign. They issued a statement saying it's a remarkable statement and extremely revealing it shows an elitism towards and condescension towards hard working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.

JACK CAFFERTY: Really? And this is from John McCain?

BLITZER: No, this is from Steve Schmidt a senior adviser for John McCain.

CAFFERTY: Look, Jeff's right. They call it the rust belt for a reason. The great jobs and the economic prosperity left that part of the country two or three decades ago. The people are frustrated. The people have no economic opportunity. What happens to folks like that in the Middle East, you ask? Well, take a look. They go to places like al Qaeda training camps. I mean, there's nothing new here. And what Barack Obama was suggesting is not that the people of Pennsylvania are to blame for any of it. It's that the jerks in Washington, D.C., as represented by the ten years of the Bushes and the Clintons and the McCains who have lied to and misled these people for all of this time while they shipped the jobs over seas and signed phony trade deals like NAFTA are to blame for the deteriorating economic conditions among America's middle class. I mean, I'm a college dropout and I can read the damn thing and figure it out.

BORGER: You know, in this case the Hillary Clinton campaign and the John McCain campaign have the same goal and that is to portray Obama as this sort of (inaudible) elitist who doesn't understand the real working class people or independent voters. And so they're both on the same side on this one and it's obvious why.

BLITZER: Go ahead, Jeff.

TOOBIN: I just think it's remarkable that Barack Obama, this guy who grew up in a single-family household with no money, who lived in Indonesia, who came from very modest upbringings, somehow he's the elitist? That's really a pretty extraordinary sort of contortion of his background. I mean.

BORGER: It's that Harvard, Yale thing.

CAFFERTY: He did not make $109 million in the last eight year did he?

Huh.

Well, I know that the gubernatorial elections in both Michigan and Ohio were quite different.

I hope Granholm really hardlines against Obama.  Not only has she championed the economy, investment in human capital, and related to "that working class" for years, but also her state doesn't count in the Primary.

But Obama is so in touch.

it apparently lasted as long as the contract ran, when he said goodbye to both the record company and john cougar.

"Especially Clinton. You will hear these words on Fox News for a very, very long time."

The Red-Blue Divide

in which I muse on his recent commments and the unholy mess they add to....

and finally dream: