Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Obama: better, not bitter

Two sides of Obama and religion

With taxes off the "to do" list, and catching up on the political scene, I checked further into Obama's foot-in-mouth disease, a condition I attribute to his arrogance and pride. I believe Barry suffers from over-confidence with a touch of hubris, character flaws that embolden him with an air of superiority, blinding him from connecting with the heartland of America. More about that at another time but notice his contradiction regarding religion.

On one side at the SFO fundraiser that's been in the news, he said:

“You go 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. . . 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.”

On the other side, at Messiah College in Grantham, PA:

Obama said that to him, "religion is a bulwark, a foundation when other things aren't going well. That's true in my own life, through trials and tribulations. ..." [via]

Did Barry adopt the old Kronenbourg beer slogan? When he clings to religion during tough times I guess it's because he's, "Better, not bitter."

Of course, I'm offering sarcastic fare because what's primary about Mr. Audacity's remark was not the "bitterness" but the bigotry ascribed to middle-class Americans and especially to Hillary supporters. Anglachel wrote about this subject at length on Sunday.

No Quarter posted a video of a Florida C-SPAN call-in, a woman who articulated Barry's offense succinctly:

I am exceptionally offended by him, by his comments, and I think the media's coverage of it is kind of funny because you guys are focusing on the word, bitter, when it's not the bitterness comment that is so offensive. It's the fact that he claims that middle America cling to God and guns, and that they don't like people that don't look like them. What he's telling me, and you know, my friends in middle-class America, is that they're bigots. And I find it exceptionally offensive and I think it's going to do long-term damage to him.

The C-SPAN host then read a WashTimes article to get the caller's response to Obama's mea culpa:

"I didn't say it as well as I should have," the Illinois senator said at a campaign rally at Ball State University in Indiana while dismissing it as "a typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true."

"Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," he told the Winston-Salem Journal, but "the underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so."

The Florida caller didn't buy Obama's explanation:

My response is that it's not an apology. It's a typical political statement. He said what he said and he can spin it as much as he wants, and the media will help him spin it as much as he wants, but he said bitter people cling to God and guns and don't like people that [don't] look like them. That is what he said, and he said it in an environment where he was seeking money, and he meant what he said when he said it. And I do not accept his apology or his explanation.

Neither do I. Obama may think he can buffalo many of us but we aren't falling for his silver-tongued spiel. We know BS when we hear it.