Barack Obama's disparagement of "small town" citizens who get so "angry" and "bitter" that they "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" has created a whole new firestorm for him.And rightly so.
For, after all, this brazen put down of people who care deeply about their religious faith and/or their Constitutional rights was a gross example of the elitism that all-too-typically lurks beneath a liberal affectation. The fact that Obama's snide snub of rural citizens was delivered to a smart-money clique in San Francisco made his remarks all the more chintzy.
Obama's remarks were "outed" on the ultra-liberal Huffington Post last Friday and the Senator initially defended them. By Sunday, however, as the media, the Clintons and John McCain emphasized the remarks as insensitive, condescending, out of touch, and so on, Obama finally gave a couple of muted apologies.
Jake Tapper's column at the ABC News site explains, "While the description of small town Pennsylvanians as 'bitter' is certainly impolitic, many political analysts say it's what follows that adjective that is potentially so alienating -- the notion that small town folks 'get bitter' after which '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.' But Obama allies are trying to focus on the "bitter" part alone."
Will that dodge prove successful?
Michael Goodwin doesn't think so. Writing in the Daily News, Goodwin sees the error as one that the Senator will not get away with.
Having grown up in one of those small Pennsylvania towns Sen. Barack Obama sneers at, I know what really makes people there "bitter." It's slick-talking politicians who look down on their beliefs and values.
Small-town people get doubly "bitter" when those pols have the gall to ask for their votes while demeaning their lives. See, even hicks don't like being played for suckers.
When they accused Obama of being out of touch for saying small-towners "cling to guns or religion" out of frustration, Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain were too kind.
Snob-ama is not just out of touch. He's from another planet.
He might consider going back there, because the White House now looks out of reach. All the more so because he later added opposition to gay marriage as another sign of benighted bitterness.
Snob-ama's lame concession yesterday that his mistake was "I didn't say it as well as I should have" only makes the repeated smear worse. He should get off his Ivy League horse and apologize to the millions of Americans he insulted. As it stands, he has confirmed he doesn't understand or respect them.
Through his warped vision, if you own a gun, oppose gay marriage or want our nation's borders sealed, you're just bitter over your lousy job. Amazingly, he even sees the embrace of God as a reaction to the bad economy.
As gaffes go, they don't get much bigger...
In one sentence, Snob-ama de-legitimized every choice people in America are free to make. It's arrogance on steroids, fueled by a secular, elitist view of middle America as filled with ignorant red-necks.
Turn his screed around and it comes out this way: If the hicks had good jobs, they wouldn't need God or guns. Then the borders could be wide open for the enlightened world to come here 'cause our hate would vanish.
Such a dark view of heartland hearts is not very Christian and suggests Snob-ama really did hear the rants of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The mentor who led him to Jesus Christ seems a bitter man who wraps his hate for America in the trappings of religion...
