Obama: ‘Bitterly’ out of touch

“Bitter,” says Sen. Barack Obama, the man of hope and change, about those who live Pennsylvania, small towns and the Midwest.

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania,” Barack Obama said two Sundays ago to the Brie-and-chardonnay crowd at a fundraiser in San Francisco, “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 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. 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.”

I spent nearly 20 years living in the Midwest. I attended law school in Michigan, and moved to and lived in Ohio for another 15 years. I married a woman from Menominee, a small town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Her strong, values-oriented, working-class parents produced a doctor and two computer engineers.

Yet people living on the East Coast and West Coast, and those with “superior education and breeding,” often dismiss those living in the Midwestern and other states, especially small towns, as existing in “flyover country.”

Where to begin with Obama’s statement about bitterness?

“Cling” to guns? Never mind that many people in this country hunt, grow up in a “gun culture,” and believe strongly that guns provide self-defense. This belief holds in both good times and bad — not a result of some new phenomenon over “bitterness.”

“Cling” to religion? Obama here insults all religious Americans, 80 to 90 percent by some polls. Obama apparently believes one embraces religion out of bitterness, not due to spirituality, values, belief in or the acceptance of and submission to a higher power. Perhaps this explains why Obama clung to the Trinity Church of Christ for 20 years, with its anti-Semitic, anti-white, anti-American, conspiracy-believing pastor, Jeremiah Wright. If Obama attended the church out of “bitterness,” surely, his reasoning goes, others do so as well.

“Anti-immigrant sentiment”? Obama here makes no distinction between the legitimate resentment over illegal aliens versus legal immigrants. Obama ignores the cost to society and the damage to America’s values as a result of our porous borders and our failure to reach a consensus on what to do about the presence of illegal aliens. A newly released study by Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow Edwin S. Rubenstein analyzed immigrants’ fiscal impact on 15 federal agencies. Rubenstein, a noted economist, found that each immigrant costs taxpayers more than $9,000, or $36,000 for an immigrant household of four.

“Anti-trade sentiment”? Didn’t Obama, too, criticize NAFTA for shipping jobs overseas? (Of course, Mexico, the United States and Canada are contiguous, with no “sea” between them. But never mind.) Obama says the “bitter” blame trade, but didn’t Obama — apparently insincerely — promise to renegotiate NAFTA as a result of its alleged negative economic impact? He implicitly acknowledges the statement by a Canadian official, who said that an Obama campaign aide contacted him and labeled Obama’s anti-trade remarks as “campaign rhetoric.”

So, Obama considers small-town Pennsylvanians and Midwesterners stupid, irrational gun-toters, religious zealots, hicks lacking the sophistication, knowledge and worldliness possessed by him and his Harvard-trained wife, Michelle, who only recently became “really proud” of her country.

Obama, by the way, made his “bitter” analysis on a Sunday, but not until Friday did this become a major media story. Why so long? No doubt, the anti-Second Amendment, secular media — to say nothing of those in attendance — agreed with Obama’s analysis of the unsophisticated little people. Obama is, therefore, “in touch.”

But remember the recent Bush press conference, when Bush responded with skepticism about a reporter’s prediction of impending $4-a-gallon gas? The next day, page A-1 in the Los Angeles Times: “$4-a-Gallon Gas? It’s News To Bush; President’s Surprise at the Idea Fuels a Sense That He’s Out of Touch.” But as to the newsworthiness Obama’s insult to Midwesterners — it made pages A-13 and A-17, in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, respectively.

Here’s the line. Obama insults the Midwest in particular and people of religion in general. Yet he remains in touch. President George W. Bush, because of skepticism of $4-a-gallon gas, becomes the poster boy of the inability to relate to the little guy.

So who’s “bitterly” out of touch?

Obama is totally in touch

Submitted by SethandRay on Wed, 05/07/2008 - 7:08pm.

Barack Obama is the only candidate willing to say what the American public NEEDS to hear, and not what they WANT to hear. If we want a President who will lie to us and play tricks like suggesting a "gas-tax holiday", then go on and vote for the others. I'm tired of the games and I believe that Obama is the right person to lead the country at this time.

http://sethandray.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/gas-tax-holiday/

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context

Submitted by travisstrickland1 on Sun, 04/20/2008 - 2:04am.

I think Obama's remarks were certainly poorly worded, but taken completely out of context. Here's the rest of the story:

"But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What is the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is so we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — to close tax loopholes, uh you know uh roll back the tax cuts for the top 1%, Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to uh middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide healthcare for every American.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of 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 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. 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.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing."

His comments were in the context of the issues that people from small towns use to decide whether to vote for someone or not. As I said before, his "bitter" comments were not well spoken, especially for a man as verbal gifted as Obama. He did not, however, say that all people in small towns who own guns do so because they are bitter. Nor did he say all people from small towns believe in God because they are bitter, etc, etc.

It's hard to believe that so many intelligent people have ran with this comment so far out of context. He could have said it differently and know one would have said anything, but since he said it in a way that can be easily taken out of context it's a story.

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This is good, travis...

Submitted by yardman5508 on Sun, 04/20/2008 - 6:28am.

the answer lies, as with everything, with voter empowerment. Only when we have a politically active electorate...only THEN will we ever have a chance at true reform and a truly representative government. Whether it be the Fair Tax folks (an idea in search of a party), the anti-choice folks, the anti-war folks, the "green powers" folks, or whoever...only through organizing politically and displaying that power will reform get traction. Keep the faith

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

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