Or, specifically, this doozy (given at a San Francisco fundraiser, no less):
"[People in economically struggling small-town Pennsylvania] 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."
Rich Lowry's got a good column here, taking what I'd consider the appropriate amount of umbrage. For me, it's not so much that Obama's some kind of closet Marxist (though I'm sure it's still in the water at Columbia and Harvard). It's not even that he's an "elitist" -- at least as the word should be defined. And yes, I know this kind of unthinking condescension should hardly surprise me. Still, what the hell?
Lowry hits it on the head: "Obama prides himself on his civility, but it has to go much deeper than dulcet rhetoric. A fundamental courtesy of political debate is to meet the other side on its own terms. If someone says he cares about gun rights, it’s rude to insist: 'No, you don’t. It’s the minimum wage that you really care about, and you’d know it if you were more self-aware.' "
In other words, what makes this kind of thing so interesting coming from Obama is that it reveals so strikingly the false promises of "hope" and "change" and "unity" so central to his campaign. (Harvey Mansfield, tangentially, has plenty to say about the kind of civility we really need in politics. Hint: It has nothing to do with "disagreeing without being disagreeable.")
Or think of it this way: What kind of hope does Obama really have in America if he thinks Americans' first reaction to economic hardship is to get "bitter"?
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While it's not my normal m-o to cut a Democrat some slack ...
Being a native of one of those small Pennsylvania towns and as someone who did grassroots political organizing in them ...
And, while Senator Obama had no business bad-mouthing small town Pennsylvania while he was in SAN FRANCISCO ...
There's some reality to what he said. There are a lot of small towns in Pennsylvania that have been having trouble since the fall of the U.S. steel industry ... small towns that never benefited from the economic boom of the mid to late '90s (being too far from the cities).
And, yes, some people in some of those small towns are frustrated by the decades of downturn.
And, yes, some of those frustrated people seem angry and, yes, bitter, when you talk to them.
I won't endorse what Senator Obama said about how these people turn to "guns and God." There might be some of that -- but it's going too far and it's offensive.
And, frankly, there's nothing wrong with turning to God when you are frustrated and angry or bitter. If everyone did, we'd have a more peaceful world.
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