Posted on 04/15/2008 9:24:30 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Maybe a few years ago, had Barack Obama said something as stupid as he did in San Francisco last week, his defense focusing on the least objectionable part of his remarks may have fooled the media into following suit. So far, though, Obama has had no such luck. Mainstream journalists have focused on the entire statement, and like John Dickerson at Slate, can’t see any way to spin his comments — and Dickerson gives it his best shot:
Obama has not helped himself in his efforts at damage control. First, he said he was just telling the truth, but edited the truth he was telling. People are “bitter” because they’ve been let down by previous administrations, he said; his campaign seeks to take up their cause. This ignored the incendiary religion, guns, and xenophobia portions of his remarks.
Obama then argued that he was really complimenting small-town voters. At the CNN Compassion Forum Sunday night, he said, “you know, Scripture talks about clinging to what’s good.” This works only if you close your eyes to the rest of Obama’s original sentence, since surely he wasn’t saying it’s a good thing to cling to xenophobia and racism. Which is to say it doesn’t work at all. Obama also admitted that he didn’t choose his words carefully when he spoke about small-town values in San Francisco. But this was more than a slip—it was an extended riff. …
Ultimately, in trying to explain what Obama was thinking, I run out of string. He wasn’t expressing a sweeping view of the human behavior of small-town people. He was making a tactical point about how politicians appeal to voters at election time, but that tactical point about electoral behavior still relies on an unflattering view of small-town voters. No matter what helping hand you extend him, Obama still claimed that voters have been hoodwinked on Election Day, and no one wants to be told that in the past they’ve been duped into voting for the wrong person.
Obama supporters should know just how offensive it is to hear this line of argument. They’ve been on the receiving end of it for months, as Hillary Clinton and her allies have described them as deluded cult members who are marching behind the inexperienced senator because he gives a pretty speech. Obama supporters don’t like it when they’re [sic] well-thought-out reasons for following Obama are dismissed as emotional, irrational, and thoughtless. They should understand, then, why people who don’t support Obama—or in the past haven’t voted for Democrats—don’t like being told that they’ve drunk some kind of crazy Kool-Aid.
That’s the problem. No matter how Obama tries to spin it, his statement assumes Midwestern voters are idiots. That’s also the Thomas Frank attitude as well — Why won’t Kansas voters support Democrats trying to buy them off? — which answers itself. And note that in Obama’s original remarks, the audience laughed at his assertions in their condescension, and recognition of his.
Dickerson doesn’t mention the ramifications of Obama’s citation of Scripture, but that may even compound the problem. People with religious faith are used to people throwing Bible quotes out of context at them to challenge their faith and their values. It’s the hallmark of someone who treats Biblical faith with contempt. It smells a lot like Obama (or more likely, one of his staffers) did a text search for “cling” on an online Bible site, and coughed up a particular verse to cover himself.
In fact, Obama’s quote comes from Romans 12:9 — “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” However, in the New International Version, “cling” appears 13 times (12 in the KJV), and almost all of them have negative connotations:
He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
Clearly, Scripture treats “cling” as a mostly negative term — just as we do in regular life. Perhaps what frustrates Obama and the fellow liberals is that most believers follow Psalm 31:6, and would rather trust in the Lord than cling to the statists that promise Utopia through government control of their lives.
Obama is offering voters his talent for empathy. But if he's going to bring the country together, he can't go pissing off huge swathes of it. He says the key to enacting the policies he thinks will help blue-collar whites is the rallying of the nation behind his candidacy. How can small-town regular folk rally around someone they don't trust?
Even this story glosses over Obamas implication that Small Town Americans are all bigoted racists.
McCain On Obama’s “Elitist” Comments
*********************EXCERPT*****************
Video at the link:
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Not too rough of an attack. Actually it was more of a rundown on the real values of these Americans Obama disparaged.
Well played…
This whole episode has actually put something upfront and center into the national debate. The difference between Democrats and Republicans on how they view people. To a Democrat people who are out of work appear to need bail out from big daddy. When it doesn’t come they turn into that which Obama described. A bunch of xenophobic, gun luvin, bible thumping, bigots. Whereas Republicans view those same people as wanting big daddy out of their way so they can get a better job which are taxed less. They don’t need a helping hand for five years to get back on their feet again, just a gentle shove maybe. And they love their guns because they strongly believe in the 2nd Amendment and the need to protect their family. They love their God because it gives them strength. And they believe in punishing crime, which ILLEGAL immigration is.
does any one else but me see the Clintoon machine in full force here? the media are on this like a dog on a porkchop...
I mean, OK -the guy said people were ‘bitter’... um, so?
I mean it’s not like he lied about being under sniper fire...or whitewaterlewinskyvincefoster900fbifilesronbrownroselawfirmbillingrecordsimpeachmentZZZZZzzzz..—++**!
The Media is just a reflection of the Rat party...if they all destroy each other the whole country will be much better off!
Obama was actually attacking the first two amendments to the Constitution: The First Amendment, which prevents the government from interfering in the free exercise of religion, and the Second, which prevents the government from interfering with the right to bear arms. He’s not only incredibly inexperienced; he’s also pretty damn dumb.
He said a lot more than this. First he accuses people like me of being bitter (which I am not). Then he states that the reason I go to church and own a gun is because I am a bitter person living in a small town. That's just as bad as lying about being under sniper fire.
Exactly...Christianity, just like some venereal disease, needs to be "cured" to make way for the new old thinking. That's "progress". Already been done in Europe...didn't work.
I’ve looked at Christianity. I’ve taken a good long look at Jesus Christ and the New Testament.
To concatenate a few proverbial expressions.
It’s the only thing left on God’s Green Earth that is as pure as the driven snow.
As Isaiah put it.
Come Let us reason together saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow. Though the be red like crimson they shall be as wool.
Love it. Thanks.
What did Obama say about Paul? Obama worked for the Gamaliel Foundation which supposedly takes it’s name from a man that Paul emulated.
The more that someone “clings” to their church in hard times, the less government and the elitists are needed. Can’t have that!
A perfect expression of everything I hate about the "What's the Matter with Kansas" thesis.
He managed to lie during his entire reasons for her lie, but also, failed to remember that she was speaking in the morning, afternoon, about the trip several times.
Old indeed. Lies, it is.
No matter, Obama did use the wrong words, to say that because of the terrible worthless policies of both the Clinton and Bush regimes, many small town Americans are frustrated by loss of their jobs.
Clinton is the old toad, lying in wait for Obama to do something stupid, and snatch it up and run on it because she has nothing else to run on.
It's typical Clinton M.O. to deflect her serious flaws, she must destroy and demean her opponent to win.
Obama, gave her this opening and this is all she needed.
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