Update (4/13/08): From Zee at Road Sassy: As the yokels in Sussex UK used to say, ‘Haven’t had so much fun since granma caught her tits in the mangle.’ Strange, though. So far it seems I’m the only one who detected a racist element in Obama’s remarks. Hmmm….
Also, Michelle Malkin has Teflon Dude’s latest spin on the spectacle.
Serr8d thinks “this might just be the misstep that brings Baracky down for good.” Fatal gaffe?
And here’s an excellent Photoshop from Lorien1973!
Original Post: Here’s the latest Barack Obama quote, brought to us by the Huffington Post’s Mayhill Fowler (via Ben Smith’s blog at Politico). Said Senator Obama before a group of effete San Francisco snobs last Sunday:
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 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 toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Okay. Who do you think Obama is talking about here? Please think about it carefully before you answer the question.
Carefully, now, and don’t be afraid to answer with what you know to be the truth.
Obama’s generalizing about a certain blue collar segment of Pennsylvanian society—people without much in terms of financial resources. People who feel a certain amount of economic helplessness. Yes, and alienation.
That could be just about anyone in America, right?
Ah, but then he throws in the gun thing, and the antipathy toward people who aren’t like them thing, and the anti-immigrant sentiment thing. And when you take all those things and bundle them together, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? The VERY FIRST THING that comes to mind?
Yeah: Blue collar white people.
White trash.
Rednecks.
Or, as Obama has already described them (quite succinctly): Typical white persons.
NOTE: The Clinton and McCain campaigns (along with the mainstream media and most bloggers) are scrupulously adhering to the term “elitist” to describe Obama’s comments. I say no. I say Obama is making race-based generalizations about the white populations of rural and small town Pennsylvania. Call me on it, if you’d like. I’d love for anyone out there to challenge me on this. Maybe I’m wrong….
Inline Poll:
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Okay, before I fly off the handle and start to rant, I’ll include Obama’s response to the outcry that resulted from the above observations. First, in video:
When I go around and I talk to people there is frustration and there is anger and there is bitterness. And what’s worse is when people are expressing their anger then politicians try to say what are you angry about? This just happened – I want to make a point here today.
I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how’re you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What’s going on there? We hear that it’s hard for some working class people to get behind your campaign. Why is that? I said, “Well look, they’re frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shipped overseas. They’ve seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.
And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement– so, here’s what’s rich. Senator Clinton says ‘Well, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say that people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’
Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain—it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch? No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.
First of all, that last paragraph is basically irrelevant to the situation at hand. It’s just another classic Obama end-run ploy—another attempt by the Teflon Candidate to change the subject and deflect blame away from himself while projecting it on Clinton and McCain instead. Let me take the liberty to translate the last paragraph for you:
Watch it, y’all. Don’t be yellin’ at me! Remember, I’m the candidate who’s gonna spend billions of taxpayer dollars to bail out all of you folks who got up to your eyeballs in inadvisable mortgages and inadvisable credit card debt. So watch it, or I won’t bail you out.
Right. That about says it.
Anyway, look at the third paragraph. In it he addresses his comments about religion and second amendment rights. Notably missing, however, is any attempt to explain his comments about xenophobic and bigoted behavior. Might that be because he wants us to forget that he said it?
Also note that he chooses not to explain his sudden reversal on free-trade issues. It’s as if he’s saying to the San Francisco wine and cheese crowd: “Look, you have to understand that those dumb asses out there in Pennsylvania lost their jobs to NAFTA and now they’re pissed off about free trade. I can’t get their vote unless I trash free trade. So just hold your noses while I pander to their baser instincts; I’ll only have to do it long enough to get into the White House. Then I’ll stop. I promise.”
I should note that, in Wynette-esque fashion, the Obamistas are “standing by their man” today. If you surf over to this post at Daily Kos for example, the Obama Youth are practically falling over themselves heaping praise on the Messiah.
And if you go to the YouTube page for the video I posted above, you’ll find the same thing. I should warn you, though, that should you try to post something negative about Obama in the comments section for the video, you won’t be able to. Why? Because they’re using the exact same tactic that Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler would have used to suppress dissent: They’re moderating the comments. That’s right; they’re censoring the comments to make sure only the positive gets through.
What a bunch of Nazis.
It couldn’t get more hilarious.
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Good post and thank you for the link, but I can’t take credit for that great line - Ligneus wrote that post.
I can not believe that these little brown shirts are moderating the comments on YouTube. Good Lord I loathe these imperious little nazis. And indeed, you make a good point and I slipped into it too. Obama’s remarks are racist, but then, racism is a form of elitism, I suppose. But see, us typical white folk just can’t remember that we are a genetically racist folks - and bitter too, and so incapable of discerning the many nuances of racism. Bottom line, it’s ideology, not race that makes me want to see Obama go down in flames.
But what I notice about his “apology” is that he talks as if these Pennsylvanians are his inner city welfare audience who have expectations that government ought to help them - the Katrina mentality. “Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them.”
Well guess what Obama, your typical white person DOESN’T EXPECT THE GOVERNMENT TO HELP THEM!!!! auGHHHHH!
(PS- I’m snatching that great photo )