Posted by Damozel | Um, yeah.
Acknowledging Saturday that “I didn’t say it as well as I should have,” he explained his remarks by focusing on his characterization of those voters’ economic woes. He meant, he said, that voters in places that had been losing jobs for years expressed their anxiety at the polls by focusing on cultural and social issues like gun laws and immigration. (NYT)
No, if that's what he meant, he most definitely did not say it as well as he should have. And once again, people are flaring up over words they perfectly well know, or ought to know, weren't intended to give offense. I'd feel sorry for Obama if his campaign hadn't been happy to benefit on many, many occasions by similar false steps on the part of Clinton and her so-called 'surrogates.'
So I can't really blame the Clinton campaign for jumping on it just as avidly as his campaign has pounced on her every misstep, starting right down to the 'racist' MLK comment that wasn't. As far as I am concerned, his campaign started the ball rolling downhill with the whole pre-South Carolina 'controversy' over Hillary's comment that MLK's dream required the efforts of politicans to realize. Instead of dismissing the stupid, oblivious-to-history arguments that this remark was somehow 'racist,' he and his campaign pretended to take the 'racist' accusations seriously. Instead of agreeing with her self-evident proposition (it took lawmakers to implement MLK's dream), they benefited immensely from all the pearl-clutching and hyperventilating.
So now he makes a remark that's upset the sensibilities of small town voters by implying that they're using religion, hunting, and hatred for illegal immigrants to vent their anger and frustration over their own powerlessness. While this is certainly true of some small town voters, its truth doesn't make it less insulting or condescending.
Even so, I'd be in there right now defending him if he hadn't let Hillary twist in the wind over much less questionable statements.
I can't blame Hillary for jumping on this. After all, before his unfortunate framing of his 'bitterness' point, he did seek to point fingers at the Clinton Administration as part of the cause of the alleged 'bitterness'.
“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." (NYT)
So Hillary sailed right in.
His comments, she said, were “not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans.”
Mrs. Clinton suggested that Mr. Obama saw religious commitment, hunting and concern about immigration as emotional responses to economic strain rather than as deeply embedded values.
“I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith,” she said at a rally in Indianapolis. “The people of faith I know don’t ‘cling to’ religion because they’re bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.” (NYT)
For the record, I come from a small town myself, and I think they are both right and both wrong. Small town values are 'deeply embedded,' as Hillary says, but many of them don't come from bitterness and frustration, as Obama argues, or from religious faith, as Hillary contends, from a lack of interest in, and sometimes knowledge of, anything that's happening anywhere else in the world. And that is unfortunate and certainly not something I feel inclined to celebrate.
And though I'm all about the value of religious faith, the religious faith of people in small communities---being deeply 'embedded'--- is often ingrown and exclusionary. Not every person who embraces every faith or who attends church on Sunday is 'spiritually rich.' I just think it's a bit much for Barack Obama---who for 20-something years attended the church of the Rev. Wright---to comment on the use of religion as an anodyne to anyone's bitterness or frustration.
As for the business about small-town people 'clinging to their guns' out of bitterness, that's also a bit rich, coming from a Chicago politician. It's not as if there aren't plenty of embittered people in Chicago and other urban areas who are also clinging to their guns.
That said, I'm surprised and rather disappointed that Hillary chose to glorify gun ownership as some sort of deeply embedded core 'value,' even to score political points. (NYT) I think if she doesn't drop it soon, she's going to go too far and end up vitiating any value it might have to her campaign.
Needless to say, analysts and 'strategists' can't agree on what this stupid imbroglio means to Obama's campaign.
Some analysts compared the impact of the controversy over Obama's remarks to the setback his campaign experienced after incendiary sermons by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, were publicized last month. "With the Wright controversy still lingering (his opponents are stirring it over and over) and now Obama's unartful comments, it will paint the picture of Obama as being 'out of sync,' " Donna Brazile, an uncommitted superdelegate, said Saturday. "Unfortunately, it was the Constitution law professor speaking and not the community organizer."
But another Democratic strategist, who assessed the moment candidly on the condition of anonymity, said: "Ultimately, the case that McCain and Clinton will try to make that Obama is an elitist or out of touch has to be credible to the voter, and I don't believe it is. My sense is more people believe Obama, rather than McCain or Clinton, understand their lives and the challenges they face on a daily basis."(NYT)
Anyway, Obama hasn't apologized, or not exactly. He's said that he deeply regrets giving anyone offense if he offended. (CNN) But he meant what he said, he says.
"The underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so," he told the North Carolina newspaper. "And I hear it all the time when I visit these communities." (CNN)
Which---if you parse it out, as small town people are perfectly capable of doing, whatever Obama might assume--- simply translates into a reaffirmation that he thinks small town religion and hunting are nothing more than a reaction to frustration. Stupid again. And again showing that Obama actually understands very little about small town life or small town people. (NYT)
Inside Obama's inner circle, aides conceded they are not sure where the issue might lead, although it is likely to set the tone and raise the stakes of the Wednesday night debate between Clinton and Obama in Pennsylvania. They described Obama as frustrated with himself for word choices such as "cling" and references to hot-button issues including religion and guns, but also stunned at the uproar over what to him seemed a fundamental fact of American life. (WaPo) .
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Here's a nice piece from a high profile native of a small town in Pennsylvania:
http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/04/obama-bitterness-meet-press-and-old.html
A great section from this:
"Does Russert really believe he’s doing the nation a service for this parade of spin doctors talking about potential spins and the spin-offs from the words Obama used to state what everyone knows is true? Or is Russert merely in the business of selling TV airtime for a network that doesn’t give a hoot about its supposed commitment to the public interest but wants to up its ratings by pandering to the nation’s ongoing desire for gladiator entertainment instead of real talk about real problems."
I only wish I agreed with the last line, "The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now." Unfortunately, they are still relevant. They need to be continually and loudly called out for the way they act, until they either clean it up or lose their relevance.
Damozel, as an aside, I appreciate how active you've been covering the REAL big story of this week, unlike the guardians of our public discourse in the MSM.
Posted by: Adam | April 14, 2008 at 06:34 PM