this is excerpted from a newspaper:


Michael Goodwin, a columnist for the New York Daily News, accused Mr Obama of "de-legitimising the way people choose to live in America" and argued that the furore would be even more damaging for Mr Obama than the previous row over inflammatory comments by his pastor Jeremiah Wright.

He said: "This is like Wright on steroids. It is a disaster for Obama. I happen to come from one of those small towns in Pennsylvania. I know what people there feel about religion and guns and immigrants.

"It's not about just hating other people. They don't embrace religion out of hate. They don't hunt or use their guns for target practice out of hate. You cannot denigrate religion in that way."


Democrat strategist Robert Zimmerman said: "This raises questions about whether he can truly unite the country, as he pledges to, and whether he really believes that we're one America."

A jubilant Grover Norquist, the conservative anti-tax campaigner said: "That sentence will lose him the election. He just announced to rural America: 'I don’t like you'. Now you can vote against that guy not because you don't like him. You can vote against him because he doesn't like you."

Mrs Clinton told voters in Pennsylvania that she does not consider them to be bitter. "I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves," she said.

"Pennsylvania doesn't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them."

Steve Schmidt, a senior aide to the Republican candidate, John McCain, said: "It shows an elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking."

Mr Obama, campaigning in Indiana, refused to apologise.

very well stated Withdoctor, I could not agree with you more. Thank you.

Hmm...anti-trade sentiment...where is it that I've been hearing anti-trade sentiment...oh yes!...seems like both of these Democrat candidates have been whipping that up, one of them even accusing the other of not being opposed to NAFTA enough. A candidate that says one thing when talking to rich folk in a coastal city [edited to add - or when his representatives are talking to Canadian officials] and another thing when talking to regular folk in flyover country? I thought John Kerry plowed this ground already...

In this political climate if a presidential candiate (any one of the three) said "the weather tomorrow will be cold and cloudy" they would be attacked from someone and it would blow up into a national debate.

I am not defending what Obama said or Clinton's response to it. I am just saying politically we are in a high alert attack mode and no matter what is said it will be parced and blown apart by all concerned.

BTW, it is going to be sunny tomorrow.

Believe it or not, I wrote this before I read the other thread and Ron's comment.

Lord, when you start quoting Springsteen as a great and wise Oracle, you seriously have some growing up to do.

Obama is an elitist. I have lots of relatives in small town PA, and none of them are bitter because of these reasons.

And, they were religious and shot guns their entire lives because they Love Jesus and the sport of shooting, not because of their political views.

"......it’s one thing for a German thinker to assert that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature.” It’s another thing for an American presidential candidate to claim that we “cling to ... religion” out of economic frustration.

And it’s a particularly odd claim for Barack Obama to make. After all, in his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, he emphasized with pride that blue-state Americans, too, “worship an awesome God.”

What’s more, he’s written eloquently in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” of his own religious awakening upon hearing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “Audacity of Hope” sermon, and of the complexity of his religious commitment. You’d think he’d do other believers the courtesy of assuming they’ve also thought about their religious beliefs.

But Obama in San Francisco does no courtesy to his fellow Americans. Look at the other claims he makes about those small-town voters.

Obama ascribes their anti-trade sentiment to economic frustration — as if there are no respectable arguments against more free-trade agreements. This is particularly cynical, since he himself has been making those arguments, exploiting and fanning this sentiment that he decries. Aren’t we then entitled to assume Obama’s opposition to Nafta and the Colombian trade pact is merely cynical pandering to frustrated Americans?

Then there’s what Obama calls “anti-immigrant sentiment.” Has Obama done anything to address it? It was John McCain, not Obama, who took political risks to try to resolve the issue of illegal immigration by putting his weight behind an attempt at immigration reform.

Furthermore, some concerns about unchecked and unmonitored illegal immigration are surely legitimate. Obama voted in 2006 (to take just one example) for the Secure Fence Act, which was intended to control the Mexican border through various means, including hundreds of miles of border fence. Was Obama then just accommodating bigotry?

As for small-town Americans’ alleged “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”: During what Obama considers the terrible Clinton-Bush years of economic frustration, by any measurement of public opinion polling or observed behavior, Americans have become far more tolerant and respectful of minorities who are not “like them.” Surely Obama knows this. Was he simply flattering his wealthy San Francisco donors by casting aspersions on the idiocy of small-town life?

That leaves us with guns. Gun ownership has been around for an awfully long time. And people may have good reasons to, and in any case have a constitutional right to, own guns — as Obama himself has been acknowledging on the campaign trail, when he presents himself as more sympathetic to gun owners than a typical Democrat.

What does this mean for Obama’s presidential prospects? He’s disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize.

And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans? "



-----thoughts of Bill Kristol in National Review Online

Bill Kristol and the NRO...
There's an unbiased view of the situation...

Mr. Obama's comments were more indicative of his own prejudice than that of others. He keeps reinforcing this view of him as a man incapable of uniting the country because he is so busy denigrating folks who aren't like him.

Perhaps he really did just misspeak?
He had very good clarifications over the weekend at events, at The Compassion Forum last night, and surely will be able to respond during the debate on Wed. night.

I don't believe he is denigrating anyone.

well thanks for this unbiased condescension

Man, if that's true, he misspeaks A LOT.

I wonder if he was President and was in crucial talks with other governmental leaders he would misspeak this much.

The man simply echoes his true sentiments. No elitist thinks that they are actually being condescending to those they are in fact being condescending to. They are elitist sentiments.

Easy old man. I do not believe I was being condescending to anyone.

I don't think you're being condescending, Neo - but I have to agree with MB Guy. He is a very scripted candidate. When Obama speaks off the cuff, he seems to have a lot of problems. What happens when he's in a sensitive meeting with the President of a not too friendly country and there's a lot of pressure on him? We need someone who is cool under fire. This is where experience comes in - and if in Obama's case it's not just the lack of experience, then it is even MUCH worse!

cool under fire like calling medvedev a ? that kind of cool under fire?


please don't try to avoid the banned words by the use of symbols, it illustrates a defiance of the admins' policy and procedures

No, the cool under fire that Obama has been that he denied his pastor ever made similar remarks from the pulpit, or that he had never heard the pastor say things like that.

That kind of cool under fire.

wait, obama said that stuff from the pulpit?

i am not aware of him denying what rev wright said. i guess it is all a matter of what you believe and how much you want to twist reality because of something that ron said on bol.

you are shallow, straw. now back to work with you...

Ron, does it not concern you even just a little bit about Obama's judgment (let alone his beliefs) that:

He sees no problem serving on a board (and being friends with) an admitted - proud in fact - domestic terrorist who says his only regret is that he didn't do more (terrorism)?

He puts the incendiary pastor on some committee that is part of his campaign and publicly proclaims him as a trusted spiritual adviser?

He makes the unscripted remarks about working class PA people believing what they do (God, gun rights, etc.) because they're bitter and frustrated? Does that not seem even a little condescending to you?

Thomas Frank On Obama: Not That Controversial



I placed my emphasis in bold. That, in my own opinion, is the whole point. People ARE bitter.

If you can access video, this is Obama commenting on his remarks at last night's Compassion Forum which aired on CNN.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1498021972?bctid=1502861909

now you insult me due to my advanced years!!!!!

you elites just can't let it go!

Yes, maybe people are bitter, but that has nothing to do with their religious beliefs nor their rights to own guns.

It doesn't matter what he sounded like when he 'commented on his comments'. What matters is where the emphasis was when he originally made the comments.

And you all had better watch out because I actually do live in small town, Pennsylvania; with my guns; and my Church; and am bitter and frustrated (about all the Democrats crowding our airwaves for another week with this campaign cr*p!)

this is the greatest country in the history of the world Neo

we have done more to fight poverty, fight disease, oppression, and on and on - this was not done by bitterness, but by upbeat people of hope and faith and freedom!

know if you are bitter, we are sorry for you, people are not xenophobic by clinging to their church or guns.

O's statement was flat out an elitist viewpoint of a liberal who wants to win an election without the blue collar conservative, hayseed, illiterate democrats -

it was either Schrum or the snakehead that said as much yesterday with Russertt

Many people are xenophobic, and all too often they blame "others" for their woes Pale.

I do not deny what America has done in the past in regards to fighting poverty and such, and that is not where Obama was going with his comments.

I agree with Mr. Rich. People are bitter. People are angry. We have been given the shaft for far too long. [censored] yes I am bitter. [censored] yes I am angry. It is time for a change.

And in the words of Stone Cold, "That's all I have to say about that!"