Bittergate Unfolds

Obama tastes something bitter -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
"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 going to regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then, that they 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."

With these words spoken at a San Francisco fundraiser last Friday, Obama stepped in a pile of "resonant speech-making". He was trying to hook his liberal San Francisco audience, all the while forgetting that the press corps would broadcast his remarks to the whole world. To someone less politic, an approximate translation is:

"Those hayseeds in the Midwest have become Bible-thumpin', gun-totin' racist assholes because of 25 years' unemployment."

The word "bitter" has connotations beyond angry or disaffected -- it almost implies a bit of derangement. Some of the remaining primaries are in rural areas and Obama needs the support of fence-sitting Midwest Anglos. He has clearly put that support in some jeopardy. Also, in an ongoing campaign it's possible to lose a state (in the general election) that you "won" in the primary. There can't really be any resting on laurels. Therefore, the Obama spin machine needs to crank it up.

The first Obama spin was going after Hillary for going after Obama. Hillary affirmed that people who worship and own guns may not be particularly "bitter" about anything. Obama and quite a few others accused Hillary of posturing as Annie Oakley (of Annie get Your Gun). Hillary doesn't have to be Annie Oakley or a religious zealot to make her point. She doesn't have to own any guns or attend church weekly, to speak to the rights of those who do own guns and attend church regularly. There are things a bitter human might do, but worship God isn't one of them. Unlike Hillary's sniper fire miscue two weeks ago, Bittergate gives us a look into what Obama really thinks. And one thinks he'd rather be shopping for arugula at Whole Foods, commiserating with the secular, gun-hating glitterati.

My overwhelming first impression of Obama was that of a smug, disingenuous smooth-talker. That's how I still see him and this week's ado will not change my opinion. But stacked on top of Reverend Wright's rants, this Bittergate quote is likely to change other minds; it's likely to have legs and follow Obama all the rest of the campaign.

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