Obama Explains Why Some Small Town Pennsylvanians are "Bitter" [and cling to guns and religion!]

ABC News ^ | 4/11/07 | Jake Tapper

[freespirited]

The Huffington Post's Mayhill Fowler reports that, at that same San Francisco fundraiser where Obama revealed his previously unknown college sojourn to Pakistan, the junior senator from Illinois seemed to try to get inside the mind of small towners in Pennsylvania, with a dose of sociology and a dollop of dime-store psychology.

"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," Obama said. "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 to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

It seems to me that this comment could be interpreted fairly easily as dismissing people who hold views on guns, or religion, or immigration, or trade because they believe in those views -- and not because they're "bitter" or lashing back at a system that has discarded them.

[freespirited]

And it's not surprising then 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."

This is your brain on too much bordeaux and brie.

[Stepan12]

These dumb, stoopid Amerikkans. They’re not sophisticated Islamo Marxists as I am. (thoughts of b. Hussein Obama)

[mware]

stunning

[chris_bdba]

I so hope there is tape of this. Would be a great ad to run going up to the general election. I know it isn’t going over too well in this house and I doubt anyone else who heard it who lives outside of the city is taking it too well.

[Ann Archy]

Wow....what a good Christian!!!!

[golfisnr1]

How condescending!

[kromike]

I pray to God that Bambi continues to utter these Kerryisms; if McCain is smart, he’ll use these phrases to totally squash this big-eared pipsqueak.

[OKSooner]

An absolutely sophomoric and gay thing to say - Sophomore in High Skool, that is. Any college Sophomore who would say something like this in the Student Union would be ostracized by (almost) everyone.

[Ann Archy]

Is he trying to SABOTAGE himself???? Maybe he just realized he Could be the

Is he trying to SABOTAGE HIMSELF????

[roses of sharon]

Hussein seems like he is afraid to walk around those small towns with guns, American flags, and Churches.

Sort of like a Commie Vampire.

[Ann Archy]

oops!!! Did he get COLD FEET for the POTUS???

[Biggirl]

There is, on marklevinshow.com .

[eaglestar]

Freep this poll!

Do you believe that Senator Barack Obama’s comments reveal his elitist attitude toward every hardworking American?

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/

It’s 55% Yes 45% No

Results will be shown in half hour.

[mware]

I don't know Ann but if he keeps this up, he is going to change PA into a red state.

It may go red anyway, if the precincts in Philly don't have 250% of the people voting.

[tioga]

49 yes to 51 no now.........I voted again. ;^)

[depressed in 06]

Wow, what a choice we have this year, a communist, a socialist and a fellow traveler.

[MHGinTN]

That the DNC considers Barry Hussein Obama to be the penultimate black candidate to run for office of president says a lot about the bankrupt state of the democrap party. With all the well educated, experienced, mature, articulate black men and women in America, why would the fools of the DNC run a man who is an empty suit?... Because the DNC has that level of disdain for democrat voters! Barry is the measure of what the DNC thinks of democrat voters ... a shallow man whose hate-whitey soul istoo close to the surface, inexperienced, an empty suit spewing rhetorically linked cliches meaning nothing.

[ASA Vet]

Again?

[Albion Wilde]

"...it's not surprising then 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." —Barack Hussein Obama

"Let them eat cake." — Marie Antoinette

"I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas." —Hillary Clinton

"But I don't know that she's ever had a real job." —Teresa Heinz Kerry, about Laura Bush

"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." —Leona Helmsley

[Loyal Buckeye]

stunning

Nailed it in one word.