The McGovernization of Obama

NRO ^ | 4/11/2008 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Unam Sanctam]

I still believe that by August, Obama, the half-term rookie Senator, will have become the second George McGovern. Cf. his latest declaration to the Marin County faithful (coming on the heels of the crazy anti-Semitic rant of Rev. Eric Lee, a prominent LA Obama supporter):

"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."

Let us count the ways that this is a disastrous declaration:

1. “Nothing’s replaced them”? As someone who lives in a small rural town that saw a lot of closed plants and farm depression in the 1980s, a lot has “replaced them”—explaining why for much of the last decade the national unemployment rate has been below 5%.

2. “They”. This evokes Michelle’s similar “they” (as in the “they” who raised the proverbial bar on the Obamas), and likewise suggests both hostility and a certain us/they contempt for a slice of America that the Obamas apparently know very little about—but for the first time in their lives are rapidly discovering.

3. “They cling to guns or religion”. This is revealing for two reasons: one, Obama has been trying to finesse his position on guns to appeal precisely to gun owners and thus we start to see that his repositioning is cynical to the core; two, “cling to religion?” No rural Pennsylvanian clings to religion more than Obama himself, who for 20 years sat silent in the pews, while a hate-spewing minister damned his country and most everyone else. The question is not why Pennsylvanians “cling to their religion”, but why do the Obamas still cling to the Trinity Church that seems far more extreme than anything I’ve seen in rural America.

4. “antipathy to people who aren't like them”—as in the case of Rev. Wright’s views of Jews, whites, Italians, or Americans in general? In short, Obama accuses rural Pennsylvanians of a racism that they haven’t expressed while contextualizing the racism that his own Rev. Wright has.

5. “Anti-immigrant sentiment”? As in wishing that drivers’ licenses are not issued to those here illegally, or that we insist that those who immigrate to the U.S. do so legally?

6. The worst hypocrisy, of course, is Obama’s charge that these small towns in Pennsylvania express “anti-trade sentiment.” It was not George Bush or John McCain, but Barack Obama himself who tried to salvage Ohio by demagoguing NAFTA and opposing a free-trade agreement with Columbia. His entire campaign is predicated on showing more anti-trade sentiment that the Clintons.

7. Let me get this straight: Obama goes to the Bay Area to an affluent liberal enclave to give a condescending take on the supposed poor fools that he is currently trying to court. This is not just hypocritical, but abjectly stupid. All of Pennsylvania surely is asking today what is so hip and sophisticated about the Trinity Church and Rev. Wright?

So here we have the essential Obama, a walking paradox between the postmodern hip-Ivy-Leaguer who sneers at middle-class America’s supposed prejudices and parochialism, while at the same time courting an anti-Enlightenment, prejudicial demagogue like Jeremiah Wright. For free trade or anti-free trade? For 2nd-amendment rights or not? Post-religious or pious and fundamentalist? For public campaign financing or not? A uniter of various groups or someone who sees America in terms of “they”? Straight-talking or someone who evokes "context" to explain away the inexplicable?

Again, we will see more and more of these condescending statements of the Michelle Obama strain, more and more of Revs. Wright, Meeks, Lee and others peddlers of division like them, and more and more clues to a long hostility to Israel—in what will eventually become the most disastrous chapter in recent Democratic history.

And pundits keep wondering why Hillary won't give up?

[milwguy]

As usual VDH takes apart Obama, sentence by sentence. The more Barrack talks, the happier I am.

[attiladhun2]

Obama is going to get the a$$kicking of his life in the PA primary, such that the Dem bigwigs are going to have buyer's remorse big time.

[Graybeard58]

And pundits keep wondering why Hillary won't give up?

Hillary knows that Obama is a train wreck. What she doesn't know is that she's another one.

[stockpirate]

I hope this plays until the election!

“You go into some of 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 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.”

[ProtectOurFreedom]

VDH on-target as usual. Excellent piece.

The notion that Americans just sat on their front-porch rocker for 25 years after the plant closed down, waiting for the gubmint check, is just preposterous.

[Typical_Whitey]

So if you lose your job we should take your guns away?

Obama replaces HOPE with Bitterness.... How...Liberal.

[SkyDancer]

Two trains heading towards each other - the wreck will be awesome ... (submitter rubbing her hands in glee waiting for the Dem. convention) ... This will be better than Dancing With The Stars .....

[Para-Ord.45]

Barack Hussein, “ they cling to religion...”

Karl Marx, “ Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes” (Religion is the opiate of the people)

[Viking2002]

As someone who was born and raised in a small town on the MD/WV panhandle, Senator, you are cordially invited to go shit in your hat and pull it down over your storm shutters. You are no more qualified to lead this nation than I am to pilot a space shuttle full of nuclear warheads. In fact, I submit that I'd be less of a menace to society in that endeavor.

[Congressman Billybob]

Everybody is on the subject, but Freepers were on it first. See below.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Bitter"? "Clinging to Guns"? No, "Dumb as a Box of Rocks"

Help a Freeper into Congress.

[Crawdad]

With Obama, the dem leadership has led their black slaves too far down the path to freedom to reject him.
Their situation is going to get beautifully ugly very soon and will lead to the cancellation of the dem convention in Denver.

[Big Horn]

Hussein Obama public enemy number one.
I live in a small town and there are more jobs than people to fill them.
The guns are for fun.
The reason he does not understand the USA is that he hates it.

[austinaero]

“Obama is going to get the a$$kicking of his life in the PA primary, ,,,

I really do hope so!!! I hope it is a huge turnout and that a clear rejection of this man comes out of the PA primary. I don’t like HRC, but, this man is deadlier IMHO.

[Empireoftheatom48]

Pass the very big tub of trans fat buttered, hot, steamy movie pop corn. Yeah!!!!

[farlander]

ROFL. That’s classic.

[moderatewolverine]

Spot on just doesn’t cover it. Every time I see VDH in the byline, I know I’m in for a good one.

Barack Obama is feeding people like VDH, Krauthammer and Steyn ammo to obliterate his campaign bit by bit...and I’m loving it. Let them name Barack their candidate, and let them give Republicans the Presidency once again.

[attiladhun2]

This guy is a typical smart-a$$ leftist, of a kind that only appeals to other smart-a$$ leftists, i.e., mainly younger people who watch Bill Mahr and don't end up voting anyway, or Mercedes Marxists who have "0" appeal to the avg. voter.

[woofie]

Obama Mania seems a bit flat

[2ndDivisionVet]

PLEASE WATCH AND EMAIL THESE LINKS OUT **NOW** TO YOUR FAMILY, CO-WORKERS AND FRIENDS AHEAD OF THE NORTH CAROLINA, PENNSYLVANIA AND PUERTO RICO PRIMARIES!!

Obama’s Pastor Celebrates 9/11 (explicit)
Only 5 Days After 3,000 Americans Killed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzhl-endvco

Obama’s Racially-Divisive Pastor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbUBTlmAiA

Obama Disrespecting U.S. Flag and Anthem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8QCkgg5Kjo

The Audacity of Barack Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwjnT4eJJvs

The Audacity of Barack Obama 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeC8BE-2T_k

Is Obama Wright? - Pastor Wright & Senator Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72B3tUAqpo4

Obama’s Pastor - 9/11 Fault of Israel Association

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnI431s1r6s

Obama - Cult of Personality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP7lUGn7HWk

Name Obama’s Accomplishments if you can #1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGeu_4Ekx-o

Name Obama’s Accomplishments if you can #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzFOOcEQtP0

Barack Obama: There Will Be Bamboozling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuB_W8o_UsU

The Two Things Senator Obama Accomplished

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/02/27/obamas-empty-change-message/

The Jeremiah Wright Lifetime Achievement Award

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prhnc2fxAzg

Gaza Strip Palestinians Campaigning for Obama

http://youtube.com/watch?v=21YF7ggCG6g

Barack Obama: Doesn’t Want his daughters ‘punished’ with a baby

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eNzmly28Bmg

[Stentor]

No rural Pennsylvanian clings to religion more than Obama himself, who for 20 years sat silent in the pews, while a hate-spewing minister damned his country and most everyone else. The question is not why Pennsylvanians “cling to their religion”, but why do the Obamas still cling to the Trinity Church that seems far more extreme than anything I’ve seen in rural America.

Obama "knows" that people cling to religion because of what he has seen for himself. The wellspring of black Liberation theology is bitterness and xenophobia. And yes, typical white people are considered foreign by the parishioners of Trinity Hate Whitey church.

[D-fendr]

What were Obama and the Frisco Billionaires laughing at?

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

[snarks_when_bored]

I still wish that everybody would shup up about Obama until he clinches the Democratic nomination.

[driftless2]

"the more he talks"

You're right, he does sound like a cynical, clueless leftist. But if he never said a word, his past circumstances make him guilty and supremely unqualified to run for alderman much less president. The guy has surrounded himself with America-hating people, including his wife. He can't explain away his radical past and present.

[chris_bdba]

I’m thinking maybe we should use our tax rebate for a bigger TV? The show that is going to happen in Denver is definately going to be must see TV!

[stockpirate]

“So if you lose your job we should take your guns away?

Obama replaces HOPE with Bitterness.... How...Liberal.”

Well he is anti-gun, he said somewhere that he is against any gun ownership of any type, I think he will come to regret that statement.

[jnsun]

I still wish that everybody would shut up about Obama until he clinches the Democratic nomination.

Bingo!

Hillary WILL be the Democratic nominee for surreptitious reasons. I'll also bet that by August 2008 half of the comments on FR will SUPPORT Hillary, cynically, but to the effect that "she makes sense on that," or "she isn't that bad," or "she certainly listens more than McCain," etc.

These handlers (HRC) are NOT dumb. Over half of American citizens are.

For this I really do blame GWB. Having the bully pulpit for eight years he never, never articulated what conservatism is (either because he can't or refused to).

Ronald Reagan did!

Like a bunch of yuppie women we really DO NOT know what we want, and "they" do know that.

[Christian4Bush]

VDH bump for later

[Mrs.Z]

“I still wish that everybody would shut up about Obama until he clinches the Democratic nomination.”

But we want to see the Democratic party implode.

If Obama has the delegates and Clinton takes the nomination because he is politically DOA, most of the fun will be over BEFORE November.

[goldstategop]

I can see Obama being buried this fall by his own hubris. I hope he keeps it up. From your ears to mine, he's the gift to the Democrats that keeps on giving.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[libstripper]

Hillary knows that Obama is a train wreck. What she doesn't know is that she's another one.

This is the beauty of Operation Chaos. By enabling the Witch to squeak past the Ohio and Texas primaries Rush put her and the Mudslime into a bloody, indeterminate, apparently endless celebrity death match. Each, along with his or her closest supporters, is in what appears to be an endless, constantly more bloody struggle that's exhausting each far beyond what either expected to happen. Deep, total physical and mental fatigue like that, coupled with heavy, constant stress, forces people to make horrible mistakes. It happens in every war to the combatants and it's happening here. The Clintons' blunders of the last couple of weeks and Obama's current gaffe show things will just get worse for both of them and will likely continue all the way to Denver.

[cynwoody]

Barack Hussein, “ they cling to religion...”

Karl Marx, “ Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes” (Religion is the opiate of the people)

Baracka-caca Hussein Osamabama! Half-black on the outside — and all red on the inside!

[jmaroneps37]

I knew if I called him barack mcgovern enough someone would pick it up :-)!

[Typical_Whitey]

Exactly DU is in aboslute chaos... The Obama Zombies are saying Hillary is a Conservative Republican who needs to switch parties... Yikes ...