Free Republic

Hey sweetie, are you bitter? Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito Perfect Sen. John McCain bumper sticker: Hey sweetie, are you bitter?

In an earlier column, I raised the matter of whether, and how, Senator Barack Obama's conspicuous intelligence may act as a barrier to his being elected president. [SNIP] In recent years, Democrats have nominated presidential candidates who are far more intelligent that their Republican counterparts. Common sense might suggest that high intelligence is necessary to be president, and conclude that we should applaud such nominations. Election politics, unfortunately, usually punishes the more intelligent nominee. Start with Nixon. Hubert Humphrey had a remarkable mind and while Nixon was no slouch, Humphrey always struck those who knew both men well as way...

Obama and his Kentucky cross TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Chris Brody, the senior national correspondent for Christian Broadcast Network (CBN), is reporting Sen. Barack Obama has a flier for next week’s primary contest in Kentucky that shows Obama standing with a substantial-sized cross to his left. Brody writes that Obama “is making a direct appeal to evangelicals with fliers that mention his conversion experience and they highlight a big old cross. Remember (Gov.) Mike Huckabee’s supposed subliminal cross in his Christmas campaign ad? Well, Obama campaign ditches

Hillary & Obama: Peaches & Herb? TRIBUNE REVIEW By: Salena Zito Perhaps if you had been in an isolation chamber since the day before Sen. Hillary Clinton's first loss in Iowa, you would think that the poll for tomorrow's contest in West Virginia made sense. Until that moment she was inevitable. Now, not so much. Still the numbers are the numbers and here is what they say about Tuesday's West Virginia primary and next week's contest in Kentucky:

There is a news report starting to make the rounds amongst the MSM on a study that claims to have discovered why conservatives tend to be happier than liberals and it is just the sort of bilge that the MSM loves to promulgate. We may see more of it over the next several days because, while it is titled "Conservatives Happier Than Liberals," it is basically saying that the reason conservatives are happier is because they just don't care about other people. This purported research claims to pinpoint the reason conservatives are happier and it is because they have theirs...

Obama trolls House, but Altmire remains neutral TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Rep. Jason Altmire said his baseline for a decision to endorse Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. Barack Obama would be if Clinton managed to reach somewhere close to a delegate tie with him when the primaries were over. "She earned her right to continue the campaign when she won in Pennsylvania and won my district," he said. Altmire said even after her loss in North Carolina and slim win in Indiana, she still has that right. "It's a long shot, I understand that, but I still want to give...

At West Virginia rally, Clinton vows to fight on By David Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, May 8, 2008 CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Memo to those writing political obituaries for Hillary Clinton: She ain't done yet. Clinton sought to drive home that message to hundreds of cheering supporters at a rally here today, contending West Virginia will muzzle the pundits by giving her a resounding win on Tuesday over Barack Obama, whose victory Tuesday in North Carolina and strong showing in Indiana moved him closer to clinching the Democratic presidential nomination. "I know that according to the polls, I'm doing well here. But...

As the tall, poised black woman takes the stage in the vast indoor sports stadium, an extraordinary wave of sound runs through the 8,000-strong crowd and bounces off the rafters: a sort of deafening ululation, a wild, excited keening unlike anything I have heard at a political rally. “Good Ev-En-Ing Pittsburgh,” says Michelle Obama, with a rising cadence, and then a pause. “Are you ready?” After his victory in North Carolina, Barack Obama seems to be building an unassailable lead in the see-sawing Democratic primary race, and for months Mrs Obama has criss-crossed America as the warm-up act for her...

This past Friday Michelle Obama gave essentially the same stump speech in Charlotte, North Carolina that she had given the week earlier in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Based on the stump speech, Yuval Levin calls Mrs. Obama "The unhappiest millionaire." Levin's NRO column carries a link to the C-SPAN video of Mrs. Obama's North Carolina speech. It is well worth watching. Levin characterizes the pervasive themes of Mrs. Obama's stump speech as the "gospel of bitterness." Levin finds Barack Obama to be preaching a similar gospel, albeit one that benefits from "a peppier and more upbeat stump speech[.]" Senator Obama's enormous...

By her husband’s logic, Michelle Obama must be a heavily armed xenophobic religious zealot, because boy is she bitter. This C-SPAN video of a speech delivered by Mrs. Obama in North Carolina last Friday is characteristic of her peculiar recent performances on the stump. It is an hour-long talk to supporters who just want something to cheer about, and who get some opportunities at the outset, but then find themselves treated to a profoundly and relentlessly negative vision of American life.

Dear Barack Obama: I grew to like you over the last year. I’ve always thought of you as dangerously naive at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naive at best. I couldn’t vote for you — but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor. I couldn’t vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I’m convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I’m convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don’t respect the Second Amendment (which I’m...

Barack Obama's problem winning votes from working-class whites is showing no sign of going away, and their impression of him is getting worse. Those are ominous signals as he hopes for strong performances next week in Indiana and North Carolina primaries that would derail the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. Those contests come as his candidacy has been rocked by renewed attention to his volatile former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and by his defeat in last month's Pennsylvania primary. In an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in April, 53 percent of whites who...

Barack Obama met with reporters Friday in Indianapolis and admitted the obvious: "We've had a rough couple of weeks. I won't deny that." The next couple of weeks will show just how rough. The roiling controversies -- over his remarks about rural voters and his ties to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. -- have cast new doubts over the Illinois senator's ability to win over white working-class Democrats. Tuesday's two primaries will offer fresh data on his appeal. Sen. Obama is strongly favored in North Carolina, while Indiana is seen as a toss-up. If Hillary Clinton gets...

Last week's highly entertaining episode of the Jeremiah Wright Show didn't tell us anything new about the demagogic reverend. He stands by his sick notion that American foreign policy and jihadist terrorism are equivalent, his defense of Louis Farrakhan, and his wacky conspiracy theory that the AIDS virus was cooked up by the federal government. But we did gain a new perspective on Wright's former parishioner, Senator Barack Obama. And it's not flattering. It took the Democratic frontrunner 20 years--and 50 days since videos surfaced of Wright's incendiary sermons--to discover that the man who helped him become a Christian, officiated...

Huckabee weighs in on Wright TRIBUNE-REVIEW by salena zito I asked former Republican candidate for president and ordained Southern Baptist Minister Mike Huckabee to give his thoughts on Reverend Wright's Q & A session at the National Press Club this morning. Huckabee was quick to say that his perspective would be coming not so much as from a pastor, but as a candidate and American. "When Rev. Wright's comments were first exposed, I actually had some sympathetic words for him because I felt his sentiments needed to be put in the context of his own experience of being treated with...

BARACK OBAMA SEEMED to have survived the blasphemous rants of his preacher and remained relatively untarnished by the perceived dissatisfactions of his privileged wife. But he may be less lucky with remarks he made recently about embittered, small-town Americans, who "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." Those words now cling to Obama like Styrofoam packing peanuts. The more he tries to brush them away, the more they seem to burrow into the American psyche. Being effete comes naturally to Democrats...

Last week's Pennsylvania primary demonstrated that Barack Obama is not unbeatable. This might sound a strange way to put it. Hasn't it always been true that Obama is beatable? Well, consider an alternate reality in which Obama had won Pennsylvania. His people certainly thought long and deeply about this alternate reality--why else spend a staggering $12 million on one state's primary? Hillary Clinton would have dropped out. Obama would have shown that he can win white working-class votes in a big, diverse, populous state. Way back after the Iowa caucuses, he playfully observed that everywhere he goes becomes Obama country....

f television is the nation's mirror, then no two TV characters reflect the intensifying "two Americas" gap better than Chris Matthews and Jimmy McNulty. A recent New York Times profile of Matthews describes a name-dropping dilettante floating between television studios and cocktail parties. The article documents the MSNBC host's $5 million salary, three Mercedes and house in lavish Chevy Chase, Md. Yet Matthews said, "Am I part of the winner's circle in American life? I don't think so." That stupefying comment sums up a pervasive worldview in Washington that is hostile to any discussion of class divides. Call it Matthews-ism...

By Doug Giles Saturday, April 26, 2008 I’m a bitter/clingy gun owner—and I’m happy about it! Obama, the great healer of America, the hope of our nation, came out last week and whizzed on millions of Christians and firearm fans calling us bitter Cling-Ons to religion and guns. I, personally, wasn’t insulted because I really like God and my rifles, and I make a good living off my rage. Yes, when I heard BHO blast us in front of his sassy San Fran crowd and attempt to put a dig into us plebeians, I thought, finally, this man has spoken...

Obama aide says he didn't mean to blaspheme Jesus - Stopped using 'gay' video piece after Christian confronted him Posted: April 25, 2008 By Jerome R. Corsi © 2008 WorldNetDaily Larry Lessig lectures to Google employees An Obama adviser denies he had blasphemous intent by including in his lectures a video of a 'gay' Jesus Christ sashaying nearly naked down a city street to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," only to get run over by a bus. "I decided to stop using the video when one Christian whom I knew told me he thought it was unhelpful...

What a difference two weeks of intense campaigning can make. The final two weeks of campaigning in the Pennsylvania Primary may not have changed the outcome of the Democratic race, but it helped John McCain in the Keystone State. Two weeks ago, in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton enjoyed a nine-point lead over McCain and Barack Obama had an eight-point edge over the Republican hopeful. Now, however, Clinton’s lead is down to five points and Obama trails McCain by a point. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania finds McCain with a statistically insignificant 44% to 43% advantage over Obama. Clinton...

We know who you’re talking about, Barack Obama, when you talk about Pennsylvania and the Midwest, about small towns where the jobs have left. We know who you’re talking about when you talk about those who “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion.” You’re talking about “those people.” You’re talking about white people who have neither the family connections nor the racial credentials to gain entrance to the world that you inhabit. Many of the people you’re talking about are those whose parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe who came to these places to...

Respect the Second Amendment: Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting. He also believes that the right is subject to...

(2008-04-22) — Democrats in rural Pennsylvania, still bitter about the state of the economy, will receive helpful voters’ guides today, published by Obama for America, with tips on how to cast a primary ballot while clinging to a Bible, a gun or both. “We don’t want anything to stand in the way of your desire to vote for change,” according to the pamphlet distributed at polling places by Obama volunteers. “With a little planning and flexibility you can cling to your firearm and the Word of God, and still operate a touchscreen voting machine.” Here’s an excerpt from the tract...

Bitter Small Town Democrats hand Obama 75-25 Loss in Northeast Pennsylvania We enjoyed watching Barack Obama lose the Pennsylvania primary 55-45, noting especially that Pennsylvania is a Blue State whose electoral votes will be decisive in the November election. The Democratic superdelegates would be well advised to note that Obama lost despite spending three dollars for every dollar that Clinton spent, thus underscoring the fact that most voters can recognize a phony smile on top of an empty suit when they see one. Obama’s camp claims, despite its catastrophic defeat, that Hillary Clinton is still behind in delegates and therefore...

Garin: Fewer Whites See Themselves In Obama's Story By JONATHAN TILOVE — Monday April 21, 2008WASHINGTON — Democratic pollster and strategist Geoffrey Garin, in an interview with Newhouse News Service while he was still unaffiliated with any candidate, extolled Sen. Barack Obama's broad cross-racial appeal."While Sen. Obama is a person of color, he is also at the same time an incredibly unifying figure,'' Garin said early last year. "I think there are lots of Americans, including a lot of white Americans, who can see themselves somewhere in the Obama story.'' Now Garin is chief strategist for Sen. Hillary Clinton, and...

MUNCY VALLEY, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Barack Obama's efforts to woo white voters in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary have been hurt by his comments on small town bitterness and his association with an outspoken pastor, some residents of Muncy Valley say. Local people called the Illinois senator arrogant, unpatriotic and un-Christian after his remarks that residents of small towns in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are bitter because of job losses, and so have turned to traditions like guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiment. "He is saying people are weak, dumb and naive, and they are seeking religion as a way of getting through,"...

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - OBAMA'S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AND SUPPORT Communist Pary Members, Marxists, Communist Leaders, Marxist Leaders, Communist Party USA Domestic bombers & terrorists, International Islamic Terrorist Organizations, Fundamental Islamic Leaders Black Liberation Preachers and militants, New Black Panther Party, Black Nation of Islam, Socialists THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND OBAMA'S CHURCH "Not God Bless America, no, no, no, God Damn America!" "911 is America's chickens coming home to roost" "AIDS was created by the US for black geneocide," "If God is not for us...

Whomever the Democratics nominate this time, it will be a first: It will NOT be a white male (unless you count Barry as half-white or Hillary as ha--uh, let's not go there). Identity Politics has driven the Democrat race. Guilt-wracked whites, wanting to appear enlightened, have supported the clean and articulate Magic Negro. They were joined finally by blacks, when Bill's dismissive South Carolina comments made them decide Barack was black enough. Meanwhile, old feminist teacher-union types have been supporting Hillary!. But Identity Politics will not be enough to win in November. In order to succeed, the Dem candidate...

“People from the Mon Valley are fighters! You’re fighters because— you know what? You didn’t go to Harvard! You weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth! You live right here in this valley!” As warmup acts for Hillary Clinton go, Pennsylvania State Rep. Peter Daley is just the ticket. Here in this valley — the Mon Valley, short for Monongahela, in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania — Daley is speaking to a crowd of more than 1,000 people gathered to see Clinton in the gym at California University of Pennsylvania. Daley, born and raised in the Mon Valley,...

GUEST COLUMNIST Some liberal commentators have downplayed the effect of Barack Obama's recent fundraising speech in San Francisco. But that's wishful thinking. Along with the revelations about Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, his remarks in San Francisco will haunt him not only in the upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia, but also in the general election against John McCain, assuming he gets the Democratic nomination. To win in November, a Democratic presidential candidate has to carry most of the industrial heartland states that stretch from Pennsylvania to Missouri. That becomes even more imperative if a Democrat can't carry...

It used to be the case, once upon a time, that Democrats supported tax increases because they sincerely believed, however incorrectly, that higher tax rates would always lead to higher tax revenues for the government. Now, that's fine. Even though anyone who has taken an economics class understands that the government's tax revenues start decreasing once you raise tax rates beyond a certain percentage (because people would have less incentive to engage in taxable business), and even though more money for the government isn't necessarily a worthy goal, we can at least respect the fact that liberals have wanted to...

In words that he has come to regret, Barack Obama opined as to why he was having a hard time winning over many blue-collar voters: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." ...Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small...

Barack Obama's prospects of sealing the Democratic Party's nomination in Pennsylvania tomorrow have apparently evaporated in the state's ghost towns. In Clairton, a once-thriving community, where The Deer Hunter was filmed in the mid-1970s, the population has shrunk by two thirds in the past 30 years. Jobs at the huge steel mill beside the Monongahela River have steadily disappeared. Mr Obama and rival Senator Hillary Clinton are pursuing blue collar votes in places like Clairton that could decide the primary and the most closely fought nomination battle in living memory. If the young Illinois senator wants to expand his support...

If you happen to be a conservative in a small town, you might be chafing at Senator Barack Obama's recent comments at a fundraiser in San Francisco. Obama described small town blue-collar workers as "bitter", saying that 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." In plain English, Obama was saying that small town folk (among whom he apparently wasn't polling too well) are red-necked, xenophobic, gun-toting, Bible-pounding bigots who don't have a clue about how markets work in the real...

On April 18, former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele filled in for nationally syndicated talk-radio host Hugh Hewitt: most of Steele’s show was dominated by a discussion of the recent troubles of Barack Obama. With great clarity and wisdom, Steele spoke of the danger Obama’s extreme liberalism poses to the country, and the importance of voting for John McCain this fall. At one point, Steele talked about the heat he occasionally receives from those who wonder why he, as an African-American, supports McCain. Steele stated that while he is happy that Obama’s running, he will do everything he can to...

WASHINGTON — Some Illinois gun control advocates recall Senator Obama as a "friend" who represented a "solid vote" in favor of increased restrictions on firearm sales, but they said he was never forced to vote on an all-out ban on handguns as a member of the state Senate. Mr. Obama's position on guns is drawing renewed scrutiny following Wednesday night's Democratic debate, when the Illinois senator said he never favored a handgun ban, even though a 1996 questionnaire in his name indicated he did. The candidate questionnaire was filed with a nonprofit group, Independent Voters of Illinois–Independent Precinct Organization, during...

On those guns the bitter Pennsylvania rednecks are a-totin', Steyn rejoices:

CHICAGO -- The weekend has gotten off to an especially violent start, with no fewer than 20 people shot on the streets of Chicago, three of them fatally, from Friday afternoon through early Saturday. About 12:50 p.m. Friday, a girl was wounded in the arm when she and another person were shot at 2714 W. 66th St. A Chicago Lawn police sergeant said two people were shot and "one of the victims,'' a girl, was shot in the arm. The sergeant would not disclose the girl's age. The girl was taken to Holy Cross Hospital. About 3:30 p.m., a 15-year-old...

I really don’t know where a person would find Barak Obama’s “Small Town America”. I know that I have not viewed that kind of world from my own vantage point...and I have lived in this so-called “Small Town America” for the past 35 years. In political remarks that are burning up the Internet, leading the dialog of talk shows and firing up political pundits everywhere, the topic is Obama, speaking in San Francisco. He said, “You go to some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone...

From the article: You go into these big cities in California, and, like a lot of big cities along both coasts of this great nation, you’ve got a multitude of Starbucks baristas with Ph.D’s in philosophy who can’t understand why the world doesn’t conform to their utopian vision,” said McCain. “So it’s not surprising that at a time when their country is the world’s sole superpower, using its military to fight a just war against Islamic terrorism, and its citizenry is renewing their faith in Christianity, they get bitter and cling to hopeless causes like partial-birth abortion, multi-culturalism, and the...

Our lesson today comes from the songwriter Frank Loesser: "Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition." Or as Barack Obama and his San Francisco pals would put it: God and guns. Loesser got the phrase from Howell Forgy, a naval chaplain at Pearl Harbor, who walked the decks of the USS New Orleans under Japanese bombardment, exhorting his comrades. When the line came to Loesser's ears, he turned it into a big hit song of the Second World War: "Praise the Lord and swing into position Can't afford to sit around a-wishin'…" – which some folks sang as "Can't afford...

And from the standpoint of Obama campaign figures, the material was gotten under false pretenses. One top Obama hand speaks of the campaign and candidate being blindsided. Fowler was a supporter, a contributor, an activist, a blogger, not a reporter. With the event closed to the press, Obama spoke with less care than he would have otherwise had he known a reporter, of any sort, was in attendance.

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania sportsmen aren't "bitter" about their guns and balk at what they call Sen. Barack Obama's double-talk in courting their support. In a state that boasts one of the country's highest per capita rates of membership in the National Rifle Association (NRA), Mr. Obama's stance that Second Amendment gun rights are compatible with new tough gun laws falls flat. And it didn't help when he said the state's "bitter" small-town voters hurt by the economy were not supporting him because they "cling" to religion, guns and anti-immigrant views. "It just tells me he is anti-gun," said Debbie Schultz,...

The recent firestorm over Senator Barack Obama's comments about Pennsylvania's "bitter" voters has focused on charges of condescension and on the perceived denigration of gun ownership and religion. The Senator's attitudes and tone are certainly fair game in an election year, but the more interesting issue is his facts: Are Pennsylvanians in fact "bitter?" Are there communities that have stagnated for "25 years?" Are there no jobs? Is there no hope?The Census Bureau's Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) tell a different story.[1] The QWI are a dataset that allows government officials, researchers, and anyone interested in facts—for example, journalists or...

What do each of the following individuals and organizations have in common? William Ayers (Weatherman Underground bomber, unrepentant domestic terrorist) Jeremiah White (Black Liberation militant, racist, and Pastor) Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam Leader, racist, anti-American) The New Black Panther Party (Black Militant Organization, anti-American and racist) Hamas Terrorist Organization (Islamic Terrorist Organisation) They all hate America, they all want to destroy America as we have traditionally known it, they all want the United States to retreat in the war, and they all want to make over the United States into a marxist/socialist/collective nation that is much more disposed toward...

Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new-—an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that. But he did not knock her out, and the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal. He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the...

Huckabee & The Club friends at last? TRIBUNE-REVIEW By: Salena Zito When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was running for the Republcian nomination for president, no one attacked him more often and with more conservative muscle than the uber-economic conservatives from The Club for Growth. Pat Tommey, chairman of The Club, wrote last October in The National Review that a flirtation with Huckabee even as a vice presidential candidate did a "great disservice to the conservative movement if it overlooks Huckabee’s stunning record of big-government liberalism.” So, it came as a bit of surprise to receive a blast e-mail from...

There's no debate: Pens trump politics tribune-review by salena zito Politics stops at the water's edge -- even if that water's frozen, apparently. About 57,000 more households in the Pittsburgh region tuned in to watch the Penguins beat up on the Ottawa Senators than tuned in to see two senators (Obama and Clinton) beat up on each other in the Democratic presidential debate, according to Nielsen Media Research. The hockey game played in 175,000 – or 23 percent – of all households in the Pittsburgh metro market, while the blame game played in 118,000 households – or 14 percent of...

By tradition, the guest of honor pokes a little fun at himself before the audience of media members and guests. The vice president worked in a reference to Democrat Barack Obama's controversial comments about "bitter" voters and his own hunting mishap. He thanked the attendees for the kind welcome, saying, "You're not the kind to look down on a bitter man who clings to his guns."