Post #149

Subject: open mouth, insert feet

My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26004

“Stix Nix Obama’s Trix” by Jennifer Rubin

Barack Obama broke the first rule of Democratic presidential politics: never let on that you believe rural American voters are hicks straight out of Deliverance. Unfortunately for The Chosen One’s adoring fans, he could not have picked a worse time to reveal his contempt for average Americans.

[“Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unless Barack Obama believes that, he shouldn’t be President. Yes, that applies to all candidates.]

THE MOTHER OF ALL GAFFES

On Friday the usually Obamaphile Huffington Report turned the tables on him, breaking a story (complete with audio tape) that Obama had regaled a hoity-toity California fundraising audience with his thoughts on the rural folk of Pennsylvania. In remarks that his Left- wing Harvard professors would heartily endorse, he explained that the Californians should take pity on Pennsylvanians:

"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, 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."

[In case Obama doesn’t get it, “bitter” is not offensive. What is offensive is the idea that “bitterness” can explain religious fervor. Did “bitterness” cause Obama to nod “Amen” to Reverend Wright for 20 years? There was no “bitterness” 50 years ago, how to explain those other ‘clings?’]

This was manna from political heaven for Hillary Clinton (who had spent most of Friday explaining a new set of fabrications from Bill about her brush with death in Bosnia) just as she was heading off into the political wilderness.

The Pennsylvania primary next week is do or die for Hillary. A loss or narrow win will send her packing; a comfortable victory will hush the hounds baying for her to leave the race. And for the campaign which could not shoot straight (or rather could not keep their shooting stories straight), the Clinton team finally had a clear shot at their target.

Even the worst-run presidential campaign in recent memory could see this opening. Hillary charged out with comments at a campaign appearance chiding Mr. Hope for finding only bitterness in Pennsylvania. (“I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves.”) and then moved in for the kill:

“Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them, they need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families.”

The Clinton camp spent the remainder of the weekend pounding at Obama, Hillary personally whacking at him and surrogatees descending en masse to make certain the entire state knew they had been insulted.

[Not so bad for “the worst-run presidential campaign in recent memory,” huh?]