It’s not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to
guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or
anti-immigration sentiment or anti-trade sentiment...
— Senator Barack Obama
explaining what middle America
does during an economic crisis.
Oh, goodness, now look what you've gone and said. I've been taking heat
from my fellow GOP members for supporting the charismatic Senator from
Chicago. Between his wife's statements about not being proud of
her country and Obama's own words, leaked out of a closed-door fundraising
meeting with wealthy and privileged San Franciscans,
he's kind of sullied his cred so far as I'm concerned.
Part of me indeed wants an intellectual elitist as President.
Part of me forgives him for stating something that, sadly, rings true about many
of our lesser-intelligenced brothers and sisters (wherever they may reside).
Tossing in the bit about anti-immigration and anti-trade obfuscates his message
even more. This morning, his explanation went from bad ("I misspoke") to
humorous (something about incorrect syntax).
Why did he go and pull a Hillary and put a
spin on it? Can't he just continue taking the moral high ground and say "aww,
you caught me being an elitist prig and I'll think twice before I stereotype
people again"? Is that too much to ask?
There's a sound bite making the rounds of various media outlets,
most on the right, which captures Michelle Obama using speech like "thinkin'"
and "y'all know where I'm comin' from." All those apostrophes. It doesn't fit
well on a Princeton-educated woman. The icing on the cake, the fodder for
criticism she gave the fussy right-wing radio talkers, was when she said, "So
let me give you a better sense of who me and Barack are and why we're doing
this..." Now, I'm the first one to realize that when Limbaugh
and Hannity and Mark Levin howl that she's mangling language,
they're hypocrites. They've been forgiving the President his
pronunciation of "nuclear" for nearly eight years. But back to Michelle.
If one listens to the actual quote, all of those apostrophes
I've used hereinabove translate into a woman with perfect diction trying to
dumb-down her speech in an attempt to sell her point of view. Well, like
Hillary, she's trying too hard. Her rhetoric came off like a poor television
actress trying to follow a script that doesn't match her speech pattern. I
cringed when I heard it.
Bible and Bullets: The Honeymoon's Over
I'm sad. Just when I thought that my guy for
President was going to run a spotless, above-reproach campaign, I was proven
wrong. It's like the two of them are trying hard to buddy up to people that they
should keep at arm's length. Michelle will never fit in with the kind of
people she was making nice-nice with. She plaintively cried that she's a
"regular gal" 'cause she grew up on Chicago's South Side. "I
am a product of a working-class background," ... "I'm one of those folks who
grew up in that struggle. That is the lens through which I see the world. That
is the imprint that is in my soul."
She's none of those folks.
Now, let's skewer her husband. The idiot thought that his little
bit about us stupid middle Americans; the part about us clinging to our guns and
religion in times of crisis, would stay in the room of highbrow
movers-and-shakers. Well, welcome to politics, Barack. There are flies on every
wall just waiting to get a few bucks from the other side to spill the beans.
And while I'm at it, let me say for the record, "fuck you, you
junkie bastard." You let me down. I own guns. I enjoy target shooting. I'm also
rather religious — but my religion is considered a
"thinking man's" religion, so I guess I don't count. But you better be sure I
cling to my religion. Heck, I live my religion.
Barack, you better get it together; and fast. All your talk
about "for a change" and "unification" will soon be forgotten if you and your
wife continue the political business-as-usual that for so long I thought was a
tool that only your opponent employs.
ACCUSATIONS OF RACISM!!! This piece originally started with "Boy, look what you've gone and said...". I meant "Oh, boy!" and did not call Obama "boy", as some readers mistakenly presumed. I was just expressing exasperation.