Here’s the Skinny on Obama’s Insults from “Turdblossom”
By SusanUnPC on April 15, 2008 at 10:29 AM in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Media, Pennsylvania, Race, Race Card
Say what you will about Karl Rove. I could say a few things myself. And have. Many times. But, he’s been doing some smart analyses on Fox News. And last night’s is another example.
Now here’s Pat Buchanan on Obama’s remarks about Pennsylvanians — in which it’s obvious that Obama showed his TRUE feelings about small-town white people, and perhaps almost all white people. Well, except for the academic elites he enjoys running with, like unrepentant terrorist and “distinguished professor” William Ayers — about whom you can read numerous articles here, including Larry Johnson’s “Obama’s Terrorist Ties” and my “Hannity: Like a Dog With a Bone.”
It was said behind closed doors to the chablis-and-brie set of San Francisco, in response to a question as to why he was not doing better in that benighted and barbarous land they call Pennsylvania.
Like Dr. Schweitzer, home from Africa to address the Royal Society on the customs of the upper Zambezi, Barack described Pennsylvanians in their native habitats of Atloona, Alquippa, Johnstown and McKeesport.
[Quotes Obama]
This is the pitch-perfect Hollywood-Harvard stereotype of the white working class, the caricature of the urban ethnic — as seen from the San Francisco point of view.
As Linus clung to his security blanket, Barack is saying, out-state Pennsylvanians, bitter at the world that has passed them by, cling to their Bibles and guns and naturally revert to ancestral bigotries against “people who aren’t like them” — blacks, gays and immigrants.
Though he sees himself as a progressive who has risen above prejudice, Barack was reflecting and pandering to the prejudice of the class to which he himself belongs, and which he was then addressing.
[...]
… Toward these folks, Obama’s attitude is not one of hostility, but of paternalism. Because time has passed them by, Barack believes, they cannot, in their frustration and bitterness, be held fully accountable for their atavistic beliefs and behavior.
Though neither mocking nor malicious, Barack’s remarks are, nonetheless, steeped in condescension. Inherent in his words is that these folks in Middle Pennsylvania are in need of empathy, education, assistance and perhaps therapy.
Then, interestingly, Pat Buchanan ties Obama’s San Francisco remarks to those he made in his famous, and much-heralded, speech on race in Philadelphia. Buchanan quotes Obama’s Philadelphia speech:
"Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race … as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything. … They … feel their dreams slipping away … opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.
"Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism."
In Barack’s mind, black anger and resentment at "racial injustice and inequality" are "legitimate." But the anger and resentment of white folks, about affirmative action, crime and forced busing are born of misperceptions — and of "bogus claims of racism" manipulated and exploited by conservative columnists and commentators to keep the racial pot boiling and retain power, so the right can continue to do the bidding of the corporations that are the real enemy.
Barack has stumbled into the eternal failing of the left-wing populist. He cannot concede that the anger of white America — that its right to equal justice has been sacrificed to salve the consciences of guilt-besotted liberals — is a legitimate anger. …
Read all of Buchanan’s new essay, “In Darkest Pennsylvania.”
There are so many issues on which I disagree with Pat Buchanan. But I’m not afraid to post the opinions of so-called “rightwing” analysts when I think they have a point to make.
There’s a rabidly pro-Obama, goofball site that gave me an award the last time I quoted Pat Buchanan in a story. I’ll probably win another with this post.
And, no, I will not name the site, or provide its link, because it is so immature in its thinking that the bloggers there cannot conceive that anyone could ever even LISTEN to someone with a different point of view.
I rail against such rigidity in one’s viewpoint. I believe strongly that I am never harmed by listening to Karl Rove or reading Pat Buchanan because — maybe — I’ll learn something. Or that, even if I disagree in full with what they say, they will stimulate my thinking about a certain topic. That is never harmful. Never.
by Ronald Scott
* More novels by 
* 
(
)
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
