Pint of Bitter

14 April 2008



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Obama’s “Bitter” Remark Sparks Tempest in a Teapot

A week from tomorrow, the voters in Pennsylvania will finally get to cast their ballots in their primary. What will be forgotten by then is what Senator Barack Obama said about small towns in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The Clintonistas and the media are playing it up for all it’s worth, but the kind of people who are offended by his remarks tend to be people who are going to vote Republican in November anyway. Instead, expect Mrs. Clinton to have a crisis in the next 8 days that knocks this non-story off the front page of the papers.

First off, here’s what the Illinois senator said at a closed-door fundraiser in San Francisco:

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.
Somehow, this is elitist and condescending to the people who truly have lost out in the last 25 years. Maybe it’s the use of the word “cling” or perhaps it’s “bitter.” Yet, it is true. In every developed society when the economy is rough, the lower middle classes do not take to the streets and demand change, they hold onto their core values all the tighter. What one really suspects has offended the Clintonistas is that 8 years of President Clinton got lumped in with 20 years of Republican rule. If the shoe fits . . . .

Not everyone in Pennsylvania is bent out of shape either. York Mayor John Brenner has a robo-call (automatic phone call with a taped message) that says, “Barack Obama understands us. He's got it right, we are frustrated -- frustrated with polices that enable businesses to leave our community, pensions to be stripped, health care benefits to be taken away and homes foreclosed. Unlike his opponents, who have been part of the Washington establishment that are out of touch with us, Barack Obama will change Washington. It is policies that hurt us. He will take on the special interests and fight for us.”

Now, if the media could just focus on Mrs. Clinton’s shot of whiskey, they’d find a real story. In a bar in Pennsylvania she ordered a beer, and the bartender asked if she wanted a shot with it. She decided on Crown Royal – a Canadian whiskey and a pricey one at that. Ever a supporter of NAFTA is Mrs. Clinton. At least, she didn’t order a pint of bitter. When does this nitpicking end?

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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