Michael Gerson looks at the latest gaffe made by Barack Obama, the sneer at small town Americans bitterly clinging to guns, God and xenophobia. Comparing it to Obama's defense of his minister's anti-America rhetoric, Gerson sees a pattern.
In 2006, Obama argued that religious belief was authentic, well-intentioned and essential to the common good. In San Francisco, however, he seemed to slip into a crude academic Marxism, claiming that religion is an epiphenomenon, the outgrowth of deeper social trends; that the deepest realities of politics are economic instead of moral; that God and guns, bitterness and bigotry all somehow distract Middle America from real issues of justice.
During Sunday night's forum, Obama dismissed this interpretation as inconsistent with his life story. "It is very important to understand …that I am a devout Christian, that I started my work working with churches in the shadow of steel plants that had closed on the south side of Chicago." In other words: You know me. I'm better than that.
Looking back over recent months, there is a common thread in Obama's response to both the Wright revelations and his "bitter" gaffe. In his Philadelphia speech on race, Obama talked of "the anger and the bitterness"
of Wright's oppressed generation. He referred to "a similar anger" existing within "the white community" that politicians have routinely exploited on issues such as crime and welfare. America, in this view, is beset by anxiety and fear and resentment and racial stalemate, which can be overcome by Obama's broad understanding and audacious hope.
The problem, as Gerson points out, is that the voters don't actually know Obama very well at all. That makes the "explanations" just more empty words. Personally, I can't recall any major party candidate in my lifetime with as thin a resume as Obama has. But even in that tiny record, there are major inconsistencies. Obama's bashing of small town Americans for being anti-trade when that has been one of his major campaign themes is just one. His now oft-repeated assertion that he supports an individual right to bear arms when he once advocated banning all handguns is another.
The common theme that runs through Obama's defensive moves over both the Wright controversy and the "small town" issue is bitterness. But not quite the way Obama would have you believe. Rather, it shows that Obama, far from being the candidate of hope and change, is actually the candidate who sees bitterness wherever he looks. That isn't exactly a message of hope. It is one of pessimism.
The common thread is actually Obama’s training in radical neighborhood organizing. The tactic they use is to tap into the anger of the poor, get them to express it, and then channel it toward the political enemy of their choice. This is how Marxists have attempted to produce revolution everywhere they go, and it’s the training Obama received from the Gamaliel Foundation as a young activist in Chicago.<a href="http://www.plumbbobblog.com/?p=215">I discussed this, with links to what Obama’s instructors and mentors said about his skill, in a post on my blog back in February.</a>Obama is simply doing what he knows how to do.
Actually, you touched on an issue that I’ve been waiting for someone, anyone, to raise.
Has it occurred to anyone that the combined legislative experience of both leading Democratic Party front runners is less than Dan Quayle who was so universally excoriated by the Democratic Party & legacy media as a political lightweight, entirely unsuitable for the office of Vice President.
"Rather, it shows that Obama, far from being the candidate of hope and change, is actually the candidate who sees bitterness wherever he looks."
This is exactly why he harps on "hope" and "change" – because people who are as bitter as he believes all Americans to be would, presumably, flock to anyone who will give them hope and change. He believes that is all he needs to win – not a history of accomplishment or experience. The inconsistencies Gaius mentioned are just that good old Democrat tried and true campaign tactic of "tell the group you are talking to now what you think they want to hear – never mind that it is in direct opposition with what you said last week, that doesn’t count. You’ll find a way to explain it away later (I was for it before I was against it).
It is starting to seem to me that the very reason the Founding Fathers put the Second Amendment in the Constitution was for the masses to be able to actively and violently oppose just the sort of government that Hillary, Obama, Kennedy, Reid and Pelosi would construct.