Friday, April 11, 2008

Obama busted by blogs

The uproar continues over Obama's remarks dissing the God-fearing, gun-loving people of small-town Pennsylvania.

About 7 p.m. Friday, I was getting dressed to go to our church, which was hosting a gospel choir festival (yes, a gospel choir festival). While I was putting on my shoes, the TV was on Fox News and Shep Smith did a segment on the Obama uproar, quoting the reactions of the McCain and Clinton campaigns. "Wow, this is getting to be a pretty big deal," I said.

Remember that this uproar started with a Huffington Post report, so it's an Internet-generated phenomenon -- and online interest is high. A single link from Michelle Malkin generated over 600 visits here in five hours. For a Friday night, that's huge.

Michelle has up a new post depicting Obama as an elitist snob, and Marc Armbinder observes:
We're dealing tonight with a classic Kinseyian "gaffe," where a candidate says what he means and then is forced to account for it.
It's a beautiful thing, especially when it's generating Web traffic on a weekend. Ace of Spades breaks out the flaming skull and gives the story this classic AOSHQ headline:
Obama To Rural Pennsylvanians: Vote For Me, You Corncob-Smokin', Banjo-Strokin' Chicken-Chokin' Cousin-Pokin' Inbred Hillbilly Racist Morons
Hot Air has video of CNN's Jeffrey Toobin saying that Obama's remarks were "factually accurate." Meanwhile, Allahpundit notes "the crude quasi-Marxist reductionism of his analysis" and asks: "Why not just go the whole nine yards and call [religion] the opiate of the masses?"

Allah also notes this remark from his liberal love-object Kirsten Powers:
"They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he's looking down on people."
Translation: This is how liberals always talk about small-town people, at least when no reporters are around.

More blog reaction at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Via Sundries Shack, and courtesy of AOSHQ, the new Obama campaign theme song:

Being of Appalachian-American heritage myself, there's nothing I love better than some fine bluegrass pickin' -- unless maybe it's moonshine whiskey. Or my cousin.

UPDATE II: Andrew Sullivan:
You can see the point he is trying to make -- it's the Thomas Frank argument -- and you can argue about its merits, back and forth. I don't think it's meant pejoratively about the blue collar workers Obama is trying to engage.
Somehow I think Sullivan would think Obama's remarks to be perjorative if Obama had spoken so condescendingly about, say, homosexuals. But the condescension is toward others -- "blue collar workers" who are so far beneath Sullivan's notice that he can't imagine why they'd feel insulted.

Sullivan then suggests that Obama's insulting rhetoric is only of interest to Republicans: "You will hear these words on Fox News for a very, very long time." As if NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN are going to ignore a controversy that could hurt Obama worse than did the Jeremiah Wright controversy.

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