"Bitter" does.

If they focus on "cling to" then they have to discuss whether Obama is an elitist snob who harbors the belief that middle-America is full of gun-toting, bible-thumping bigots.

IOW - By focusing on "bitter" the media can discuss the people rather than the candidate.

The media isn't ready to slaughter Obama, they are still fattening him up.

------------------------------------------------
"If I was Vice-President, you know what I'd do?

Pretty much anything I wanted to!

Vote for me!" - Joe Walsh (channeling Dick Cheney)

some of the very worst aspects of Bush are clear in Obama. He and his supporters seem petty and vindictive and go after any and all critics, even lying about folks who were allies days before (e.g. Krugman and his "son"). He and his supporters never apologize and just blame everything on other's "misinterpretation".

I don't know what an Obama presidency will be like and that troubles me. I imagine that it will be better than Bush, but someone who can't see why they should apologize and has his minions trash any and all critics is not good no matter what the political ideology. Sure, politics is a contact sport but petty vindictiveness is not a quality I want in my president. Contrast that with Hillary sitting in a room with Scaife and not throwing a chair at him.

The media isn’t ready to slaughter Obama, they are still fattening him up.

yup, as Lambert notes...

It’s Obama denying working class voters the same complexity and nuance that he claims for himself when he gives speeches about his own relationship to his pastor and religion!

or, as it will be put colloquially when Wright becomes an issue again (as he inevitably will)....

"How come Obama thinks its okay for black people to cling to their religion, but not white people? At least our religion isn't bitter!"

Clinton is running an ad that specifically focuses on the "cling" part (e.g., guns, religion). I saw it get some play on CBS this morning so perhaps it's playing heavily in PA.

Good for her. And she didn't mention the charge of bigotry (xenophobia, racism) either.

Oh, and there was this piece on the Times website, by a Republican, that talks about how most of the media misses the whole point of "cling:"

So the more problematic language choice for Senator Obama was not the word “bitter,” it was his use of the word “cling,” which he seemed to use as a pejorative to describe why small-town voters prioritize their opinions on cultural matters like religion and gun ownership over economic issues. And when he lists religion and guns in the same sentence as his reference to racist and anti-immigrant sentiments, it becomes much more difficult for him to establish the emotional connection with working-class voters that he has forged with the more upscale and academically oriented portions of the Democratic primary electorate.

" ... upscale and academically oriented ..."

I can see the "Professor Obama" ads right now...

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Lambert, how would you like it if everyone in the blogosphere called you a misogynist for the next six months because of your Malkin comments? Sometimes people make off the cuff remarks that do not reflect their true feelings.

Obama has run the most explicitly religion-invoking major Presidential campaign since Pat Robertson in 1992. It has pissed off many liberals -- myself included -- to no end when he has repeatedly acted as if the Left needs to be more respectful of "people of faith".

Beyond that, Obama has clearly attempted to craft a new coalition by uniting traditional liberals and generally-Republican evangelical Christians around economic and environmental issues that they share.

Whether or not you approve of this strategy -- and many Democrats disapprove because they feel that Obama is throwing women and gays, among others, under the bus -- it is undeniable that Obama has been running a very pro-religion campaign.

Now you want people to believe, based on the use of the single phrase "cling to," that...Obama is the worlds biggest faker. That everything that he has written in his book, all of his stump speeches, and his campaign literature is a big lie and the guy secretly thinks that religion is for "rubes".

Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense. The reason that the press is ignoring the “cling to” is that they are slaves to narratives and your argument completely contradicts everything else about Obama and destroys their narrative. Obama as Harvard elitist? Sure. Obama as religion hater? Nope.

Obama has run the most explicitly religion-invoking major Presidential campaign since Pat Robertson in 1992. It has pissed off many liberals — myself included — to no end when he has repeatedly acted as if the Left needs to be more respectful of “people of faith”.

What planet have you been on?

George W. Bush was the evangelical candidate. Mike Huckabee is an evangelical minister.

The only liberals offended by Obama's statements that we need to be more respectful of people of faith are the people like me who have always been repectful of them.

My Christian upbringing is why I am a liberal.

But I disapprove of any candidate throwing any part of our Democratic coalition "under the bus" in order to reach out to parts of the GOP in order to get himself elected.

It's not "either/or"

BTW - Who said Obama hated religion anyway?

------------------------------------------------
"If I was Vice-President, you know what I'd do?

Pretty much anything I wanted to!

Vote for me!" - Joe Walsh (channeling Dick Cheney)

Hey, this isn't about religion, though I do understand why the OFB would like to make it so; Obama tried to do just the same thing.

It's about Obama giving a free pass to himself for his religious commitments, but then not treating working people as capable of doing that.

Denial ain't no river in Egypt....

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

My problem with Obama's off-the-cuff remark (assuming that's what it was), isn't that it was stupid. He's been campaigning for more than a year and has said a lot of stupid things by now. Heh. For my money, his essentially equating the forced birth zealots with morality and not pro-choice forces was worse.

The problem with Obama's remark is that he didn't apologize for it. He apologized only that people were offended, not for saying something offensive and it was offensive. I can forgive a misstatement, I can't forgive the arrogant spinning that's followed it. Because, taking Obama at his word, he apparently meant everything he said, he's just unhappy with how he said it.

Fair enough, but if he's going to claim that people like my family cling to racism and xenophobia, then he needs to accept the consequences of that, which is that I'm insulted that he reduced my family to a bunch of stereotypes and that by doing so, he lessens my confidence that he'll do anything to help them. Because I don't see that crowd in San Francisco spending much energy trying to figure out how to make a bunch of bigots' lives better. It certainly didn't make me think increased MSHA funding was going to be a priority in an Obama administration.

So, if he wants to own it, to stick with his story that it was only clumsy wording, then fine he owns it. He thinks rural Pennsylvanians have anti-immigrant antipathy and don't like people who look like them, but he wouldn't say it that way. Got it. And good luck selling that in November.

But if he misspoke and didn't mean it, which is what I thought before he kept insisting he was right about everything, then he should be a fucking adult and apologize. Because that's what grown ups do when they insult someone, even if it was unintentional.

As for Clinton hitting him on it, I thought her ad was lame. I do think it's interesting she's only hitting him on the god and guns part. I suspect it's because she knows that hitting him on the immigrant and implied racism is too toxic and will kill him in November if she's the nominee and she still cares somewhat about protecting him, even if it's from himself. It's the only explanation I can come up with because she's smart enough to see where the real insult lies. Not that I expect McCain and the GOP to be so kind. I can hardly wait for the video splice of Obama talking about rural Pennsylvanians back-to-back with Rev. Wright footage. That'll go over well.

++++

Now you want people to believe, based on the use of the single phrase “cling to,” that…Obama is the worlds biggest faker. That everything that he has written in his book, all of his stump speeches, and his campaign literature is a big lie and the guy secretly thinks that religion is for “rubes”.

that about sums it up.

*****************
Fair enough, but if he’s going to claim that people like my family cling to racism and xenophobia, then he needs to accept the consequences of that, which is that I’m insulted that he reduced my family to a bunch of stereotypes and that by doing so, he lessens my confidence that he’ll do anything to help them.

there is also the danger of the self-fulfilling prophecy in his words. I mean, if mom consistently punishes you for taking cookies out of the cookie jar, and you've been nowhere near the cookie jar even though you wanted a cookie, there's no downside to stealing a cookie. You're gonna get punished for it anyway.

And if Obama already thinks your a racist hick, what's to be gained by even thinking about voting for him?

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2008/04/16/...

-- but wouldn't be interesting to have a Presidential candidate who considered religion to be personal, not a campaign issue, and social justice and anti-racism to be political and immediate?

And, one who can sing a mean Nelson Riddle arrangement, too.

He said that he meant "cling" in the Biblical sense:

I'm not sure... did he mean this verse? "He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you."
Deuteronomy 28:59-61

Or maybe this? "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."
Jonah 2:7-9

No, I'm sure he meant something more uplifting. But his explanation plainly means that the other things he said in that breath were positive too, such as gun-fanaticism and xenophobic racism.

It makes no sense, because it was fertilizer, rather obviously. Bullshitting does little to assuage one's concerns about a supposed misstatement, no?

Because we "know" where that leads....

I think he was referring to Romans 12:9 -- RSV has "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good," and English Standard has "Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good."

Which is a pretty ironic verse, when you think about it.

Anyhow, they dropped that one when it became clear that religion wasn't the only thing being clung to, and not all the clung to things are, in fact, good....

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

... thanks for raining on my gratuitous meta-biblical gutter humor.

Isiah 22:18? 2 Samuel:5?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Luke 14:21 or Weber 7:10.

2 Sam 5 may be the best, though, with both "league" and "gutter." A good find.

just disgust and dislike.

Sometimes out language isn't sufficient to express our righteous distain for others without using language that contain racist or misogynist inferences.
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"If I was Vice-President, you know what I'd do?

Pretty much anything I wanted to!

Vote for me!" - Joe Walsh (channeling Dick Cheney)

vote on practical and pocketbook issues--they don't vote like poor white Republicans at all--they don't vote because of hotbutton wedge distractions, and they don't vote against their own interests. They're Dems.

They're just not voting for HIM.

They went Reagan, but didn't go Bush at all. PA is solidly blue (or was until this year, at least).

This may be a good thread to vent about something that has bothered me.

Twice now, once here on Fresh Air, the Dwight Hopkins segment:

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/ru...

and once on either All Things Considered or Morning Edition (I can't find the link right now), I've heard people explaining Wright by saying "Oh you know he didn't mean God damn America like a curse, like goddamn sunuvabitchin America. No, he meant it in the Biblical sense of God calling down judgement on America for its sins like He did on Israel in the Old Testament. So just calm down. Everything's okay." /paraphrase

And my reaction to this is twofold.

One is petty: and what makes you think that us white folks is Biblically illiterate enough that we didn't get that? I mean my Southern Baptist roots is good for something.

The other is not so petty: And how is it not worse to invoke God's wrath on the nation than just to vent your own frustration with some blue language? I mean God did a pretty good job of destroying Israel. And he didn't do Sodom and Gomorrah much good either.

My personal opinion is that we understand perfectly what he meant. That's what makes the sermon so volatile.