Jonah Goldberg defends Obama. Well, OK, not really. But he does defend elitism:

In his telling Pennsylvania was once Belgium on the Susquehanna — cheese parties, Sam Harris book clubs etc — and it can be again if only these people get good enough jobs to lay down their guns and bibles. As just about everyone has observed by now, this is a fundamentally Marxist way of looking at the world and Obama deserves to be called on it.

But it’s not elitist, not really. It’s clearly snobbish. It’s certainly myopic and arrogant. And it’s absolutely wrong. But I don’t think it’s elitist. Maybe I’m biased because I don’t have any pressing problem with elitism, rightly understood. Elite derives from the Latin for elect and in our elections we decide who will be our (political) elite. Jefferson believed in a democratic elite which rose up on merit. I do too. We’re all elitists in one way or another (Show of hands: Who wants an elite surgeon to perform their heart-lung transplant and who wants a really average surgeon to do it? If you answer that you want the surgeon from the really meaty part of the bell curve, I will concede you are no elitist).

What’s offensive about Obama’s comment isn’t its elitism per se, but the arrogance of assuming that those who see the world through a different prism or who are relatively immune to his charms are somehow embittered and confused and therefore less equipped to decide who should be our elected elite.

I don’t think that I’ve complained about “elitism” in my numerous posts on Obama (though I could be wrong), because I agree. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being elite, and being elite is something to which we should in fact aspire, though it should be a goal reached through hard work, and not simply the luck of birth (other than perhaps genetically endowed talent).

“Elitism” is one of those words, like “judgmental” and “discriminating,” that have gotten an unfairly bad wrap. During the Wright imbroglio, one of my anonymous Obamamaniacal commenters amusingly (and idiotically) told me to stop being so judgmental, as though there’s something wrong with having, and exercising, judgment. And what is selecting a better job candidate over a worse one, if not “discrimination”? There is nothing wrong with judging or discriminating. What becomes a problem is when the judging and discriminating occur on an irrational basis (e.g., skin color alone–though even there there could sometimes be a reasonable basis).

As an example, I was recently discussing the possibility of doing some consulting for a firm to help with some regulatory issues in the UK. The person I was speaking with thought that I (and my business associates) had excellent credentials for the task, except for one problem–we (due, no doubt to a misspent youth spent largely in the US) had American accents. He didn’t think that we could be as effective with Whitehall and Parliament as someone who spoke like most in The City, and we couldn’t disagree with him. This was discrimination, but it was hardly unreasonable. He was, in fact, exercising good judgment, and perhaps even being justifiably elitist, in that he wanted the best people for the job.

In any event, I tend to discriminate against people who view the world through a Marxist lens, and can be very judgmental about them, particularly when they are vying for the most powerful position in the world. So sue me.

[Evening update]

Obama keeps digging deeper:

What happened to the people clinging to their guns?

Were they “mangled” by insertion? Or have they now been mangled out of existence, now to be discarded? Why is there not a word about them?

(Sorry, but “hunting” is not the same. Don’t call me a “hunter,” because I don’t hunt.)

Has the Second Amendment become a secondary wedge issue now that Obama has thought it over? Or has gun-clinging behavior been subsumed into anti-gay, and anti-immigrant “sentiments” which people don’t really feel honestly, but only imagine they do because of exploitative prodding by their leaders?

The disturbing implication, of course, is that under the right, uh, leadership, uh, the negative thinking (all that gun-clinging, and all that bigotry) will be made to disappear.

I’m feeling plenty marginalized by this. It’s bad enough to be told that as a gun owner I don’t really think what I think, but I have been led into it by others.

But now I’m told that my guns are not the issue because they might as well be bigoted sentiments against gays and immigrants! But that if I harbor these sentiments (which I don’t), they are no more mine than my gun-clinging behavior was.

I think that this is more evidence that he does a lot better with a teleprompter than impromptu. It also continues to be a window into what he really thinks about us.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Heh. I like this comment:

Obama’s antics remind me of Barry Goldwater’s comments about Richard Nixon during Watergate.

“Well, first he shot himself in the foot, and then he shot himself in the other foot, and then he shot himself in the ass.”

Given Obama’s great propensity to shoot himself in various places, I can understand why he might not like guns.

Well, at least in Italy:

The big news is that the Communists are gone, for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Really gone. They didn’t win a single seat in either chamber. A lot of famous faces will vanish from Parliament, and it is even possible, although unlikely, that some of the comrades will be forced to join the working class. The Greens are also gone. In fact, there are only six parties in the new Parliament, suggesting that Italy’s well on the road to a two-party political system instead of the dreadful proportional electoral model that has destroyed virtually every country where it’s been applied. If that happens, a lot of the credit goes to Veltroni, who created a real center-left party and refused to admit the old Left.

Not just big news, but great news, worthy of a celebration. I look forward to the day when one will find them only in museums of bad ideas of the last millennium, and college campuses. Unfortunately, they never really disappear. The toxic ideas will just resurface under another name (as has in fact happened in the guise of environmentalism, though the demise of the Italian Green Party is encouraging as well in that regard).

From Lileks:

It’s possible there are bitter people who regard their station in life as a direct result of the current rate of capital gains taxes, but it seems an insufficiently reasoned basis for a national economic policy. Oh, it’s possible; at this very minute one of the country’s innumerable domestic terror cells could be planning a bombing of a Planned Parenthood center, driven to extremism by the very possibility of a Colombian trade pact. But I doubt it.

Not to say economics don’t affect people; I’m not that stupid. But like any adversity, you meet it with a certain amount of psychological capital. The more grounded you are in things that transcend the dollar, the better you can deal with the downturns. Some seem to suspect that the “grounding” is nothing more than a stake in the ground to channel the bolts tossed off by madmen in the pulpits, but those are the people most likely to believe that church services either consist of yelling and snake-handling, or gaseous bromides pumped out over a complacent stack of prim-faced morons and hypocrites who spend the service lusting after young women in the choir. There is no goodness, only the momentary self-delusion accorded by participation in a consensual charade.

I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.

Yup. And a lot of them are the people–the so-called independents and “moderate” Republicans”–whom the Obamamaniacs were hoping that they could con this fall.

[Update a few minutes later]

Mickey has some more thoughts:

Making excuses for autonomous human actors is always a form of condescension, I’d say. But when you make excuses for arguably what many people regard as normal, even laudable behavior, you double down on the disrespect, because you are also challenging your subjects’ moral framework.

He also has some commentary on Microsoft’s brilliant marketing strategy:

It seems like a can’t-lose approach for the Redmond, Wash. firm, as long as a) they continue to cultivate the image of a big, clumsy and greedy organization that’s just stupid enough to kill a product consumers like in order to try to force them to purchase a product the corporate bureaucracy has ploddingly disgorged and b) their new products continue to be awful.

There hasn’t been a breakthrough business plan like this since New Coke. “Suicide marketing.” (Buy this before we do something rash!) …

P.S.: The only fly in the ointment is the slim possibility that Microsoft’s next operating system, due in 2010, will actually be an improvement over Windows XP. But Ballmer & Co. know better than to let that happen.

[Early afternoon update]

John Judis says that “liberal” commentators are whistling past the fall graveyard if they don’t think that Obama’s faux pas (i.e., saying what he really thinks of the rubes) won’t hurt him in the general election.

And Rick Lowry thinks (as I do) that the donkeys, continuing to be out of touch in their liberal cocoon with the aid of the MSM, are setting themselves up for another electoral disaster:

Obama prides himself on his civility, but it has to go much deeper than dulcet rhetoric. A fundamental courtesy of political debate is to meet the other side on its own terms. If someone says he cares about gun rights, it’s rude to insist: “No, you don’t. It’s the minimum wage that you really care about, and you’d know it if you were more self-aware.” But Democrats have an uncontrollable reflex to do just that. Since the McGovernite takeover of their party, they have struggled to work up enthusiasm for Middle American mores. (Since 1980, only Bill Clinton managed it, which is why he was the only Democrat elected president in three decades.)

When the liberal reflex is coupled with a Ivy League-educated candidate who seems personally remote and uncomfortable with everyday American activities, it’s electoral poison. After the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry, Republicans had to be wondering, “Could Democrats possibly nominate yet another candidate easily portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist?” With Obama, Democrats appear to be responding with a resounding “Yes, we can!”

And yes, they will, unless Hillary! can stop them. Not that she has a much better chance of winning, since the blacks and the young people who are energizing the Obama campaign are likely to stay home if it is taken from him.

From Lileks:

It’s possible there are bitter people who regard their station in life as a direct result of the current rate of capital gains taxes, but it seems an insufficiently reasoned basis for a national economic policy. Oh, it’s possible; at this very minute one of the country’s innumerable domestic terror cells could be planning a bombing of a Planned Parenthood center, driven to extremism by the very possibility of a Colombian trade pact. But I doubt it.

Not to say economics don’t affect people; I’m not that stupid. But like any adversity, you meet it with a certain amount of psychological capital. The more grounded you are in things that transcend the dollar, the better you can deal with the downturns. Some seem to suspect that the “grounding” is nothing more than a stake in the ground to channel the bolts tossed off by madmen in the pulpits, but those are the people most likely to believe that church services either consist of yelling and snake-handling, or gaseous bromides pumped out over a complacent stack of prim-faced morons and hypocrites who spend the service lusting after young women in the choir. There is no goodness, only the momentary self-delusion accorded by participation in a consensual charade.

I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.

Yup. And a lot of them are the people–the so-called independents and “moderate” Republicans”–whom the Obamamaniacs were hoping that they could con this fall.

[Update a few minutes later]

Mickey has some more thoughts:

Making excuses for autonomous human actors is always a form of condescension, I’d say. But when you make excuses for arguably what many people regard as normal, even laudable behavior, you double down on the disrespect, because you are also challenging your subjects’ moral framework.

He also has some commentary on Microsoft’s brilliant marketing strategy:

It seems like a can’t-lose approach for the Redmond, Wash. firm, as long as a) they continue to cultivate the image of a big, clumsy and greedy organization that’s just stupid enough to kill a product consumers like in order to try to force them to purchase a product the corporate bureaucracy has ploddingly disgorged and b) their new products continue to be awful.

There hasn’t been a breakthrough business plan like this since New Coke. “Suicide marketing.” (Buy this before we do something rash!) …

P.S.: The only fly in the ointment is the slim possibility that Microsoft’s next operating system, due in 2010, will actually be an improvement over Windows XP. But Ballmer & Co. know better than to let that happen.

[Early afternoon update]

John Judis says that “liberal” commentators are whistling past the fall graveyard if they don’t think that Obama’s faux pas (i.e., saying what he really thinks of the rubes) won’t hurt him in the general election.

And Rick Lowry thinks (as I do) that the donkeys, continuing to be out of touch in their liberal cocoon with the aid of the MSM, are setting themselves up for another electoral disaster:

Obama prides himself on his civility, but it has to go much deeper than dulcet rhetoric. A fundamental courtesy of political debate is to meet the other side on its own terms. If someone says he cares about gun rights, it’s rude to insist: “No, you don’t. It’s the minimum wage that you really care about, and you’d know it if you were more self-aware.” But Democrats have an uncontrollable reflex to do just that. Since the McGovernite takeover of their party, they have struggled to work up enthusiasm for Middle American mores. (Since 1980, only Bill Clinton managed it, which is why he was the only Democrat elected president in three decades.)

When the liberal reflex is coupled with a Ivy League-educated candidate who seems personally remote and uncomfortable with everyday American activities, it’s electoral poison. After the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry, Republicans had to be wondering, “Could Democrats possibly nominate yet another candidate easily portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist?” With Obama, Democrats appear to be responding with a resounding “Yes, we can!”

And yes, they will, unless Hillary! can stop them. Not that she has a much better chance of winning, since the blacks and the young people who are energizing the Obama campaign are likely to stay home if it is taken from him.

From Lileks:

It’s possible there are bitter people who regard their station in life as a direct result of the current rate of capital gains taxes, but it seems an insufficiently reasoned basis for a national economic policy. Oh, it’s possible; at this very minute one of the country’s innumerable domestic terror cells could be planning a bombing of a Planned Parenthood center, driven to extremism by the very possibility of a Colombian trade pact. But I doubt it.

Not to say economics don’t affect people; I’m not that stupid. But like any adversity, you meet it with a certain amount of psychological capital. The more grounded you are in things that transcend the dollar, the better you can deal with the downturns. Some seem to suspect that the “grounding” is nothing more than a stake in the ground to channel the bolts tossed off by madmen in the pulpits, but those are the people most likely to believe that church services either consist of yelling and snake-handling, or gaseous bromides pumped out over a complacent stack of prim-faced morons and hypocrites who spend the service lusting after young women in the choir. There is no goodness, only the momentary self-delusion accorded by participation in a consensual charade.

I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.

Yup. And a lot of them are the people–the so-called independents and “moderate” Republicans”–whom the Obamamaniacs were hoping that they could con this fall.

[Update a few minutes later]

Mickey has some more thoughts:

Making excuses for autonomous human actors is always a form of condescension, I’d say. But when you make excuses for arguably what many people regard as normal, even laudable behavior, you double down on the disrespect, because you are also challenging your subjects’ moral framework.

He also has some commentary on Microsoft’s brilliant marketing strategy:

It seems like a can’t-lose approach for the Redmond, Wash. firm, as long as a) they continue to cultivate the image of a big, clumsy and greedy organization that’s just stupid enough to kill a product consumers like in order to try to force them to purchase a product the corporate bureaucracy has ploddingly disgorged and b) their new products continue to be awful.

There hasn’t been a breakthrough business plan like this since New Coke. “Suicide marketing.” (Buy this before we do something rash!) …

P.S.: The only fly in the ointment is the slim possibility that Microsoft’s next operating system, due in 2010, will actually be an improvement over Windows XP. But Ballmer & Co. know better than to let that happen.

[Early afternoon update]

John Judis says that “liberal” commentators are whistling past the fall graveyard if they don’t think that Obama’s faux pas (i.e., saying what he really thinks of the rubes) won’t hurt him in the general election.

And Rick Lowry thinks (as I do) that the donkeys, continuing to be out of touch in their liberal cocoon with the aid of the MSM, are setting themselves up for another electoral disaster:

Obama prides himself on his civility, but it has to go much deeper than dulcet rhetoric. A fundamental courtesy of political debate is to meet the other side on its own terms. If someone says he cares about gun rights, it’s rude to insist: “No, you don’t. It’s the minimum wage that you really care about, and you’d know it if you were more self-aware.” But Democrats have an uncontrollable reflex to do just that. Since the McGovernite takeover of their party, they have struggled to work up enthusiasm for Middle American mores. (Since 1980, only Bill Clinton managed it, which is why he was the only Democrat elected president in three decades.)

When the liberal reflex is coupled with a Ivy League-educated candidate who seems personally remote and uncomfortable with everyday American activities, it’s electoral poison. After the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry, Republicans had to be wondering, “Could Democrats possibly nominate yet another candidate easily portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist?” With Obama, Democrats appear to be responding with a resounding “Yes, we can!”

And yes, they will, unless Hillary! can stop them. Not that she has a much better chance of winning, since the blacks and the young people who are energizing the Obama campaign are likely to stay home if it is taken from him.

From Kaus, who (smart guy that he is) agrees with me:

It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it’s logically possible to say ‘these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things,.” but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for … him). Yesterday at the CNN “Compassion Forum” Obama said he wasn’t disparaging religion because he meant people “cling” to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they “cling” to “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”–the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those “traditions that are passed on from generation to generation” that “sustains us”? Obama’s unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians’ excess religiosity.

Exactly.

And on his intellectual arrogance:

And Obama never describes his own views as the products of anything except an accurate perception of reality. Come to think of it, has he ever expressed any doubt about–let alone apologized for–his views? He certainly didn’t apologize in his “race” speech. He presents himself as near ominscient, the Archimedian point from which everyone else’s beliefs and behavior can be assessed and explained, and to which almost everyone’s beliefs will revert after the revolution. … sorry, I mean after President Obama has restored hope!

Of course, as someone else noted the other day, when one considers that Obama’s most direct experience with Christianity is sitting in the pew of Trinity United for two decades, it shouldn’t be surprising that he thinks that all religious people are bitter, bigoted and xenophobic.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Obama’s spinmeisters are trying to avoid the real issue:

While the description of small town Pennsylvanians as “bitter” is certainly impolitic, many political analysts say it’s what follows that adjective that is potentially so alienating — the notion that small town folks “get bitter” after which “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.”

But Obama allies are trying to focus on the “bitter” part alone.

A robo-call on behalf of the Obama campaign from Mayor John Brenner of York, Pa., says that, “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.”

We’ll see if the MSM let him get away with it. So far, at least Jake Tapper isn’t.

[Update a few minutes later]

Donald Sensing says that Obama needs to learn when to quit digging:

So family, community and religious faith are apparently what angry, bitter people embrace. Well, I’m not bitter about anything (except, perhaps, the exceptionally poor candidates all around for the presidency this year), and I turn to all those things.

So, does Obama mean that happy, contented people have little truck with family, community or faith? I can’t believe he thinks that even if he did imply it. (Others have commented that Obama’s speaking strength is from prepared texts and he stumbles frequently off the cuff. I dunno). But if he does think that, it’s just stunning in its error and stupidity. But again, I don’t think he meant to imply it, though he did, and I don’t think he believes it.

But that doesn’t let him off the hook because if he thinks that happy, contented people embrace family-community-religion as quickly as angry, bitter people, exactly what has he said here? Nothing. Really, think about. Nothing. Except that bitter people like to own guns – I truly think that Obama can’t fathom why a happy, contented person would want to do that.

I’m starting to think that what Obama can’t fathom would fill a large library.

From Kaus, who (smart guy that he is) agrees with me:

It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it’s logically possible to say ‘these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things,.” but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for … him). Yesterday at the CNN “Compassion Forum” Obama said he wasn’t disparaging religion because he meant people “cling” to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they “cling” to “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”–the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those “traditions that are passed on from generation to generation” that “sustains us”? Obama’s unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians’ excess religiosity.

Exactly.

And on his intellectual arrogance:

And Obama never describes his own views as the products of anything except an accurate perception of reality. Come to think of it, has he ever expressed any doubt about–let alone apologized for–his views? He certainly didn’t apologize in his “race” speech. He presents himself as near ominscient, the Archimedian point from which everyone else’s beliefs and behavior can be assessed and explained, and to which almost everyone’s beliefs will revert after the revolution. … sorry, I mean after President Obama has restored hope!

Of course, as someone else noted the other day, when one considers that Obama’s most direct experience with Christianity is sitting in the pew of Trinity United for two decades, it shouldn’t be surprising that he thinks that all religious people are bitter, bigoted and xenophobic.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Obama’s spinmeisters are trying to avoid the real issue:

While the description of small town Pennsylvanians as “bitter” is certainly impolitic, many political analysts say it’s what follows that adjective that is potentially so alienating — the notion that small town folks “get bitter” after which “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.”

But Obama allies are trying to focus on the “bitter” part alone.

A robo-call on behalf of the Obama campaign from Mayor John Brenner of York, Pa., says that, “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.”

We’ll see if the MSM let him get away with it. So far, at least Jake Tapper isn’t.

[Update a few minutes later]

Donald Sensing says that Obama needs to learn when to quit digging:

So family, community and religious faith are apparently what angry, bitter people embrace. Well, I’m not bitter about anything (except, perhaps, the exceptionally poor candidates all around for the presidency this year), and I turn to all those things.

So, does Obama mean that happy, contented people have little truck with family, community or faith? I can’t believe he thinks that even if he did imply it. (Others have commented that Obama’s speaking strength is from prepared texts and he stumbles frequently off the cuff. I dunno). But if he does think that, it’s just stunning in its error and stupidity. But again, I don’t think he meant to imply it, though he did, and I don’t think he believes it.

But that doesn’t let him off the hook because if he thinks that happy, contented people embrace family-community-religion as quickly as angry, bitter people, exactly what has he said here? Nothing. Really, think about. Nothing. Except that bitter people like to own guns – I truly think that Obama can’t fathom why a happy, contented person would want to do that.

I’m starting to think that what Obama can’t fathom would fill a large library.

From Kaus, who (smart guy that he is) agrees with me:

It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it’s logically possible to say ‘these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things,.” but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for … him). Yesterday at the CNN “Compassion Forum” Obama said he wasn’t disparaging religion because he meant people “cling” to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they “cling” to “antipathy to people who aren’t like them”–the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those “traditions that are passed on from generation to generation” that “sustains us”? Obama’s unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians’ excess religiosity.

Exactly.

And on his intellectual arrogance:

And Obama never describes his own views as the products of anything except an accurate perception of reality. Come to think of it, has he ever expressed any doubt about–let alone apologized for–his views? He certainly didn’t apologize in his “race” speech. He presents himself as near ominscient, the Archimedian point from which everyone else’s beliefs and behavior can be assessed and explained, and to which almost everyone’s beliefs will revert after the revolution. … sorry, I mean after President Obama has restored hope!

Of course, as someone else noted the other day, when one considers that Obama’s most direct experience with Christianity is sitting in the pew of Trinity United for two decades, it shouldn’t be surprising that he thinks that all religious people are bitter, bigoted and xenophobic.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Obama’s spinmeisters are trying to avoid the real issue:

While the description of small town Pennsylvanians as “bitter” is certainly impolitic, many political analysts say it’s what follows that adjective that is potentially so alienating — the notion that small town folks “get bitter” after which “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.”

But Obama allies are trying to focus on the “bitter” part alone.

A robo-call on behalf of the Obama campaign from Mayor John Brenner of York, Pa., says that, “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.”

We’ll see if the MSM let him get away with it. So far, at least Jake Tapper isn’t.

[Update a few minutes later]

Donald Sensing says that Obama needs to learn when to quit digging:

So family, community and religious faith are apparently what angry, bitter people embrace. Well, I’m not bitter about anything (except, perhaps, the exceptionally poor candidates all around for the presidency this year), and I turn to all those things.

So, does Obama mean that happy, contented people have little truck with family, community or faith? I can’t believe he thinks that even if he did imply it. (Others have commented that Obama’s speaking strength is from prepared texts and he stumbles frequently off the cuff. I dunno). But if he does think that, it’s just stunning in its error and stupidity. But again, I don’t think he meant to imply it, though he did, and I don’t think he believes it.

But that doesn’t let him off the hook because if he thinks that happy, contented people embrace family-community-religion as quickly as angry, bitter people, exactly what has he said here? Nothing. Really, think about. Nothing. Except that bitter people like to own guns – I truly think that Obama can’t fathom why a happy, contented person would want to do that.

I’m starting to think that what Obama can’t fathom would fill a large library.