Monday, April 14, 2008

What Entitles Obama to Look Down on His Fellow Americans?

Barack Obama's "Bittergate"controversy's getting better all the time.

I mean, while at least with the Wright controversy Obama could simply announce - as he did, to moderate success - that he disagreed with his pastor's hatred, but as a mentor and friend he could no more "disown" the reverend than he could his own family.

Well, Obama sure would like to disown his comments this weekend,
saying:

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it....

So it's not surprising then that 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.
William Kristol comes right out and says it: Obama's channelling Karl Marx, whose academic scribblings on the crisis of capitalism were among the most influential economic theories of the late-19th and 20th centuries.

Obama's tried to appear new-Democratish, especially around the time of his speech to the 2004 Democratic convention, but he's gotten pulled back over to the far left end of the spectrum:

What does this mean for Obama’s presidential prospects? He’s disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize.

And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?
I'll have more updates. This "Bittergate" scandal's a good one!

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