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"Obama talking to a bunch of wine-sipping San Francisco liberals with an anthropological view toward white working-class voters."

That's Obama -- talking about himself in the third person to characterize the way "the press" "interpreted" his statement that people in small, jobless towns "get bitter" and "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."

He offers the true interpretation:

And I was actually making the reverse point, clumsily, which is that these voters have a right to be frustrated because they?ve been ignored. And because Democrats haven?t met them halfway on cultural issues, we?ve not been able to communicate to them effectively an economic agenda that would help broaden our coalition.

Though he now calls his bitter clingers line "my biggest boneheaded move," I'll bet he thinks he has a right to be frustrated that his attempts to communicate to them effectively have not been fully appreciated.

?I mean, part of what I was trying to say to that group in San Francisco was, ?You guys need to stop thinking that issues like religion or guns are somehow wrong,? ? he continued. ?Because, in fact, if you?ve grown up and your dad went out and took you hunting, and that is part of your self-identity and provides you a sense of continuity and stability that is unavailable in your economic life, then that?s going to be pretty important, and rightfully so. And if you?re watching your community lose population and collapse but your church is still strong and the life of the community is centered around that, well then, you know, we?d better be paying attention to that.?

Don't you want the President to be an intellectual? In Obama's world, people hunt for a sense of continuity and stability. By contrast, Sarah Palin hunts to stock the freezer with meat.

IN THE COMMENTS: Darcy said:

Why does he assume (really..he does!) liking to hunt or own guns has anything to do with "a sense of continuity and stability" that isn't in an individual's economic life? And going to church have anything to do with your community losing population and collapsing?

Why don't these people just lean on the Democrats tofulfill these needs, hmm? I mean, really!

He had a second bite at the apple, and yet still revealed the same offensive thoughts.

Palladian said:

The wonderful thing about Obama is that, even though he's slick and polished, in the end he can't seem to stop himself from eventually saying what he really believes, from the bitter clinging remark to the Joe The Plumber wealth redistribution thing.

Jeff with one 'f' said...

Isn't "Change" the direct opposite of "a sense of continuity and stability"?

Pogo feels moved to quote George Orwell:

"Only an intellectual could say something so stupid."

"Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

Doyle said:

He should have just said "Who knew hicks were so sensitive?"

Full post as published by Althouse on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).