Obama Drips, Drips, Drips
- 04.11.2008 - 11:07 PMWell, it has finally happened. Barack Obama has done what Democratic candidates for president invariably do — he has revealed the profound sense of unearned superiority that is the sad and persistent hallmark of contemporary liberalism. Obama’s statement today that small-town folk “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” may be the most distilled example of this train of thought I’ve ever seen.
Obama’s astonishing sentence offers a syllogistic string of superciliousness: Gun ownership is equated with religious fanaticism, which is said to accompany hatred of the other in the form of opposition to immigration and support for trade barriers. It drips with an attitude so important to the spiritual well-being of the American liberal — the paternalistic attitude that says, “Oh, well, people only do thing differently from me because they are ignorant and superstitious and backward” — that it has survived and thrived despite the suicidal impact it has had on the achievement of liberal political goals and aims.
This sort of liberal caricature was so prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s that it helped convince tens of millions of die-hard Democrats that their own party no longer had their best interests at heart — that it, in fact, viewed them as some kind of enemy, as a reactionary force for evil — and led them to pull the lever first for Richard Nixon in 1972 and then for Ronald Reagan in 1980.
One thing, though. Like the yahoos whose portrait he has drawn with the subtlety of a juvenile delinquent scrawling an obscene image on a high-school-bathroom-stall door, Obama has declared himself an opponent of free trade. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Because by his own description, his stance on trade makes it likely he’s got a gun and he will train it on you to try and get you to convert to Jeremiah Wright-ism.
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:25 PM
By Monday, the media will have convinced most people that this was a very brave statement by someone who really feels our pain, and we shouldn’t judge him anyway, because he’s going to bring us all together.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:40 PM
Simply an astonishing statement by Obama! As a native northwest Pennsylvanian (and lifelong Pennsylvania resident), I already had a feeling that Clinton would cleanup quite decisively. Now, I know she’ll carry the state by at least 10% -15%. Don’t let the media convince you that Obama’s closing the gap with Hillary. Obama’s indescribable condescension will insult every Pennsylvanian outside the narrow confines of Pittsburgh and Filthadelphia (and its suburbs). All the better for Senator McCain!
April 11th, 2008 at 11:47 PM
It’s all Karl Rove’s fault. I saw it with my own eyes. He pointed the gun at “Barry” Obama’s head and ordered him to say something stupid. The dude feared for his life.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:02 AM
Heck, I live in Texas and OUR small town lower class isn’t as pitiable as Obama says the Pennsylvania version is… down here we have guns (the ‘we’ is deliberate) either because we like hunting or sport shooting, or we feel we need them to protect ourselves… I don’t know any gun owners who own guns because they’re frustrated at their own miserable lives… heh..
Even inner city dope dealers have more practical reasons to ‘cling to their guns’…
Leftists are invariably silly in their analyses, not to mention gratuitously insulting. It is exactly that sense of moral and intellectual superiority that made people so dislike John Kerry, and boy was he ever baffled by it.
Kerry was no smarter and no better than anyone else, but he believed that he was, and that people would LOVE him for it.
What a dork.
Now Obama believes HE is the anointed one, the psychoanalyst who brings light and understanding to the dim, the barrier breaker who brings people together by explaining away their fear of people different than them (!), the morally and intellectually superior being whose obvious quality will compel people to say ‘he’s the one.. follow him… he is our destiny’.
What arrogance.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:06 AM
For the first time since February 5th, I am beginning to wonder if Obama might actually lose the nomination. I know that by all the obvious metrics (delegates, popular votes, media-love) it seems like he just can’t possibly *Not* win the nomination, but… he seems determined to make this as close as he possibly can.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:11 AM
Democrats are idiots. It’s really just that simple.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:23 AM
“For the first time since February 5th, I am beginning to wonder if Obama might actually lose the nomination.”
Nope, ain’t gonna happen. Too many black voters will stay home on Election Day. The Democrats may soon feel like the poor slob who jumps out of a 100th floor building and changes his mind as he descends pass the 40th. They are stuck with Obama. Hillary Clinton is merely a second class citizen and does not outrank a man of color. She must learn to accept her proper place within the politically correct hierarchy.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:24 AM
Obama has never struck me as intelligent, the idea that trade with Cuba is good and trade with Columbia is bad is ridiculous. The classic definition of “empty suit”.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:49 AM
I used to think he was an empty suit too. But now I think he is a dangerous ideologue and wears a shaby suit of socialism.
If America elects this man the country is toast and frankly not worth salvageing if we are that dumb. This election will determine if the great American Experiment continues or has failed.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:57 AM
John
The caricature has always been present in the broader left except it is usually applied to most Americans in general i.e. religiously fanatic, superstitious, ignorant of the world, obscurantist, violent, stupid etc. Obama has merely let slip what the adherents of his ideology really think about US citizens who don’t subscribe to their views - which is what they really think of everyone outside of their educated and elitist sub-set.