True colors, part 2

-Updated-

I don't generally do this, but I wanted to respond to a comment on my last post and felt that what I wanted to say warranted a fresh start:

"No Alex. The media says that a whole lot of small-town Americans are supposed to be very offended by what Obama said. Anyone who's offended by what Senator Obama ACTUALLY said, and not what the ridiculous Clinton campaign and media narrative says they should be offended by, probably wouldn't vote for Obama anyways."

Maybe I'm not paranoid enough, but I really don't think that "the media" is behind the conspiracy to construct a "narrative" to "distract" voters from "the issues" Obama is trying to present. I think people are just genuinely offended. I guess we'll find out on April 22 which one of us is right.

As for the assertion that "anyone who was offended...probably wouldn't vote for Obama anyways," I guess I admire your confidence in your candidate. I'm sure Obama probably doesn't need those millions of votes from small-town Americans who are religious, own guns, or oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Whatever happened to the Barack Obama who was going to be "post-partisan" and "post-ideological" and going to "reach across party lines" to build support from across the political spectrum?

I read what Obama "actually" said. I thought it was arrogant and condescending on its face. Nobody had to "explain" it to me. Nobody had to tell me what Obama was "really saying." It wasn't like there was some subtle phrase that one had to be listening carefully to catch.

It's right there in your face:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

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.

I find that extremely condescending.

I thought this would be obvious, but here's a quick summary of why I think most people would agree:

1) Obama talks frequently about how important his faith is to him and how it has shaped his life. I have no reason to doubt him. But when he includes "religion" (a good thing) in a list of supposed negative things that people "cling to" -- like racism and xenophobia -- that concerns me.

The spin, of course, is that he meant that people cling to religion in a "good way" (this was his explanation on CNN -- he later added: "The Scripture talks about clinging to what's good") -- whereas all the other the other items on his list were meant to be things that people cling to in a "bad way" (except gun ownership, which Obama described as an example of "important traditions that are passed on from generation to generation." Apparently these "important traditions" do not include racism or xenophobia, the next two items mentioned by Obama.

By looking at the context though, Obama is blatantly equating religiosity with racism in his list of "unfortunate" symptoms of small-town unemployment. No matter how you spin it, lumping people who are "religious" or own guns in with those who have "antipathy towards people who aren't like them," or harbor "anti-immigrant sentiment" is offensive. Period.

2) Even if you ignore the words he used, the very point he is making is inherently condescending. How else could you describe Obama's proposition that people own guns and attend church regularly because of economic stagnation -- not because they just like to hunt, or because they enjoy attending church or have strong faith?

It seems to me that Obama never applies that same psycho-analytical critique to his own views -- and therein lies his arrogance. Unlike those of small-town Americans who may be members of the NRA or be concerned about illegal immigration, Obama's "enlightented" views are apparently inherently correct and clear-headed. In fact, in this very statement, Obama seems to be implying that once employment opportunities start appearing again in these small-town communities, these people will naturally stop "clinging" to such simple-minded beliefs and come around to his point of view.

I find it hard to see how that's not arrogant.

In addition, Obama's responses to criticism over his statements have belied a pattern of a similar condescending attitude. Example:

“Lately, there has been a little, typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my home town in Illinois who are bitter.”

"Because I said something that everybody knows is true?" Obama is incredibly self-assured about his explanation of the motivations for the beliefs of a very large segment of America. Again, the possibility that maybe he might have said something wrong never occurs to Obama. This whole "flare-up" is just a sad knee-jerk reaction to his enlightened analysis. After all, it's not his fault if the masses can't handle the truth.

**UPDATE 4/16/08 10:05pm:

Rich Lowry:

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.)

...Obama brings a special measure of arrogance to the standard liberal critique of Middle America. His candidacy has always been characterized by two paradoxes. How can he be so hopeful at the same time he and his wife, Michelle, portray America as a sink-pit of despair? And how can he claim to be a uniter when he’s an orthodox liberal who has risked little or nothing for bipartisan outreach?

Now, we know. Obama defines hopefulness as liberalism, specifically liberalism as embodied by himself. Only with Obama’s election will America be redeemed from its harrowing false consciousness. We will be unified, not by Obama reaching out to conservatives to hammer out compromises, but by conservatives shedding their bitterness and becoming Obama liberals.

This is the underside of hope: arrogance fading into a secular messianism based on the fallenness of everyone who disagrees with Barack Obama.