Letters to the Editor
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Lind's the Rube
What a stupid, silly article. One example of Lind's ineptness:(quoting a scholar)"...Goldwater-Reagan activists tended to be successful, educated people for whom conservative ideology was not a mask for something else but a coherent belief system..."
Duh. Why are these mutually exclusive? I'm no sociologist but here's an easy bet: ALL belief system's mask/hide/project/internalize certain things...for better or worse.
My belief system dictates that Lind is full of shit.
Joan, standards are slipping honey.
Gregg M.
Phoenix, AZ
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One meaning of "bitter"
that resonates: "expressive of severe pain, grief, or regret"
I would be worried if I were not feeling like this about my country today.
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Giant sigh of relief
Thank you, thank you, Mr. Lind, for a mighty refreshing bit of sane analysis in this season of The Elevation of Obama and Scourging of All Who Favor Clinton. Clinton supporters have been called every name in the book on this site and others merely because they do not support Obama. We have been branded rubes, racists, and rednecks many times over. On what evidence? None whatever, other than our disinclination to be swayed by Obama. Naturally many of us have been given great pause by the tenor of many of those on the left whom Obama attracts: what sort of candidate appeals to such deeply judgmental, frequently downright nasty 'liberals'? You have just delineated the ranks of the latter fairly and squarely, thus giving them occasion for yet another scourging. The good news: as individuals we Clinton supporters will handily survive the mountains of condescension and verbal abuse. The bad news: without us, the Democratic party may well not.
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Obama is imploding
Every time he speaks now, he looks petulant and, yes, bitter. Gone is his shiny hope message. It's all about rage now. He knows how badly his SanFran comments have damaged him but he doesn't know what to do to recover. So he's lashing out. It's sad. And he looks ridiculous on that tractor, too. He is done. Bye bye, Obama.
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Community Organizing
Obama needs to understand someone needs much more qualification for President than having been a community organizer in Chicago's southside and having defeated such a lightweight candidate as Alan Keyes to get onto the national scene. He is post-peak and needs to withdraw to keep from doing further damage to the party.
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You're overthinking it, Lind
You wrote a very well-thought out piece based on an entirely false premise - that somehow this one off-handed, poorly-phrased answer during an impromptu Q&A session at a non-public event is evidence of Obama's true core belief about the working class that he's somehow managed to hide during 15 months of intense campaigning.
You're practicing the same brand of amateur speculative psychology that you're denouncing in your article. You assume that this one sentence, chosen among millions uttered in the course of this campaign, is dispositive proof that Obama thinks he's better than the working class.
Because we're bored of and fatigued by the campaign and the neverending onslaught of over-analysis fueled by the 24/7 mixed mass media, everyone is looking for the death knell. The Big One that's gonna tip the scales. Our nerve is in tatters and our patience running at an all time low.
So what happens? This off-the-cuff comment made by Obama is being treated like the Zapruder film. Oceans of ink are being spilled parsing and dissecting and speculating and insinuating. Hillary and McCain are launching nuclear warheads at it. The politics of division and triangulation at work. Let's pit ourselves against each other instead of taking the comment as an opening to discuss what we have in common and where our differences lie before tackling some monumental problems. Great idea, guys. Keep it up and we'll be watching President McCain take the oath in January.
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cythera 45...
project much?
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Bitter is about right
I was talking about the "Bitter" flap with a friend who grew up in small-town Western Pennsylvania. For generations, the natural order of things in her town was that sons coasted through high school, got jobs with their dads and granddads in the mills, and worked till retirement; daughters got married early to the sons and raised the next generation of millworkers. When she was in high school, though, the mill closed. People didn't know what hit them. It was as if the world turned upside down. Some left town to find work, went to college or trade school, and otherwise adapted to the new way of things. But some are still waiting for the mill to be reopened and make everything right again.
We both think Obama is essentially correct, although he expressed it badly. Of course many small-town Pennsylvanians are bitter and angry. Nobody in power speaks for them or cares about what happens to them, except when it's time to express some faux outrage and scrape up their votes. They have been abandoned on the banks of the old industrial rivers, hands empty of hope. And in its absence, they've turned inward and cling to God and guns because that's what has always sustained them. But of course, politicians are not allowed to talk openly about this truth, that great swaths of our country have been essentially written off.
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Reality
This is a country of know-nothing, don't-care idiots. They live everywhere: small towns, big cities, red states, blue states. That's the reality. If you don't think so, you're not paying attention.
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Mishkin, you need to read up on your Freudian theory
You don't seem to understand key concepts. You might want to avoid the section on anal-erotic necrophilia, though, because it might cut too close to home.
Obama is done.
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2 sides of the same coin?
Obama's 2 major "gaffes" involve white people who are offended by the insinuation that they are "bitter" and a Black Preacher who sounded too bitter.
Just a thought..
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Read the Clinton supporter letters on here
And just keep them in mind the next time you think Obama's supporters have gone overboard.
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Only a Voltaire
could do justice to how America is today, so full of so many Panglosses, all reveling in this best of all possible worlds.
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I see nothing wrong with Obama saying people are bitter.
Isn't it the truth?
Why this firestorm?
Why this spin?
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Most of the Obamatrons posting clearly haven't even read the article
They just want positive Obama propaganda or nothing on this and every site.
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Manufacturing
Obama went into PA telling people deported jobs would not be back. Hillary went into PA with a plan to bring them back. Obama saying: "No, we can't." Clinton saying; "Yes, we can!" And we can. Now is an excellent time to review trade agreements for revisions to revive our manufacturing sector. Now is an excellent time for new manufacturing jobs to be created as the demand for U.S. made products is growing as a result of the many dangerous and contaminated products we've been imported. Does Obama think jobs can't be created? Ask Hillary and Bill. They know differently. Bill promised to create millions of jobs and then did it. Hillary can do the same -- probably even better!