Letters to the Editor
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Understanding
In order to truly help make anything better, you have to understand it. You have to understand current conditions - you have to understand the problems - in order to come up with the solutions. In order to truly help the country get to a better place again, you have to understand all of it - you have to understand ALL the different kinds of people. We are all constantly growing and evolving, and we're never all going to be the same. Hopefully we can all be better. But even within families, people have differences. And it would be boring if we were all the same.
The main problems with what Obama said are that it was an ill-formed, and therefore, not very accurate argument.
People being frustrated and angry about their economic situations, and people who cling to guns, religion, and antipathy towards people who are not like them - are not a direct cause and effect issue. People have been religious and/or have harbored weapons and antipathy for thousands of years. These are human characteristics and tendencies. Dick Cheney is rich and he likes his guns. There are rich people who "cling" to religion, guns, and antipathy. There are Ivy educated people who "cling" to antipathy. There are Ivy League educated people who are antipathetic to other Ivy league educated people. Liberals who are antipathetic to other liberals. Conservatives who are antipathetic to other conservatives. And everything in between...
No the reason a lot of no-nonsense people in America have doubts about Barack is because of issues and associations like those that came up with Reverend Wright. It's just not practical or realistic to have a person who says things like that be your close pastor for so long, and think a majority of Americans will vote for you to be President, when you haven't even proven yourself on the national stage. For many Barack has not truly proven what he is all about. His words and his deeds don't match up so great so far. He's got to prove himself more before people will actually believe him.
Hillary has proven herself more at this point with her work, but the media in lieu of Republicans loves to try and makes the Clintons tabloid - much to a great disservice to our country. The Clintons have done a tremendous amount of substansive work for this country. But that's not as much fun as making superficial attacks on them, apparently.
And you can see where we end up: the media was behind Bush.
Obama is not necessarily the better candidate against McCain.
He's intelligent, he's good at giving speeches, and if he would truly walk his talk, he'd be an even more inspiring candidate.
But, he is not truly our most knowledgeable or qualified candidate, and his campaign has been extremely duplicitous towards Hillary and the Democratic public, by trying to spin and paint her so much more negatively than she actually is.
I started out neutral. (I am a devoted Democrat.) I was immensely impressed by all the socio-economic good and hard work of Bill's administration. But I had no bias towards Hillary in term of her candidacy to be President. But the debates showed me, time and time again - that she is our most knowledgeable and qualified candidate.
I liked what Barack said, but I didn't like the hypocrisy and duplicity of his campaign. And when they kept belittling Hillary, and Bill's administration as well, and said "Hillary will say anything to win," they lost most all my respect - because those things could not be further from the truth.
The fact that so many people have been duped by all the ways in which Obama has not at all been about hope, change, or unity, just makes it all far worse. He and his campaign have mercilessly put down everyone else. And that's not just a coincidence.
If he were really about hope, change, and unity, he would have run a very different campaign against Hillary. His campaign has not talked about the issues for the most part - all they have done is put her down.
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What is the big deal?
I don't understand the flap about "bitter". It has been a staple of American political and cultural discourse for decades that there are a lot of bitter, angry Americans out in the less prestigious and glamorous parts of the country. Remember "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more" and the famous Angry White Man? It has been talked up and down, left, right and middle. So what is the big deal now? We're talking about class. Class is a fact. Mr. Obama is at least willing to talk about the problem. The Clintons are apparently too cheesy, too busy triangulating. But it's still a tempest in a teapot.