Obama defenders are anti-working class?

Quite frankly, this accusation is idiotic. Anybody who gives a damn about the future of the working class ought to do his level best to see Obama succeed as opposed to Hillary "NAFTA" Clinton and John "Keating Five" McCain.

BTW, If you're going to provide a link to give the appearance of supporting your claim, you really ought to do a bit more than link to the first of 74 pages of letters. If there is a particular letter that supports your point, cite it or don't bother to provide a link at all.

More sloppiness from Joan Walsh.

Those of us who live in the real world, and did not smooze our way to cushy writing jobs, know that the people of the working class are not perfect. Nobody is. It is a Beltway pretense to act as if acknowledging the racial and economic divisions in the US is somehow a political faux pas. Naturally, this attitude to the mere recognition of class and race divisions only serves to reinforce the status quo.

Many of us view a Clinton presidency as something that would be functionally equivalent to the previous Clinton presidency, and part and parcel of the domination of right-wing politics for the past 28 years. After all, if one compares the legislation of the 90s with that of the 80s, it seems that a weak, sell-out, right-pandering Democrat can do as much or more for right-wing causes as a popular conservative Republican. The game plan is to repeatedly sell out the base while constantly lecturing liberals about how this is the best that they can hope for.

The possibility that a more liberal voice might have a better idea what Americans actually want is very threatening to this power base - the "centrist" alliance between Republicans, money, and DLC doormats.

I really do see your point, I think. To be fair, Joan always is very clear that her criticism is for those Obama supporters who are awfully sexist or just plain mean.

But that is part of my problem. On these comment boards, there are lots of us who disagree with Walsh or who want to ask her questions and she hasn't really spoken of or to us....I wish she would use us as examples of his support. I think we are more accurate reflections than taking the worst Obama supporters. In this way, I think you have a good point. Sometimes I have to remind myself that Joan isn't talking about me or the other Obama supporters who don't agree with her.

Anyway, I keep holding out hope that Joan will cultivate dialogs based on reason and respect. Her tendency is to come back to the comment sections and say a few nice words but only really respond to real idiot statements.

Hillary, and you, Joan, and some of your media colleagues seem to be only people who are interested in perpetuating this absurd "Bittergate."

Do you not get what he was saying, or understand it? Seriously? If not, then you shouldn't be at the helm of a liberal newsmagazine covering the political primary.

Clinton -- and YOU, clearly -- have made a cynical, partisan, and frankly, quite ugly choice to exploit his words -- words whose underlying sentiment was NOT elitist, and in fact, showed an astute UNDERSTANDING of the situation. Meanwhile, your golden girl goes around drinking boilermakers, yapping about lovin' herself some guns, and trying to pretend that when she wasn't earning $100 million the last few years, she was off hanging at the VFW post doing shots.

WHO is out of touch? WHO is elitist.

Hillarious.

Obama's phrasing wasn't optimal, but his sentiment was clear. Obama is not out of touch. You know it. Hillary knows it. And American knows it.

You are gleefully playing politics, UGLY politics. And YOU, in picking up this ridiculous Clinton campaign tactic, are helping do your part to try to doom Democrats. You might as well be running full page ads with Dukakis in the helmet -- or Kerry on the windsurfer.

You, Joan Walsh, YOU are taking a verbal flub, assigning meaning to it that wasn't intended, and running with it, for your own aims.

You may not like the bias of his defenders, but you know, we don't like the bias of Hillary's defenders, especially you.

Your inability to face reality, your constant need to explain away Hillary's most egregious transgressions, while jumping on every minor Obama fumble, is becoming a case study of why Hillary is failing, and will likely faily to win the nomination.

Hillary Clinton may be exploiting "Bittergate" -- but make no mistake...SO ARE YOU...and SO IS SALON.

And as for your hope that the campaign moves to higher ground...you are kidding, right? Given the daily tone of the articles you commission and the blog posts you write? You expect ANYONE to believe that you aspire to higher ground, much less even have any idea what that is, or where it's located?

I can tell you, with you in the lead, it's sure as hell not at Salon.com.

Exactly how would you go to higher ground, anyway? Commission more anti-Obama articles? Figure out new concern troll posts to trash Obama? Write more specious blog posts pillorying Obama, based on the latest conference call you sat in on from the Clinton campaign?

Is it higher ground to turn Salon.com into HillaryClinton.com?

Apparently you think so.

Here is Obama's remark (as I found it online) "She's talking like she's Annie Oakley! Hillary Clinton's out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday, she's packin' a six shooter!"

I thought it was pretty funny--I admit I thought it was in poor taste, just because the Annie Oakley caricature is at least somewhat sexist, and Clinton could not have responded with an analogous historical African American without looking very bad.

But never in my wildest dreams did I think you could mangle this sequence of intentionally silly, disconnected images into an argument about what kind of weapon you'd use to shoot ducks. As far as I know, Walsh is the first to try. Me, I'd have gone for the sexist angle. And by the way, I do respect Walsh's good-natured reporting of Obama's rebuttal last week, but it looks like we're back to this sort of thing.

Oakley, as you may know (or looked up as I did) was not a duck hunter but a sharpshooter who traveled with Buffalo Bill. "Whether it be a pistol, rifle, or shotgun, the legendary markswoman Annie Oakley was masterful with them all." or so says my search result, so we're partially covered here already.

Obama suggested (comically) that (a) Clinton thinks she's Annie Oakley (b) She wants us to think she is a devoted duck hunter and (c) she's "packing heat" (not necessarily on the duck blind but maybe the campaign trail) or wants us to think so. The six shooter calls to mind the Old West, rather than ducks, but that makes it funnier than a reference to whatever the 21st century duck hunter prefers.

I mean, I don't even think comments like this help Obama, because it's just too over the top. The seeming spontaneity was probably the biggest selling point. If he had focus-grouped the thing with hunters, who knows what sort of unfunny pseudo-joke we'd be hearing.

In short, I have no axe to grind with Walsh, and I respect that she likes Hillary, but man, stop grasping at straws.