condescending

Barack Obama graciously allowed that Hillary probably didn't really mean anything by daring to bring up the Kennedy assassination. Of course, we're all going to continue to take it as a given that she should just know not to go around talking about whatever she wants. Anything that could possibly set off Obama's little weakness must be guarded against, because he has a pathological fear of - you know - certain kinds of people. People who are crude and racist and gun-toting and bitter.

Of course, it is understandable that a really fragile person might just assume we're dangerous. We really are that scary, to those who've never seen our kind before.

Bigotry is a problem in this country, all right. Obama is bigoted against white people. And I am bigoted against shrieking, hysterical little men who let their xenophobia rule them.

The problem is, this pathological dread of people who are not like him is just too deep at the heart of the Obama campaign. As Sean Wilentz writes:

The main difference between now and then is the openness of the condescension with which many of Obama's supporters - and, apparently, the candidate himself - hold the crude "low information" types whom they believe dominate the white working class. The sympathetic media coverage of Obama's efforts to explain away his remarks in San Francisco about "bitter," economically-strapped voters who, clinging to their guns, religion, and racism, misdirect their rage and do not see the light, only reinforced his campaign's dismissive attitude. Obama's efforts at rectification were reluctant and half-hearted at best - and he undercut them completely a few days later when he referred derisively, on the stump in Indiana, to a sudden "political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true."

(emphasis mine)

"Everybody" means - well, him.

All of which is just one more way of saying what people have been saying about Obama for some time now: one way or another, anything and everything anyone does, it always ends up being all about him.

Is runaway ruling egocentrism really a quality anyone wants in a President?

unity by insult

update: I am temporarily removing the question of whether and how much Obama is deliberately taking the party out on his way down. I want to write more about it later....



Wow.

I mean, unity sounds nice, but ultimately - I gotta hold my party responsible for allowing this loser to come and break it in half.

He pauses. He smiles slyly as the crowd begins to mumble and then he tries, somewhat distracted, to continue his remarks, smiling as the buzz spreads through the crowd.

He'll no doubt deny it later, but that mischievous smile seems to confirm plenty. And the crowd sure sees something. (LA Times)

And it breaks my heart. I just don't know how I'm going to vote...but I can't cast a ballot for someone who behaves like that.

Did Obama Give Hillary The Finger Today?

by Stuart O'Neill

April 17th, 2008 @ 5:12 pm

It’s appears that way to me. The timing, the gesture, the sheer passive-aggressiveness of the act, which would fit Obama’s passive-aggressive campaign, couldn’t be simply a habitual gesture.

Passive-aggressive. You know - that's just the term I was looking for.

update: apparently some people really believe it was just coincidence that he scratched himself that way. Coincidentally good timing, as he was slamming Clinton right at that moment.

I don't really think it changes the basic problem, which is that Obama's only response to his own lack of Presidential qualities is to relentlessly attack and destroy Clinton.

Personally, I have no doubt that the gesture was intentional (his audience certainly appears to have taken it that way).

The point I would make is - does Obama's behavior really suggest the man best fit to represent our interests in delicate international diplomatic situations? Or are we going to be getting lots of day-after sour grapes speechmaking?