Nothing to fear but God, guns and Obama

Today's blogospheric "buzz" has nothing to do with reflections of naked chicks at fishing holes (at least not on the political side) but with Obama's loose comments about the smallishness of small-towners. You've no doubt seen or heard it by now:

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.

He goes on to say that's why the yocals cling to God and guns and hate. But there's more than blind outrage to play with here. One paragraph earlier he expressed his plan to fix the small town ills:

What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

Let's forgot for a sec that handing out government goodies or taxing the rich doesn't create jobs; or that small town folks have pretty much been the same since America displaced the Indians. There's more.

Notice he mentioned "anti-immigrant hate" as one of those small town demons yet seems oblivious to the fact that illegal aliens--flowing in to work at the small town jobs he says don't exist--have unfairly undercut the market. So blaming the government is technically correct yet nowhere in his "talking points" does he connect with the people who still believe in the rule of law by, oh, maybe proposing to enforce the border and immigration laws. Somehow that's not Washington's problem, it's a fantasy cooked up by the population due to lack of government cheese. Overall his view of reinvigorating confidence in Washington seems to be taxing the rich and redistributing their income while extending the free health care currently given to illegals to everyone.

So let's see, according to Obama small town white guy is just an average white person, fearful and xenophobic due to failures by Bush and Hillary's husband; who's only drowning their sorrows by stupidly clinging to the Bible and Bill of Rights to assuage an irrational fear of the socialistic change Obama is set to bring forth.

Just what does all this say about Hillary's incompetence as a candidate? A lot, my friends, a lot. Perhaps it's time for a bold move from our first lady of experience--more than just telling #42 to zip it. Grab the reigns (and headlines) and announce the divorce Monday.

MEA CULPA, OR SOMETHING 4/12/08

After digging heels for the Friday news cycle Obama has now apologized, sort of, for the Saturday news cycle:

"I didn't say it as well as I should have,"

Er, say what? Could he have insulted America's hicks even better? Well, he explains:

"because the truth is is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation–those are important."

The campaign added that the "traditions" Obama referred to are those of gun ownership and religion. Obama said those traditions are "what sustains us."

Yes, but he's still equating the notion of clinging to such traditions as responses to government failures. Aren't they also important and passed down in the cities (come to think of it, based on his church, maybe not). Of course they are, and they have nothing to do with government failures. It appears Obama has reached bottom and begun to dig.

Few are touching on the illegal alien aspect of all of this. Barack accused locals of being xenophobic without stressing the government's failure to enforce the rule of law, which has produced big changes in some rural areas. But, since nobody really has a plan to curb this problem it will probably remain under the table, fueling even more bitterness that won't be addressed.

MORE 4/12/08

People are starting to pick up on the illegal alien angle as detailed by JOM. Where have they been? To me it was the screaming message left unsaid in this whole thing. It's impossible to talk about small town bitterness without mentioning the government-sponsored invasion of 3rd world immigrants.