Barack Obama, addressing an audience of veterans in Pennsylvania today, faced a man who rose and asked -- with an obvious sense of indignation about the current battle over the senator's words about the working class and campaign complaints that Obama is elitist and out-of-touch -- if there isn't some racial element to this controversy.
"I don’t think there are racial overtones to the attacks going on right now,'' Obama replied. "It’s politics.''
Obama, saying that “the American people are looking for politics that are not about tearing each down but lifting the country up,'' said: "These kind of political attacks, they don’t solve the V.A . problem… What we really need to do right now is focus on solving problems.
"It is true,'' Obama added, "I am amused about this notion of eltitist,'' given that he was raised by a single mother who for a time relied on food stamps and married a woman of humble means as well. "We both had to finance our entire law school educations borrowing money, and we paid off our student loans about five years ago, six years ago…
"We lived for the first 13 years in our marriage, up until three years ago, in a one-bedroom condo without a garage,'' Obama said, "which means, if you live in Chicago, you are scraping ice from your windshield'' in the morning.
“That’s when you know we’re in political silly season.’’
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/obama_on_elitism_silly_season.html
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My friend John linked to a Media Matters commentary on the absurd behavior of certain journalists in this area: I mean, are we electing the national bowler, or President? That nominally serious people can argue that refusing coffee in favor of orange juice, or not being a very good bowler, is at any level relevant to whether someone would make a good president...well, to paraphrase an absurdity of Bertolt Brecht's, if it works, maybe we should elect a new electorate.
And the way Clinton's doing a Lieberman here...there was the bizarre (and sadly plausible) rumor in '04 that Kerry was considering McCain as a running mate...I think Hillary's thinking, hey, if I don't get the Democratic nomination, maybe I can get the Republican VP nod...
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