Obama: Clinging to the Truth

By MICHAEL HALEY

The amount of blogging, punditing and spinning going on over Obama‚s recent "gaffe" concerning people in some small Midwest towns has been simply staggering. It's an even bigger story than Jeremiah Wright, although there is a creeping note of tiredness of all the Obama bashing starting to appear.

First, here is what Obama said and a typical response to it from a critic, from the New York Times of April 16:

"Cindy Phillips, 54, a flight attendant from Leetsdale, Pa., said she had intended to vote for Mrs. Clinton before the latest feud developed. But she said her position was solidified by Mr. Obama's remarks that many small-town Pennsylvania voters, "bitter" over their economic circumstances, "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them."

"He just doesn’t know Pennsylvania," Ms. Phillips said in an interview. "People here are religious because that's their background, not because they're mad about jobs."

The mistake she is making is that Obama said "many" not "all, or even "most." And there is no doubt that many economically disenfranchised people unfairly blame something outside themselves, including the government, or become fanatical about religion or many other things. Some cling to anti government things like the gun culture, ZOG conspiracy theories, and to all kinds of things including racism and anti-immigrant feelings.

What Obama said is clearly the truth. His mistake seems to be in telling the truth. Shouldn’t we criticize people who act that way? Yes we should. That is not elitism, that is telling the truth.

The impact it had on me was to greatly solidify my interest in him as a candidate. Why? Because it is clear that he is a truth teller, not a spin artist or frankly what we often get, an outright liar. He knew he was speaking in public, there were numerous cameras recording his speech.

Do I think he has ever spun anything? Of course. But his basic gut instinct is to tell the truth, and to stand up for what he believes in. That is what this incident shows us, despite all the desperate spinning by those already opposed to him trying to bring him down.

The Republicans have successfully attacked the character of the Democratic Presidential nominees for a while now, and one senses that they feel they may have hit pay dirt with this clinging scandal. They have escalated the propaganda to a very high decibel level, claiming it proves Obama is an elitist in the mold of John Kerry, Al Gore, even Michael Dukakis.

The one they couldn’t pin liberal elitist on successfully was Bill Clinton and he won. They are just about desperate to prove the case on Obama because it has been such a clear winner for them.

Bill Kristol is even going so far as to say that these clinging comments prove Obama was a liar about being a Christian. The GOP would love to pin that on him, because it helps validate their entirely false propaganda that he is really a Muslim. How Kristol gets there is a real stretch, but they are so bound and determined to undermine Obama‚s character that it is worth a shot. Hey, if it is good enough for Hillary, it is good enough for Rush! They may not be as different as they like to think.

Even my dear old mother, who I might characterize as your typical old-fashioned non-partisan white voter, has forwarded me the "Obama is a Muslim" email. My Gawd Mom! Here's a woman who voted for John Kerry in the last election because she didn’t  like some things Bush said about God, and she is a conservative Christian. Now she is drinking the "Obama is a Muslim‚" Kool Aid.

That does not portend well for Obama, but on the other hand, he has one unique difference from Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis. Obama isn't a liar, he is a truth teller. Sure, Kerry got swiftboated but he is an elitist snob. And Al Gore was a pedantic bore; Dukakis really did look like a nerd in that tank.

Obama is pretty genuine, and he is not trying to deny he is a liberal. Even in the last debate, where many said he should have struck back harder and seemed on the defensive, wouldn’t that kind of petty mean spirited questioning just about make anyone weary and irritated? Why don‚t you wear a flag pin all the time? Maybe he just acted closer to what a real person would act like when confronted with the kind of nonsense coming from ABC's interviewers.

I love the fact that he is actually coming across as a real person in the face of the usual gotcha personal politics and extreme partisan exaggerating. Maybe that can seem "weak" to some people, but my hunch is that if he keeps it up, all these flaming character attacks from the Hillary type Republicans just won't get the traction they have over the last few election cycles.

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