April 14, 2008

  • Perhaps somewhat expectedly, Senator Obama's remarks are being
    misrepresented     not only by his political opponents, but by the media as
    well.

    Senator Obama did not say that people like guns or are
    religious BECAUSE of their economic struggles. What he said is that
    when facing hardship, and due to frustration and lack of trust in
    government, small town Americans turn to BOTH positive things that are
    familiar (religion, guns) as well as negative things that are easy to
    scapegoat (xenophobia).

    Obama himself clarified this in remarks the day following the news
    reports. A fair news report would at least give Obama the benefit of
    the doubt in at least accurately reporting this clarification. Instead
    I continue to hear mindless parroting of a distorted and simplistic
    account of Obama's remarks.

    There was nothing inherently pejorative about Senator Obama's remarks.

    Senator Obama was perhaps speaking too compactly, as he is wont
    to do. (For example, some people missed the point when Obama said in
    his speech on Rev. Wright that while he had heard Rev. Wright say some
    controversial things, the publicized comments were beyond
    controversial. This was Obama's compact but oblique way of saying that
    he had not heard the remarks in question.)

    But the
    assumption that there was something pejorative says more about the
    latent elitism of the critics than it does about Senator Obama.