Gotcha Games

On Sunday, April 13th, the two remaining Democratic candidates for president showed up at Messiah College in Philadelphia to take part in "The Compassion Forum." They each spoke at some length on personal issues of faith and its meaning in their lives. Both of them came across as sincere and well-meaning.

Hillary's debate performances have been uneven, but this topic and the one-at-a-time format seemed to suit her. She looked at ease and sounded confident. Several speeches a day in an extra-long campaign have helped hone her oratory skills. She's now a much more compelling speaker, and, unlike her opponent, tends to be better at speaking off the cuff than with prepared remarks. That wasn't true even a couple of months ago. Maybe it helps when the whole world has written off your chances of winning.

Obama, by far the better speaker in general, never seems as comfortable speaking extemporaneously as he does with prepared remarks. He seemed especially uncomfortable Sunday night, like a man in a minefield who's just a little unsure of his path. Maybe that comes with frontrunner status.

On Wednesday night, the two squared off for another debate. It turned out to be a rough night for the Senator from illinois. He later complained, "It took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people."

Politely, he didn't mention that most of the questions during that 45 minutes were aimed at him, and were negative and personal. Yes, they asked Hillary a question about her Bosnia story, but there were no follow-ups, even though her answer begged for clarification on key points. Most of the discussion centered on Jeremiah Wright. I know they talked about other things, like bitter people clinging to guns and religion, but that stuff is just a variation on the Jeremiah Wright theme.

A Sociology Lesson

Here are the Barack Obama comments that started the latest ruckus:

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. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Condescending, elitist, patronizing. Why would he say it? Because no reporters were present and he didn't know he was being recorded.

His attempted explanations of the words may have been worse for his campaign than the original statement. He first responded to the controversy with surprise that his analysis was being questioned and he defended it at length. He complained that Clinton and McCain were out of touch. But, "I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on."

Maybe not "exactly" since his first explanation didn't solve the problem. His new line of defense admitted to the possibility of poor wording. "Obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that." But he still refused to admit he was wrong.

Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare-up, because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter.

Sunday night at "The Compassion Forum," the issue came up again. Senator Clinton characterized it like this: "Someone goes to a closed-door fund-raiser in San Francisco and makes comments that do seem elitist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing."

When Senator Obama's turn came, he mischaracterized his original statement.

. . . my words may have been clumsy, which happens surprisingly often on a presidential campaign [laughter] but this is something that I've talked about before, I've talked about in my own life, which is that religion is a bulwark, a foundation when other things aren't going well.

In San Francisco, he hadn't even hinted that in his own life, "religion is a bulwark." Like all politicians, he molded his message to the attitudes of his audience. San Francisco and Marin County elites are among the most liberal people left in the world — liberal enough to feel comfortable with the concept of religion as an opiate of the people.

He went on:

And so what I was referring to was in no way demeaning a faith that I, myself, embrace. What I was saying is that when economic hardship hits in these communities, what people have is they've got family, they've got their faith, they've got the traditions that have been passed onto them from generation to generation. Those aren't bad things. That's what they have left.

Sounds nice. Here's the problem. Bitterness is a bad thing. The xenophobia he attributes to the rubes in the hinterlands is also a bad thing. And, to an assemblage from anywhere near Silicon Valley, it would be hard to find a worse thing than fear of free trade. Had he merely misspoken, his words would not have so perfectly fit a group who also view guns and most religious faith as bad things. To that crowd, the whole list was negative.

His mention of free trade again brings into question his commitment, made in union-saturated Ohio, to toughen up NAFTA or abolish it. At the time he was criticizing NAFTA, one of his subordinates reportedly told Canadian officials not to worry. It's just campaign rhetoric. The Senator's comment in San Francisco makes it sound like the subordinate really was speaking for him.

On Thursday, Obama complained bitterly about the debate's content.

They like stirring up controversy and they like playing gotcha games, getting us to attack each other. And I have to say Senator Clinton looked in her element. She was taking every opportunity to get a dig in there. [Here he subtly pantomimed the movement of a stabbing knife.] You know, that's all right. That's her right. That's her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit. [He then twisted the imaginary knife] . . . Look, I understand that because that's the text book Washington game. That's how our politics has been taught to be played. That's the lesson that she learned when the Republicans were doing that same thing to her back in the 1990s. So I understand it and when you're running for the presidency then you've got to expect it.

He made a show of dusting off his jacket at the shoulders and dusting a pant leg, then said to loud applause:

That's what you got to do. That's what you've got to do. But understand this, that is also precisely why I'm running for president — to change that kind of politics.

Someone asked how he would respond to similar attacks from Republicans. He answered:

It's a little hard to do with a fellow Democrat. I'm trying to show some restraint. I won't have as much restraint with the Republicans.

He just blasted Senator Clinton, hit her hard right between the eyes. To condescending laughter, he says these "gotcha games" are "her element." She enjoys twisting the knife in her prey.

But don't worry, this is "precisely why" Barrack Obama is running for president. He's here to change that kind of politics. . . . except when he faces the Republicans. When he tells the audience of his fellow Democrat twisting her knife in him, he's using restraint. It will disappear when he faces John McCain.

The shiny Obama-veneer is slowly rubbing away to expose an ordinary interior. He pretends to be nobler than his opponents, but he's just like them. He does what he condemns them for doing, but with the added carcinogen of hypocrisy.

Getting to Know the Man Who Would Be President

For twenty years, he's been part of a church that is deeply bitter against the United States of America and especially against those citizens with less skin pigmentation.

The Senator emphasizes that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is his "former" pastor. He doesn't mention the behavior of his new pastor. In this video, when Pastor Wright says, "Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky," notice who, in ecstatic glee, runs up behind Wright, touching his leader's shoulder, seeming to hope that a sprinkling of the great man's anointing will fall on him. Isn't it the incoming Pastor, Otis Moss, III?

Then, as Mr. Wright shouts coarse words to describe the former president's conduct — "He was ridin' dirty!" — the video cuts to the crowd. They are thrilled. They leap and dance to these words. This is typical of the congregation's response to Wright's most outrageous statements. Clearly, hate and bitterness infect this whole church.

From his description of rural Pennsylvania towns, it seems also to have distorted Senator Obama's perception of America.

Some have criticized "The Compassion Forum" for elevating religion to an even higher place in presidential politics. But no other forum has told me as much about how these candidates think, how they approach problems, what's going on in their heads.

It was similar with the first forty-five minutes of the debate on ABC. Obama complains that the issues discussed during that time are not important. But they told us important things about the character and thought-processes of the two candidates. He wanted the moderators to concentrate on issues, but we've had twenty debates before this one. We've heard their positions on Iraq and healthcare twenty times before, and heard them again this time.

We can go to www.barackobama.com and see his stands on the issues. In fact, earlier in the campaign, people complained that his speeches were vague, and he referred those people to his website for details. Sadly, the site uses what he calls "standard Democratic boilerplate language" to describe his positions on most issues. So don't expect to learn much.

This man, Barrack Obama, may be our next president. Softball interviews and campaign speeches full of optimistic but vague language are not enough. I'm glad Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos threw him some tough pitches. Almost no one else has. And his poor response is more telling than he knows.

Posted: 4-18-2008
Note: At original posting, all links were active.