Sunday, April 13, 2008

Elitist Revisions

I need someone to explain to me how a person born solidly in the middle class in the post WWII era, who just recently talked about visiting the family summer cottage in Pennsylvania during her youth, who was a solid Goldwater Girl, who then attended perhaps the most elite of the women's colleges in the country, only to cap off her education at one of the most elite law schools in the country, then followed a path that led her to the inner sanctum of American government, primarily through her husband (who was actually poor), can then somehow morph herself into this hardscrabble, gun brandishing, every woman.

At least Obama had some elements of struggle in his upbringing, and like the husband of the person above, managed to gain access to the most elite institutions in the nation for his education. Moreover, this character decided to do community organizing among the working class (though because they are African American, that seems not to count in quite the same way as "working class") as his post elite education job.

What's even more offensive to me is that Obama spoke the truth. People in desparate times look to scapegoats as salve for a troubled soul. American history is riddled with examples of this. How loudly can I scream the election of 2004? Many Ohio residents, particularly black ones, used gay marriage as a proxy for voting the current POTUS one more term in office (salve for the soul, and "the family"). That HRC would exploit, and distort, the truth in Obama's comments (even when those same sentiments were espoused during the Clinton administration) just for the sake of hoping to score political points is brilliant. That working class voters would buy it hook, line and sinker is priceless.

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