Its all fun and games until someone loses their Irony

We’re clearly late to the whole Obama “Bittergate” episode so any opinion we may have has probably been vented a dozen times over on radio, TV and internet, so... what’s a slacking little blog like ours to do except react to the reaction.

But first, in case any of you have been comatose for the past few days, here are the words spoken by Obama at a San Fran fundraiser that have got him into so much trouble:

“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 (editor: go cry that tune to the buggy whip manufacturers, pal). 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. So it’s not surprising then that 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.”

A look at the Bittergate dust-up here by George Will who claims “Obama may be the fulfillment of modern liberalism”. With assistance from the indespensible pollster/demographer Michael Barone, Will traces a line from what we’ll call bread’n’butter FDR liberalism through the smug Adlai Stevenson to today’s Obamamania whose campaign’s spritual overtones combined with his desire for governmental hyper-activity recalls the quote from Socialist/Communist pioneer Moses Hess: “The Christian… imagines the better future of the human species…in the image of heavenly joy… We, on the other hand, will have this heaven on earth”.

And here is an interesting and ultimately bizarre piece from WaPo columnist E.J. Dionne. Dionne takes Obama to task for his choice of words but not necessarily its intent or purpose. He then goes after Clinton for parroting Republican talking points about Al Gore, John Kerry and Obama not really respecting values/faith voters. But then in the last few lines, he completely loses it:

“It has been sickening over the years to watch Republicans, who always rally to the aid of the country's wealthiest citizens, successfully cast themselves as pork-rind-eating, NASCAR-watching, gun-toting populists. To have the current White House occupant (Yale, Harvard Business School, son of a president) run as a good old boy should have been the final straw. But here are the two remaining Democratic candidates, Obama by speaking carelessly and Clinton by piling on shamelessly, doing all they can to make it easy for Republicans to pretend one more time that they are the salt of the earth.”

Look. In a two party system there is naturally going to be that inherent “big tent” membership whereby each party will attract people across the economic spectrum so to start claiming which party is for the big guy/little guy will start looking like an endless tennis volley. We do have our thoughts on the matter but its beside the point of this post.

And by no means is this meant to be any cheerleading for the Republican Party as their collective behavior over the past few years has us feeling like, ironically enough, RINOs ourselves... but how does Dionne square his disgust with reality?

This reality, of course, is a Party whose leadership has consistently fought tooth and nail against any sensible restrictions on abortion (parental notification and the gruesome practice of late-term abortion), has consistently voted against tax cuts, has consistently campaigned for more gun control laws, has consistently been in silent consent with those who want to wipe religion from the public square, has consistently opposed school choice/voucher programs, has consistently offered, at best, tepid support for the military when not deriding it obliquely or directly…. Issues all that could by varying degrees be considered under the big tent of “traditional values” for rank and file Democrats and Republicans, alike.

And Dionne has the unmitigated gall to feel disgusted and sickened that despite all the above, those wascalwy Wepublicans have somehow slithered their way to the mantle of Party of the common man?

Dionne is either being intellectually dishonest with his readers or he’s been asleep at the wheel for the last 30-40 years. Policy, planks, positions… throw’em all out the window. Dionne’s attitude is perfectly exemplary of the biggest electoral problem Democrats have had since the late 60s and why it is they are setting themselves up for their 8th presidential election defeat in the last 11: condescension.

In that statement and by conveniently neglecting the choices and the battles Democratic Party leadership has fought in charting a course for the Party, Dionne exhibits the EXACT same condescension he takes Obama to task for in his choice of words and the poor dolt, most likely, doesn’t even realize it.

They still don’t get it. Its amazing. You just can’t make up this stuff.