Obama said something recently that I think needed to be said and now he's under fire--from the Left (they're saying he's made a mistake with these comments that he can't afford) and from the Right (they're saying that he was demeaning in his comments and he'll pay for it in the general election.

Something's been scratching at my brain lately. This country is roiling: it's like we're trying to excise something. Things ain't like they used to be. 
 
This country has been struggling to re-identify itself since 9/11, since Hurricane Katrina, since the start of the war. And we can run off to our respective corners, something like what Obama mentioned in his speech on race, or we can hash this out. We can face the truth. 
 
Obama made his comments to an audience of wealthy San Francisco donors. Some cite that as the reason we should infer he was trying to cast the middle class in small towns in a negative light. But in reality he was acting as a liaison. He was trying to bridge the gap, trying to get these people in one pocket of America to understand another. He wasn't demeaning the working class in Pennsylvania or anywhere else-- he was trying to give voice to their struggles to people in San Francisco who are perhaps not in tune with what the middle class live. 
  
Clinton smugly called Obama's quotes "elitist" and "out of touch". First, her campaign tried to ghettoize him by mentioning his past drug use and now they are declaring him an elitist. What they don't want the American public to realize is that Obama breaks every barrier and category-- like we all, every single one of us, do.  

Clinton and McCain want to feed us buzzwords like "elitist" and "out of touch". But they are the patronizing ones, twisting Obama's words beyond recognition and then telling us, the American people, how we should feel about them, that we should be offended by them. Clinton and McCain are still playing games, while Obama is about the serious business of bettering this country. 
 
A Fox news reporter went to a diner in a Pennsylvania town to get some of the locals' reaction to Obama's comments. A man there, a resident of the town for thirty years, told the reporter that he agreed with Obama that the residents are bitter--and angry. The expression on the reporter's face was priceless as she tried to dig to get the older man to say something otherwise. 
 
But he stayed firm in what he was saying: Obama has a finger on the pulse of America and there's no denying it. Obama's words may have been harsh. But we're big boys and girls and should be able to handle it. 
 

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