“…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."

Is it me, or does this seem like a Freudian slip? This is revealing to me about Obama, not because of his antipathy towards some of the things that are generally valued or, at least, constitutionally protected. No, it seems to me that this is more self-descriptive than almost anything else we hear from Obama. It seems that Obama’s hides a bitterness that has turned him towards a hateful religion, a dislike of people that aren’t like him (like, uh, the white people he regularly disparaged in his books), and anti-trade sentiment (unless its his love for trade that makes him want to rescind free-trade agreements).

Shelby Steele talks about the mask that Obama wears. I think in one candid and Freudian moment, Obama’s mask was pulled away and we saw something of Obama’s deeper psychology and his view of the world.

UPDATE: I wrote the above post before I saw this from Victor Davis Hanson. I would use the "great minds think alike" cliche, but I wouldn't dare put myself in his class.

The problem with the Obama Marin County speech, inter alia, is that it invites comparison to himself—as all condescension does, being the nursemaid to hypocrisy. So if religion is a crutch for the embittered of Middle America, what is the creepy Rev. Wright for Obama? So the frustrated protectionists of Middle America are “anti-trade”, what then does that mean for the Harvard-educated NAFTA-trashing Obama? If Middle America can distinguish illegal from legal immigration, why can’t Obama in remarks to sophisticated Marin county elites? If jobs “have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them” why then is the Pennsylvania unemployment rate around 5%? And does small-town America cling to “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” any more than does Rev. Wright, Rev. Meeks, Rev. Lee, or all the others that gravitate to Obama, but who are spared the condescending “they” write-off?

Labels: Obama