Should We Be Bitter About Obama?

Barack Obama has made a controversial statement. Now folks are up in arms, oops, maybe we should not say "up in arms" since arms had something to do with his statement. Senator Obama, when giving a speech referring to middle class people in the Midwest and Pennsylvania said, "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." Now it seems folks are getting bitter about his use of the word "bitter." Wait, did I say something wrong?

Now, do I jump on the band wagon and attack Senator Obama for his remarks or do I stand up and defend him? On the one hand I tend to be fairly conservative, unless you are on the subject of health care when one would think I am a raving liberal. Don't you ever tell my buddies at the shooting range this but I do think we need some basic firearm laws in this country. Of course, we already have some pretty decent ones on the books. The trouble is we never enforce them! Then, when some nut does something stupid with a handgun, all sorts of drooling loons crawl out of the woodworks screaming that "tougher gun control laws would have prevented this catastrophe!" Really? We are not enforcing the ones we have now. The bottom line is, I vote my conscious and, if I believed that Senator Obama was good for America, I would vote for him and stand up for him.

So far he has not convinced me he is good for this country. Of course, neither has anyone else running for president but we are talking about Obama here. This said I find I must defend some of his comment here. Don't get me wrong, I still do not like him but was his all of his statement wrong? No. Middle class voters ARE bitter. They are bitter because their jobs are gone. They are bitter because their quality of life has dropped drastically from that which their parents enjoyed. They are bitter because they watch illegal foreigners come here and get handed our tax dollars in welfare, and workers comp, and a dozen other social programs which they are not entitled to because they never paid into them. All the while the tax paying voters are told that they are not qualified for any assistance if they need it. These same voters are bitter because many of them did what they were always told to do back in the 1970's, 80's and 90's. They went to college and got degrees under the assumption that this would guarantee them a good job and better standard of living. Now many of them just have huge college loans to repay and jobs which pay the same or lower than what they could have made if they had went straight into the workforce out of high school. If they have jobs at all, that is. Yes, the shrinking middle class are BITTER.

The news media is blowing this out of proportion but Senator Obama did choose the correct word. For years we have watched factories close and jobs head south to Mexico. Ever since a Democrat, Clinton, signed the North American Free Trade agreement, Americans have lost their jobs in droves. But you cannot blame just the Democrats. A Republican, Bush, expanded the thing. Americans don't know whom to vent their frustrations on.

I do take issue with the next part of Senator Obamas' statement though, the part about how we Americans, "cling to guns or religion." Excuse me? Firearms and religion are some of our RIGHTS there senator. Of course we cling to our rights when we face hard times. Americans always have. For you to even question that shows remarkably poor character.

Then he went on to talk about, "or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment." Again, excuse me? A "race card" being played here. I had thought Obama was better than this. I am rather tired of hearing this sort of thing. America has had its fair share of racial tensions in the past, only a fool would deny it, but the simple fact is we are the first people in the history of the world, on a large scale, to open our selves up to members of all races and religions. Historically, what has been done here in America has never been done before. White, Christian people, and yes, it was white people, founded a nation here and then threw open the doors to everyone. It has made us strong in a way nothing else could have done. Yet, today they are hated for it. Why is that? No, Senator Obama showed his true self when he made this statement. He had been keeping himself above this. Until now.

Since I do not really like any of the candidates I suppose that, until now, Senator Obama could have gotten my vote, maybe, if he had said something spectacularly good. Instead, he said something spectacularly bad. So no, Senator, my apologies, but you will definitely not be getting my vote now. The trouble is, I still don't like the other two choices. Is it too late to get Collin Powell to run with Rice as his VP? Now that would be a combination worth seeing! A winning general and both of them with good foreign relations skills. Instead we have, well, a rock and a hard place. Good luck America, we're gonna need it.