(2008-04-20) Obama Bitter Gate

Barack Obama is taking lots of heat for his remarks at a "private fund-raiser" Apr06. But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. 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. And they fell through the Bill Clinton administration, and the George W 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. (Red Vs Blue? Update: Actually, I call this the Clinger Party.)

The story about this getting out is making the story last longer. Ms. Fowler said she held her digital recorder openly. The place was jammed with others using video cams and cell phone cameras. Among them, Ms. Fowler said, was a professor who was recording the event for his students. In fact, snippets of the speech have been posted on YouTube by others who were there.

Arianna Huffington, having personally ok'd the posting of the original item, defends Obama.