Random Thoughts
Two things running through my head this morning:
First up: the Obama gaffe, non-gaffe, truth-telling, or whatever it’s being called now.
It’s been rather disheartening this weekend to see so many left-wing blogs telling me, “It’s true! Small-town rural people are just racist, homophobic, xenophobic ignorants who turn to their guns or their gods rather than voting for someone who just wants to help them.”
Or, even more fun, the “if you’re not bitter, you’re not paying attention and aren’t doing enough” group.
Spare me.
Spin it how you want. Tell me his “inflection” in the video makes a difference. Tell me all about how we white, rural, working-class, voters do vote against our own interests. It doesn’t change my opinion of what he said.
Yes, I did read the entire statement, not just the paragraph posted in Obama Insults Pennsylvanians. And I read it again. And yes, I still believe he was, in effect, calling us low-class white trash who won’t vote for him because we’re too bitter about our economic status to vote for anyone who isn’t whiter than snow and doesn’t run on a “Guns, Gods, and Gays” platform.
I still believe that he was trying to explain to a bunch of rich donors just why he wasn’t doing as well as expected here, and his explanation to them is, “See these blue-collar folks are just too bitter and too dumb to understand that I’m all about Change and Hope© and they seem to actually want policies and positions and information. They don’t understand, because they’re dumb, rural, white trash, that I’m all about Change and Hope© and part of that is not saying anything that isn’t about Change and Hope©.”
But, apparently, to say so - to believe that this candidate insulted my state and my fellow Pennsylvanians - is also a white trash, homo- and xenophobic, racist belief.
Wow.
I have to say I feel a little less welcome in a few of my favorite blogs today, after reading all the “It’s true and people who are insulted are just too dumb and too bitter to understand it” comments from people who do not live in rural Pennsylvania.
Gee, thanks, for helping me see the light. It’s good to know just how many blogs and their commenters actually believe they are better than those of us living in small-town America because they’re more “enlightened,” more “sophisticated,” or just plain smarter than we bigoted trash.
I should point out that in 2000, PA was one of only 20 states (plus DC) that went for Gore. In 2004, we were one of only 19 states (plus DC) that went for Kerry.
Second: the Bush-approved-torture non-flap:
Yep, I am well aware of what happened Friday, that our President - a man who stood before us twice and vowed to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” - admitted that he approved torture.
And, I am well aware that the MSM has more or less ignored the same in order to cover the “blow to the Obama campaign.”
Why haven’t I said anything? Well, for one, because there are far smarter people who know far more about this who have already said everything. Short of cribbing all of Emptywheel’s posts on the subject, what I have to say on it amounts to this:
“Son of a bitch! He admitted, on television, that his legal team created justifications for torture, that members of his Cabinet (Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice, etc) knew and approved of said tortures, that he knew and approved said tortures, that human beings were tortured as a result — in contravention of the Geneva Convention and American law.
There is now absolutely zero doubt that he, members of his Cabinet, and his legal eagles are as guilty of crimes against humanity as any Nazi prosecuted at Nuremberg.
And the response from America was… *crickets*
The fucking media ignores it because Obama can’t keep his foot from his mouth.
Heckova job, BushCo!”
That is my response.
I could have made a post of it but, as always, Digby says it better:
I thought I was long past the point of being shocked at anything the Bush administration did. They suspended the constitution after 9/11 and set forth a series of legal opinions that said the president can do anything he deems necessary to “protect the country.” Once you truly absorb that fact, it’s hard to be emotionally affected by anything else you learn.
But I was wrong. This shocks me. The president of the United States casually admits on television that he approved of his national security team personally deciding which specific torture techniques should be used against prisoners:
[snip]
The vice president, national security advisor and members of the president’s cabinet sat around the white house “choreographing” the torture and the president approved it. I have to say that even in my most vivid imaginings about this torture scheme it didn’t occur to me that the highest levels of the cabinet were personally involved (except Cheney and Rumsfeld, of course) much less that we would reach a point where the president of the United States would shrug his shoulders and say he approved.
