Obama Wrong On Analysis As Well As Politics?

Marc Ambinder worries that Obama really has no empirical leg to stand on with his "cling to their guns and religion" gaffe, linking to this scholarly refutation of the whole "What's The Matter With Kansas" concept.

Well, if Obama's San Francisco ruminations were weak as analysis, dare we call Obama "out of touch"?  Scary to read this, from John Fund of the WSJ:

"...the fact that his aides tell reporters he is privately bewildered that anybody took offense is even more remarkable."

Geez - does anybody have a spare ticket for the Clue Train?  Obama's so out of touch he doesn't even know why he is out of touch.

Timothy Noah of Slate joins in the the whole "What The Matter With Kansas, and Why Is Obama Echoing It" issue (and cites the same study as Ambinder - great minds, etc.)  From Noah (my paragraph breaks):

2) The white working class isn't the problem; Dixie is. This theory has been forwarded by Paul Krugman and Thomas Schaller, among others... But after the convention, Obama, if he is the Democratic nominee, might as well write off the South, because Democrats can't win there.

Princeton's Larry Bartels made the case two years ago in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. According to Bartels, the white voters lacking college degrees who have abandoned the Democratic Party in droves are nearly all Southerners. Outside the South, the decline among voters in this group who support Democratic presidential candidates is less than 1 percent. Moreover, if the white working class's interest in "guns or religion" indicates derangement or bitterness, then the white working class isn't very deranged or bitter. According to Bartels, there is no evidence that social issues outweigh economic ones among white voters lacking college degrees.

Social issues have admittedly become more important to voters during the past two decades, but the derangement/bitterness index has risen most steeply not for the proles but for the country-club set. For example, white voters with college degrees give more than twice as much weight to the issue of abortion than white voters lacking college degrees. Most devastating to Frank's analysis, "most of his white working-class voters see themselves as closer to the Democratic party on social issues like abortion and gender roles but closer to the Republican party on economic issues" (italics mine).

Having paged through the study, let me add this possibly clarifying thought - Bartels took "no college degree" as his measure of working class in response to an exhortation from Thomas Frank himself, who was criticizing an earlier Bartels rebuttal to his work.  However, Bartels goes on to note that "no college degree" does not overlap well with "economic loser":

Even in 2004, after decades of increasingly widespread college education, the economic circumstances of whites without college degrees were not much different from those of America as a whole. Among those who voted, 40% had family incomes in excess of $60,000; and when offered the choice, more than half actually called themselves “middle class” rather than “working class.” Meanwhile, among working-class white voters who could even remotely be considered “poor” – those with incomes in the bottom third of the national income distribution – GeorgeW. Bush’s margin of victory in 2004 was not 23 percentage points but less than two percentage points.

Over the entire half-century covered by my analysis the mismatch between Frank’s definition and his concern for “the poor,” “the weak,” and “the victimized” (2004, 1) is even more striking: white voters without college degrees were actually more likely to have incomes in the top third of the income distribution than in the middle third, much less the bottom third. However, Frank himself now seems curiously uninterested in such material economic distinctions, or in the political behavior of the unlucky members of his working class who are not earning middle-class or upper-middle-class incomes. His only reaction to the finding that tens of millions of white voters in the bottom third of the income distribution have become significantly more Democratic over the past half century is to dismiss as “well-known to poll-readers everywhere [the fact] that society’s very poorest members tend to vote Democratic” (2005, 3). Apparently Frank has little interest in meeting the poor Democrats.

Between Frank and Bartel I smell blood - bad blood.  As to the equation of "working class" with "no college degree" - anyone run that past Bill Gates?  Bartels eventually illustrates this point about class and income with charts, graphs, text, free beer and dancing girls (And you think I leaf through these studies just to save you the trouble...)

In the white working class, as in the electorate as a whole, net Republican gains since the 1950s have come entirely among middle- and upper-income voters, producing a substantial gap in partisanship and voting between predominantly Democratic lower income groups and predominantly Republican upper income groups.

The voting behavior of Frank’s white working class in the 2004 election suggests
that, if anything, the partisan divergence between its richer and poorer segments is continuing to increase. John Kerry received 49% of the two-party vote in the poorest third of Frank’s white working class, virtually identical to the 50% received by previous Democratic candidates over the preceding three decades. However, his support fell to 40% among middle-income whites without college degrees, and to 30% among those in the top third of the income distribution. Thus, insofar as Kerry’s performance reflects a continuing erosion in Democratic support among Frank’s white working class, that erosion continues to be concentrated among people who are, in fact, relatively affluent.

So the "working class" folks drifting away from the Dem message may in fact be voting their own economic interest rather than their bitterness.  It's not their false consciousness, it's  Frank's false analysis - somebody alert Barack!

INTERIM UPDATE:  Ross Douthat of The Atlantic takes inspiration from Mr. Noah, excerpts a different study and concludes this:

But Obama didn't make an argument along these lines. Instead, he said something that wasn't just politically dumb - it was analytically dumb, as well. And that, pace Ezra and Andrew and sundry others, is why these comments matter: Because they suggest that Barack Obama buys into a narrative of American politics, and American life, that simply isn't true.

Here is the coup de grace from Mickey Kaus on "What's The Matter With Pennsylvania": 

3) Alert emailer M wonders why Obama is applying a Tom Frank analysis--of working class voters who vote Republican--to Pennsylvania, since unlike Kansas, Pennsylvania is a blue state that "hasn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1988." And the most economically distressed parts of the state are the most Democratic, despite all the clinging to guns and God that's going on. In short, Obama's explaining something that doesn't happen.

"Not happening" could describe Obama's Presidential prospects right now.

Well, many libs are being given the opportunity to discover that Obama's anaysis was not just politically tone-deaf but flat out wrong - it may take a few days to see how this is digested.

Meanwhile, let's survey other reaction.

J Judis of TNR is gloomy:

So to win in November, Obama will have to win almost all of these heartland states. Which is a problem, because even before he uttered his infamous words about these voters "clinging" to guns, religion, abortion, and fears about free trade, Obama looked vulnerable in the region.

George Will puts Obama in historical perspective:

By so speaking, Obama does fulfill liberalism's transformation since Franklin Roosevelt. What had been under FDR a celebration of America and the values of its working people has become a doctrine of condescension toward those people and the supposedly coarse and vulgar country that pleases them.

When a supporter told Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, that thinking people supported him, Stevenson said, "Yes, but I need to win a majority." When another supporter told Stevenson, "You educated the people through your campaign," Stevenson replied, "But a lot of people flunked the course." Michael Barone, in "Our Country: The Shaping of America From Roosevelt to Reagan," wrote: "It is unthinkable that Roosevelt would ever have said those things or that such thoughts ever would have crossed his mind." Barone added: "Stevenson was the first leading Democratic politician to become a critic rather than a celebrator of middle-class American culture -- the prototype of the liberal Democrat who would judge ordinary Americans by an abstract standard and find them wanting."

The Duke, Al Gore, and John Kerry projected condescension quite nicely too.

Thomas Sowell put Obam's condescension towards the working class in a longer historical perspective:

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the Left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the Left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.

Karl Marx said, “The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing.” In other words, they mattered only in so far as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.

Rich Lowry:

After the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry, Republicans had to be wondering, “Could Democrats possibly nominate yet another candidate easily portrayed as an out-of-touch elitist?” With Obama, Democrats appear to be responding with a resounding “Yes, we can!”

EJ Dionne:

But here are the two remaining Democratic candidates, Obama by speaking carelessly and Clinton by piling on shamelessly, doing all they can to make it easy for Republicans to pretend one more time that they are the salt of the earth.

John Dickerson strains to recast Obama's comment in a favorable light and gives it up as a bad job:

Ultimately, in trying to explain what Obama was thinking, I run out of string. He wasn't expressing a sweeping view of the human behavior of small-town people. He was making a tactical point about how politicians appeal to voters at election time, but that tactical point about electoral behavior still relies on an unflattering view of small-town voters. No matter what helping hand you extend him, Obama still claimed that voters have been hoodwinked on Election Day, and no one wants to be told that in the past they've been duped into voting for the wrong person.

And this was funny, from Melinda Henneberger of Slate:

Poor wording was not the problem; on the contrary, it was his precision that was so unfortunate, and his ability to pack half a dozen unintended insults into a single sentence uncanny. And in San Francisco, no less? Roger Ailes couldn't have planned it better, unless he'd maybe followed up the event with some impromptu windsurfing in the bay.

Ann Althouse on "Dreams From My Father":

The story he tells culminates with a trip to Africa as an adult to meet the many relatives who had nothing to do with his upbringing. This he presents as the ultimate homecoming. From a feminist perspective, this troubled me.

I once heard a similar reaction from a very liberal and very irate grandmother, too, since Obama's deplorably racist grandparents raised him for years.

Karl at Team Protein reacts to the Ambinder post and the Bartels study, checks a few exit polls, and opines:

Instead of suggesting that working-class voters have been bamboozled by GOP appeals to their values and culture, [Obama] should have been mocking their intelligence for agreeing with Republican economic policies. That probably would not have gone over well either, but at least Obama would have been addressing his real problem.

RELATED:  As an alternative hypothesis, dare we suggest that working class victims of false consciousness have looked at, or are vaguely aware of, the results achieved by European nations attempting to tax and regulate their way to job creation and growth, and been unimpressed by Democrat attempts to work similar magic here?  I know I was not impressed by the European experiments when I was forming my political allegiance as a much younger man.  [HELP - someone today mentioned that dumping Obama would hurt the Dems more than dumping Hillary because people form their political allegiances in their 20's.  Did anyone else read that, and where?]

And setting aside the 80's, even today I see Europe lags.  I am also laughing out loud in reading this study, which includes this:

Three traditional welfare states – Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden – have been the best performers. In 2005, prime-age employment rates were higher in the Netherlands (81.5 percent), Denmark (83.9 percent), and Sweden (87.7 percent) than in the United States (79.3 percent).

I probably ought to stop laughing and look it up, but what I remember is that the Netherlands reduces their unemployment rate, and raises their employment rate, by declaring a staggering fraction of a vital and dynamic people "disabled".

Comments

[clarice]

Adlai was not just the beginning of Dem candidates condescending to the middle class >Like Kerry and Gore his was a second rate mind and his college work would have confirmed it had not Harvard locked away his grades.

When he died the only book in his expensively furnished apt was the green book.

And yet--as opposed to Eisenhower who coordinated the most massive army in history to victory, Adlai was portrayed by the press as the genius and Eisenhower the clown. The msm has replayed this theme over and over again but oddly those bitter folks in the majority seem not to grasp this point because they do not elect the media-named savants.

[Pica]

Just keeping our memories popping...the following is an article on Bill Clinton's speech on sputhern whites during his campaign. How soon we forget!
As the rumination continues over Barack Obama's comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.

"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.

A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:

"You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"

[glasater]

TM--On Charlie Rose last evening--Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey tries to put a fine point on BO's unfortunate statements in recent days.

Joe Klein follows this interview with a bit more realistic view--although not by much.

Tarranto has some interesting thoughts on how Ayn Rand and Obama are dissimilar.

And this link refers to comments on Amazon regarding the book "What's the Matter With Kansas" that liberals have trotted out to understand why some folks vote for R's.

[glasater]

In the second segment--Charlie Rose has a quick clip with BHO from 2004 wherein he makes his first statements on "clinging to guns".

[Brainster]

I read Frank's book a few years ago. The reason why it's popular with Democrats (especially left-liberals) is that its risible conclusion is that the reason Democrats keep losing is that they aren't leftist enough; he wants them to return to the populist economic rhetoric of a Huey Long. Well, you can imagine how a "something for nothing" argument goes over with the "something for nothing" wing of the Democratic Party.

It has the added benefit of essentially casting the blame for the Democrats' losses on the moderate, DLC, wing of the party. And as we all know, Kos, Jane Hamsher and the rest of the "progressives" hate the DLC with even more passion than they hate Republicans.

The Lakoff book sells the same "something for nothing" baloney, in this case, "framing" the arguments differently rather than actually, you know, changing your positions to be more in tune with the population.

[ParseThis]

That's an awful lot of elitist opinion you're relying on there. Professors and mainstream media types. Do any of them have the credentials to speak on these matters?

So the "working class" folks drifting away from the Dem message may in fact be voting their own economic interest rather than their bitterness.

Or maybe that's what they tell themselves, or maybe that's what the elites like those above tell them. As Bill Kristol's dad says:

There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.

The question is what kind of truth are these elites telling us?

[Sara]

Thomas Sowell:

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the Left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the Left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.

[Mark]

Nothing like a little humor to point out Obama's hypocrisy - http://nationalsquib.com/index.php/barack-obama-ludacris/

[reliapundit]

RE:

"... Obama does fulfill liberalism's transformation since Franklin Roosevelt. ..."

This is the left's shift from modernism to postmodernism.

in the modern phase, the left was still in the thrall of marxism which said the first world's workers would start the global revolution.

by the post-WW2 era, this had obviously failed (they blame the inauthenticity of the workers in the west - an inauthenticity caused by the working class's addiction to consumerism), and the left then reinvented themselves as postmodernists who believed that the revolution would begin in the third world, among the former colonies.

this was concomitant with their shift to neo-cultural relativism which treated all cultures as structurally and functionally equivalent in a moral sense - except for the West which is criminal and racist and dirty.

most of these postmodern lefties have moved on from efforts to inspire authenticity in the American working class. instead most lie about their aims - they put on a mask. like obama.

but in sf, obama's mask slipped.

[daveinboca]

the reason Democrats keep losing is that they aren't leftist enough was the same tune the Trade Unions Congress used in the UK while they had their heads handed to them in election after election.

Margaret Thatcher finally sealed their demise, but the leftist monster keeps regenerating even after multiple defeats. Luckily, these ideologues simply don't learn from their defeats, leaving them again & again easy prey for people with common sense.

[HoiPolloi]

For many months we've all been wondering who is the "real" Obama. Turns out his biography is dead on -- a mix of low-income Chicago neighborhoods and the Harvard Law Review. He's skipped over, oh, 90% of the country. He should have got and worked at K-Mart for a few years instead of being a community organizer.

[Fredex]

As Ronald Reagan famously said, "I didn't leave the Democratic party. The Democratic party left me."

[Tudalu]

Let me remind everyone that Rev. Wright is only 30-40% black at best. Most of his ancestry is white, not black.

Wright is a 30-40% black guy bashing whites and the 'US of KKK-A' under the mantle of an 'authentic' black.

[white trash]

hey dere Osama, errr, Obamy, errr, Obamalama; hey Ted, what's dis here fellers name agin?

Anyaways, guess what? I aint avotin' fer youse nohows, and my vote counts just as much as dat dere billionaires vote in Sanfranny.

O, one more thing, you show yer smug face in my neck of der woodz and youse won't be served up any lattes either.

[Tudalu]

Fellow Republicans,

Let's not grant the leftists the belief that 'rich elites' are their base and poorer rural Americans are ours.

WE have a lock on people who make more than $50K a year, and the margin of GOP dominance widens as the income bracket rises. Democrats capture a majority ONLY of people who make under $30K a year. The Democrat's voter base are college students, low-wage workers, 'artists', 'activists', etc.

The rich SF/NY elites are a very small slice.

[M. Simon]

If John Dickerson had been a string theorist running out of string wouldn't have been a problem.

Unless you consider that BO thinks he is bigger than the Universe.

[pagar]

"For many months we've all been wondering who is the "real" Obama". Now at last we have the Democrats at stop-obama.org willing to tell Us

"Admit it, We Don’t Know Who He Is."

"America is represented by those whose success is the embodiment of the very success of America, not those whose success embodies its historic failures. America is in those who work hard, don’t complain, and drive forward. Whether they are rural Pennsylvanians, Mexican farm laborers, Indian engineers, Vietnamese barbers, Arab car salesmen, or even former Klan members fixing your broken-down Cadillac- as long as these people look forward, as long as they trust that we all deserve to be treated equally, and will be treated equally, whether or not they believed this in their old country or back in the day, they are the one’s Who Represent this Country, with their sweat and simple hopes!"

"Until you show respect for these people, by respecting their values, their stories, their limited means and big dreams, you will never represent anyone in this country except the Phonies, Cowards, Crooks and Fakers. You will, in fact, not represent this Country, because for all our problems, these problems are not what keeps us Hoping, nor keeps us going strong. It is our respect for each other, which makes America our home."

The quote I have put here is the last two paragraphs, it's a long read but it is from some one who seriously wants to Stop Obama.

[M. Simon]

pagar,

Jamal and I regularly trade e-mails. He is a great guy. A little too socialist for my taste but open to reason and the other guys argument.

Easier to clock link for Jamal's post

[Assistant Village Idiot]

I do like the complete confidence of Franks, Obama, Kristof and others that they know what the economic interest of the working class should be. They are sure that those folks are voting against their own best interests. Note that there are no qualifiers, balances, or trade-offs mentioned, as occurs in the real world of jobs and economics.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Wright is a 30-40% black guy bashing whites and the 'US of KKK-A' under the mantle of an 'authentic' black.

Tuala, honey, don't you know the "one drop" rule?

Used to be used to keep people from "passing" as white. Now it's used to let people "pass" as black.

[rich]

Obama made these comments in an attempt to explain why he was having trouble attracting support from white, working-class people. To answer this, he needs to explain what makes Hillary more appealing to this demographic. Of the things he mentioned (religion, guns, immigration, 'antipathy to people not like themselves'), he and Hillary hardly differ on the first three, so, isn't he really ascribing the difference to 'antipathy to people not like themselves' (eg racism)? Isn't this the most insulting part of his statement?

[pagar]

M.Simon,
Thanks, I've enjoyed his writings, but mainly in the context of he dislikes the same politician that I dislike the most. He has the ability to say things that I don't think I could get by with. Anyone who follows the link should check out almost every article there as they all have the same goal. Here's another:

Denunciation? (Obama and Farrakhan)

"For the six years Obama sat in Springfield representing South Chicago, he did so with the blessing of Louis Farrakhan. Since his pastor was an ally, and perennial Farrakhan sidekick, the blessing wasn’t hard to come by. When Obama chose to “denounce” Farrakhan, he was in effect still showing a great deal of respect. After all, he had been blessed by the man, how could he afford to go beyond denouncing a specific, hence nonexistent anti-semitic statement by him, or denounce an award given to Farrakhan for work with ex-convicts, if he was to remain blessed?"

Somehow, I just can't arrange words to make them sound like that.

[BorisTheBear]

Tudalu:
What makes you think that the "college students, ... 'artists', 'activists', etc." don't believe that they are the elite.
I have known far too many student, activists, and artists and almost all of them (100% of the last two categories) feel that they are firmly in the elite. They even go so far as to think that their lack of income proves their elite status.

[Cecil Turner]

Geez - does anybody have a spare ticket for the Clue Train?

Racist! You're using coded speech to suggest Obama's a Muslim!

[OldManRick]

Nobody has asked the obvious question:

If Obama has this much trouble understanding the motivations of everyday Americans, how well well he do trying to understand the motivations of the Iran, North Korea, or Palestine rulers?

Basically, he has shown that he doesn't understand what makes an rural Pennsylvania voter tick. He follows that by asking us to assume that he has the unique ability to understand Iran, Palestine, North Korea and, by talk and reason, convince them to stop their aggressive programs.

I suspect he understands them just as well as he understands middle America.

[franglo]

Yessss! Obama's mask is slipping! Ha ha, that tricksy mulatto! Trying to pull one over on us! So clever and devious! Like the frenchy traitor John F. Kerry! Like boring liar Al Gore! Ha ha! He will be exposed for the marxist terrorist he is! God bless John McCain, that mavericky straight shooting patriot. He is sure to protect our patriotic capital gains tax rate from the marxist trickster Obama. He will ensure we remain killing the Shiite Al Quaeda-- or wait, John, aren't they Sunni? No matter; we will stay killing teh terror Arabs in the Iraq for as long as it takes, on credit to China if we need to. Damn liberals and their plans to create a more transparent and service-oriented political culture! With their piddling uplifting speeches about transcending historical wounds. They clearly just want to take the guns and abort the babies and increase the capital gains tax!! Traitors!!

Hey, I just saved you the next six months of garbage talk. You can just post this and retire from blogging.

[glasater]

frangio--
Take a breath for heaven's sake--it has been proven that terrorists of shiite or sunni stripe have cooperated when it suited their interests.
Your arguments are so--yesterday.

[Danube of Thought]

Ever what an agent provocateur with a room-temperature IQ would sound like? I give you the estimable Franglo.

[Danube of Thought]

Ever *wonder* what, etc....

[franglo]

Well put Danube! In such high spirits we will vanquish the marxist Islamic forces of the Democrat party in the end. Fie on them and their hope, youthful adherents, and global popularity. Let's preserve the stars and stripes and elect our old chum John McCain. Vote John McCain-- he was against torture and tax cuts before he was for them! Such bravery in the face of common practice. You could even call him a maverick. Well I'd be his goose anytime! Call me Cindy! Praise the lord and pass the Percocet!

[amr]

Bill Gates and I have at least one thing in common; neither of us graduated from college. I did very well with my technical training from the military after I dropped out of college in 1965; while not accumulating the wealth that Bill has, but enough that I am rich per Mr. Obama and the vast majority of Democratic Party leadership. Oh, I live in rural, small town America and the only thing I am bitter about is the amount of taxes I pay considering the waste I see in congress and my state’s legislature. I guess I do cling to my guns though, but I do that to keep the government from taking all I have, as was intended by the 2nd amendment.

[atypical white person]

Since today was tax day, I saw several people noting the percentage of income taxes paid by the top 1%, 10%, etc. of earners. Maybe someone can find numbers breaking down income tax payments by race. I think the problem with Kansas, from the Democratic perspective, is that these slobs may not know much, but they know whose ox is being gored when the Democrats promise to raise taxes.

[Topsecretk9]

Bill Gates and I have at least one thing in common; neither of us graduated from college. I did very well with my technical training from the military after I dropped out of college in 1965; while not accumulating the wealth that Bill has, but enough that I am rich per

Neither did I - self taught woman owned corporation now. I have worked since I was 14 and was able to get a workers permit.

[Topsecretk9]

Damn liberals and their plans to create a more transparent and service-oriented political culture!

If that was parody it was hilarious. You forgot Dems grasp of math, right?

[Cecil Turner]

He will ensure we remain killing the Shiite Al Quaeda-- or wait, John, aren't they Sunni?

This is dumber'n dirt. The media, having finally figured out there's a difference between Shia and Sunni, would like to pretend that Iran doesn't harbor the latter, or provide aid to Al Qaeda in Iraq, despite multiple reports to the contrary. The meme is reminiscent of nothing so much as denials that "secular" Iraq would have anything to do with Al Qaeda. Suuuure they wouldn't. Fedayeen much?

Call me Cindy!

You heiress to a beer fortune, by any chance? Thought not. Application denied.

[Soylent Red]

would like to pretend that Iran doesn't harbor the latter, or provide aid to Al Qaeda in Iraq, despite multiple reports to the contrary.

Roger on that Cecil. Maybe someone should point out despite being a majority Shiite country:

1. Iran is allied with Syria, an Arab state dominated by Sunni (74%)

2. Iran vocally shills for the Palestinians, Arabs who are 90% Sunni

3. Iran financially supports the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas, both Sunni terror organizations, owned and operated by Arabs.

4. The Washington Post reported the 9/11 Commission had established links between AQ (Sunni) and Iran in 2004. I quote:

On Iran, by contrast, the report concludes that al Qaeda's relationship with Tehran and its client, the Hezbollah militant group, was long-standing and included cooperation on operations, the officials said. It also details previously unknown links between the two, including the revelation that as many as 10 of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have passed through Iran in late 2000 and early 2001 because Iranian border guards were instructed to let al Qaeda associates travel freely, sources familiar with the report have said.

Bottom line is, Iran doesn't give a big rats ass about the racial or religious affiliation of your group. If you are a terror organization, their checkbook is out.

[Louia Wheeler]

Cecil Turner, the "Clue Train" and the "Peace Train" have nothing to do with one another, so no racism is involved. It is not a slur on Obama being a Muslim. The "Peace Train" is straight forward Vietnam anti-war propaganda. You bringing it up shows where you head is at.

The "Clue Train" comes from business. It is the observation that many people in a failing organization knew it was failing and exacrly why, but they couldn't get the management to pay the slightest attention or corrective action. Eventually, the "Clue Train" leaves the station taking with it any chance of saving the business from its stupidity.

This applies to Obama because people on the left should be able to see his cluelessness with the common voters. This has been a reoccurring problem for the Democrat party; they still have the "common Man" rhetoric, but without any of its substance.

The Party leadership doesn't have a clue as to why ordinary people have stopped voting for them. They keep fielding candidates like Gore, Kerry and now Obama who appeal to the far left, but not the centrist voters. The "Clue Train" reference means that the Democrat Party is out of touch with reality. Many Democrats are.

Once again, the Democrats incompetence saves the Republican Party from its bungling.

[Sara]

Isn't this the most insulting part of his statement?

It matters not what the subject is or what the response is, Obama and his campaign reduce everything to racism. For the "post-racial" candidate, they are sure fixated on looking for the "real" meaning, which is their way of saying, racist.

[Cecil Turner]

You bringing it up shows where you head is at.

In general, I support your train of logic. In this particular case, however, you might want to ratchet up the sensitivity on the irony detector about a quarter-turn.

[Seixon]

Norway is a welfare state, although not a traditional one since they have oil up the jajoo. The unemployment rate in Norway is currently a whopping 2.1%. Although like the Netherlands, I doubt it is calculated in the same way that the US unemployment rate is.

[Seixon]

Oh, and Norwegian government employs about 1/3 of the labor force. How does that compare to the US?

[whosonfirst]

I'll tell you who Obama is - he's not Clinton and that makes him the lesser of two evils. Save your bile and your cleverness until she's been disposed of.

[M. Simon]

who,

The Dems are stuck with Barry O.

In any case we must keep hope alive. So the Dems keep shredding each other.

I have seen some polling numbers at a D anti-Obama site that says if Barry-O gets the nod 56% of Clinton supporters will vote McCain. About a month ago it was 33%. Even assuming the numbers will not reflect November results they are moving in the right direction.

Mo bitter is Mo better.

Simon

[Vaquero]

No need to save any bile & cleverness on BHO till hillary is disposed, we are equal opportunity in the efforts to completely destroy the 2 frauds running for Dem ticket...so far this is working to a tee thanks to those count-all-the-votes Dems from FL 2000 and their glorious leadership! What a pack of scum tha Dem party is and it has become very difficult for the modern Marxist to disguise their true goals.

[megapotamus]

I will second the notion that Clinton is marginaly preferable to Obammy (jackass above, do you think you are ameliorating Barry's troubles with this crap? It's more of the same, dude. We are dealing with real genius here.) however each have shown a private willingness to prosecute the Iraq war somewhat responsibly. But so what? Compared to these two shmucks McCain really IS the super-smart, super-patriotic, super-hero so peurily caricatured above. Show no mercy for a Clinton, friends. Have they ever demonstrated such in the meanest regard. Hell no. Those who are kind to the cruel will be cruel to the kind. Of course it is all relative.

[willis]

"Damn liberals and their plans to create a more transparent and service-oriented political culture!"

What the hell is that?

[John Blake]

The O'Bama tribe of darkest Ireland was known for centuries to boil missionaries while carving Crystal Skulls. Then came Louis "the Black" Farrakhan, who averred the Skulls to be not only White but entirely too transparent for his taste.

In setting Black Lou aright, the famed anthropologist Pennsylvania Smith peered into Lou's own skull, but discovered Lou's remote-control had failed: Beams from the Second Galaxy had short-circuited, converting Lou-Lou from bigot in thrall to extraterrestrial push-pins into just plain racist bigot.

Obama, we hardly knew ye! No doubt that's just as well.

[John Blake]

The O'Bama tribe of darkest Ireland was known for centuries to boil missionaries while carving Crystal Skulls. Then came Louis "the Black" Farrakhan, who averred the Skulls to be not only White but entirely too transparent for his taste.

In setting Black Lou aright, the famed anthropologist Pennsylvania Smith peered into Lou's own skull, but discovered Lou's remote-control had failed: Beams from the Second Galaxy had short-circuited, converting Lou-Lou from bigot in thrall to extraterrestrial push-pins into just plain racist bigot.

Obama, we hardly knew ye! No doubt that's just as well.

[Thomas Jackson]

Very nice survey and analysis. Seems like the dhimmierats have to periodically run a candidate who is so extreme that even Rosie O'Donnell votes for the GOP candidate. Snobama isn't just clueless, he's an ignorant crank devotee of Marx.

[sophy]

Welcome to our game world, my friend asks me to buy some habbo gold .