The bored and restless Punditrocracy, maintaining their staunch avoidance of relevance or importance, furiously lit like garbage scow flies upon Barack Obama’s alleged ‘elitism’ for pointing out that people in small towns are bitter and angry at being ignored by politicians once they’ve been elected. He added, if one bothered to listen to more than the out-of-context soundbite of his San Francisco comments, that they tend to vote for things such as guns and God and against immigrants because these are issues which the GOP has carefully constructed as distracting vents for their boiling frustrations. Contrary to the Pundicrats gasping shock at such a blunder as telling the truth they hate that Obama didn’t seem to rile voters much with his ‘bitter’ talk many even agreed wholeheartedly.
Of course the Hill People, sensing the nearness of electoral oblivion, had to get what political mileage they could out of Obama’s ‘gaffe,’ but Hillary herself might have left out the prosaic and artificial-sounding anecdote of her father taking her out as a small child and teaching her how to shoot a firearm. Growing up in the same ’50’s America as Hillary, it just doesn’t seem credible to me that Dad Rodham would have grabbed his young daughter and stuck a 30-06 rifle in her tiny hands more likely he would have told her to go join Mom in the kitchen for pointers on creating the perfect Kraft cheese casserole while he took his sons out hunting. Ah, well, truth is the first casualty of war and political campaigns.
But the stern media consternation over Obama’s remarks, and their desperate flailing in trying to dub him as another hapless, out-of-touch Kerry ‘elitist,’ reached a pinnacle of absurd hilarity yesterday on MSNBC when Norah O’Donnell, as attractive as she is vapid, chuckled and smirked over Obama referring to the high price of arugula when he was campaigning in Iowa earlier this year. “Why,” hooted O’Donnell, “they don’t even have arugula there!” Although she and her pundit guests didn’t catch it, Norah was displaying her own aloof elitism, as if it were a scarlet ‘E’ emblazoned on her forehead. Our six-and-seven figure Nationally Televised Media don’t get out much among the rabble; if they did, they’d realize the rubes in Iowa, as Media Matters has noted, not only know what arugula is, but grow it and eat it, and even occasionally wash it down with cappuccinos and lattes. (Yes, they actually have Starbucks and other gourmet coffee outlets out in the Hawkeye State, as well as many other parts of Fly-Over Country.) Why, even my local little coffee shop, which used to feature only one humble grind poured by a pleasant middle-aged waitress from a glass Cory carafe, now has some foreign-sounding caffeinated drinks on the menu.
Times have changed all over the land, but to the over-compensated and insulated royalty of the Punditrocracy we are still stuck in the ’50s, with their condescending babble of lunch-pail workers (who carries a lunch pail to work anymore?), and ‘Reagan Democrats’ (there aren’t any these days), and anxiousness to tap into the heartfelt concerns of small-town folk they would grandly ignore on the street, unless they happened to be cracking contemptuous ‘in crowd’ jokes at their expense. Like the politicians Obama was talking about, the Big Media quickly forgets the cares of Wal-Mart America once the voting is over.
It’s a given that all three of the presidency-pursuers left standing are among the elite in education and wealth poor relations with community college educations aren’t allowed to run for president these days but the spectacle of the Media Upper-Crust taking umbrage on behalf of the Little People, after burying them in years of Washington effluvia and Wall Street bunkum, is enough to inspire an Elvis moment with the .45 drawing a bead on the TV screen.
A shame most of us are too broke these days in Bush’s New World Order Economy to afford replacing the damn thing.
This Day in Hell
April 15, 1913 Wealthy drownees of the White Star Line’s ‘Titanic’ celebrate their first year in Hell with a gala reenactment of the unsinkable ship’s sinking. Events include Eat Your Fortune in Dollar Bills and Go Chase the Penny, Fool. Finishing off the festivities, the swells are forced to pay Satan 99 percent of their total worth in income taxes! Since they just dined on their money — good luck, guys!
It may surprise David and others whom I have argued with, but this one deserves a title similar to a recent Inspection: “What O’Bama Didn’t Say.” Once again people, including Hillary, are inserting words where they weren’t before. If someone can prove to me he said, “all,” or even, “most,” I’ll buy into the elitist meme’. Otherwise they’re all making it up.
Note: I have lived near: pretty much in, one of the biggest cities in the world, and in the country. He’s right: that element has always been there. What percentage? I have no idea. My own cousin hates Blacks with a passion just like his father. Ironically, they both grew up in a town where a darkened face was seen about as often as it was at a KKK rally… unless a noose was being used.
I just wish the candidates would take my advice and start standing up for each other as I suggested. It won’t happen… and because of that the chances for victory in November recede in our rearview mirror. Unfortunately, I believe, supporters and candidates only have themselves to blame… except I still think the actual original source for the fire under this pot would be the media and political Right Wing trolls.
But it doesn’t help when people post things like the first post after this article. Note my comment and the response. I even commented about it further down too.
People need to get a grip on their emotions and a handle on their maturity.