September 15, 2008 • Vol. 14, No. 1 Download Now! (pdf)

 

EDITORIAL
Thanks, Guys
by William Kristol

SCRAPBOOK
Sarah Palin's Foreign Policy Team

ARTICLES
McCain Finds the Right Wingman
by Stephen F. Hayes

A Party of Mavericks
by Fred Barnes

Axis of Honor
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Punishing Russia
by Gary Schmitt

Biden's One Accomplishment
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Tax Cuts, Real and Imaginary
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Among the Paultards
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Why They Hate Her
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Alien Nation
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Founders Afloat
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Poet of Reason
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Dearly Beloved
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CASUAL
Down in the Boondocks
by Philip Terzian

CORRESPONDENCE
Campaign finance and more

PARODY
'US Weekly' Salutes Stalin


« Helping Liberals Assuage their Guilt | Main | Obama's Liberalism Distilled »

This Is What He Thinks?

As reported by the Politico's Ben Smith, Obama psychoanalyzes Pennsylvania's white voters:

You go into 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 Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

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.

That's not going to go over terribly well in rural Pennsylvania, though it was probably a hit with the San Francisco audience that first heard it. Still, it isn't a gaffe, just a revealing slip of the tongue. Orthodox, secular liberals like Obama tend to explain religious fervor as a symptom of fear and bitterness. Likewise the irrational racism, xenophobia, and attachment to firearms of the "typical white person."

But it is strange that Obama would include anti-trade sentiment in this diatribe. Isn't Obama against every free trade deal this country has ever signed? Hot Air has the response from the McCain camp, no word yet from Hillary Clinton responds here: "Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them."

Update: Go read Ace's headline.

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