Two views of Obama: one is the truth and the other is Bob Novak

let's go with novak first...

Traveling the country the past few months, I have encountered habitual Republican voters so entranced by Barack Obama's potential to lead the nation that they plan to vote for him in November. Once Hillary Clinton's supporters return to the fold, Obama Republicans could produce a Democratic presidential landslide. But Obama's recent missteps jeopardize their support and imperil his election.

These apostate Republicans were never deluded into considering him anything other than a doctrinaire liberal who wants a more intrusive government, with higher taxation and tougher regulation. But they have leaned toward him as an exceptional candidate in the mold of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, a post-partisan leader and a welcome contrast to George W. Bush's failed presidency. That impression is threatened by Obama's performance the past 10 days, climaxing in Wednesday night's debate with Clinton.

[...]

Democratic pros feel that the San Francisco incident [Obama's declaration at a closed-door fund-raiser in San Francisco that "bitter" small-towners in Pennsylvania and elsewhere "cling to guns or religion"] halted an Obama surge in Pennsylvania that might have won him the state and ended Clinton's campaign tomorrow. What really worries them, however, is the impact on independents and Republicans who had been entranced by the young man from Chicago. Now, they wonder whether the appealing unifier is really a divider.

novak is the quintessential role model for self-important pundits everywhere, using polished and articulate language and an oh-so-reasonable argument to convince even the most discerning of readers among us that he's making trenchant observations from a perch high above us mere mortals, and dispensing those observations with a wisdom hard-earned through many years of immersion in the world of political reality...

it takes a fair amount of time surfing our fabulous internet, bouncing from news site to blog to news site to blog, to even begin to see through what a guy like novak is really doing - namely, presenting a well-crafted piece designed to unobtrusively force-feed us the prevailing opinion of the elites who really call all of the shots in this country... there are many bloggers out there who rail against novak's b.s... speaking for myself, i prefer to ignore it, unless, as in this particular instance, it serves to instruct and allows us to compare and contrast novak's high-minded drivel with the plain-spoken truth...

now, let's look at that truth, as contained in a letter to the wapo...

from yesterday's edition...

When Sen. Barack Obama made his "bitter" comments at a recent fundraiser in San Francisco ["Opponents Paint Obama as an Elitist; Clinton, McCain Try to Score Off 'Bitter' Remark," news story, April 12], he neglected to name two behaviors that blue-collar people in Pennsylvania have turned to -- abusing alcohol and drugs -- probably because his mother brought him up to be polite.

Visiting my northeastern Pennsylvania home town of Athens over the decades, I have seen exactly what Mr. Obama described -- a result of the grim realities of life in a dying culture in a dying place. Many a meth lab exists in those rolling hills, and many people are struggling with alcoholism. And, yes, many do love their guns, many love Jesus and many are trapped in an economic hell created by the neglect and marginalization they have suffered at the hands of Washington.

Mr. Obama got it right, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to stop pandering to the media's desire for sensationalism. Perhaps she should consider a trip north of Scranton and her comfort zone -- up some winding, poorly paved roads past empty farmhouses to where she will find the very folks Mr. Obama talked about. I'm sure that they have some questions for her about where she was while they slid off Earth's edge into apathy and, yes, bitterness.

i don't need to point out the difference... it leaps out and hits you right in the face... funny how truth usually does that...

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