Barack Obama says
words matter. They can also bite.
At a fundraiser in
Pacific Heights, a wealthy enclave in San Francisco, Obama reportedly
remarked:
You go into some of 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.
Oops.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain lost no time making political hay of Obama's gaffe.
Clinton pounced:
It's being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who face hard times are bitter. Well that's not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania. I meet people who are resilient, optimist positive who are rolling up their sleeves.
Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights hard for your future, your jobs, your families.
Obama's words are an affront to small town values and cultural traditions. They're also a bitter pill to swallow for every American who opposes
illegal immigration as an assault on national sovereignty and an affront to the rule of law.
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