Bill Clinton says: Do not look down on the bitter clingers.

"Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them..."

"A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things... I know because I come from this world."...

"A lot of these people … all they’ve got is their hunting and their fishing... Or they’re living in a place where they don’t have much police presence. Or they’ve been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all."

He feels their pain...



He feels their pain, which includes feeling that they are getting looked down on, so don't let them notice, he's saying, even as he lets the big Democratic donors see that he knows just as well as they do that the bitter clingers are a bunch of losers.

Don't look down you nose at them. Whenever you eyes are trained on the bitter clingers, project feel-your-pain empathy. Save your condescension for the off-camera, off-mike back rooms.

"Is 'God, guns, and gays' losing its peril for Democrats?"

A strange way to phrase a question, in this Greg Sargent column. What does this stunning lack of parallelism reveal about the Mind of Sargent?

Indeed, I’m cautiously hopeful that this time around, Democrats will overcome their typical skittishness on guns. ... [T]he politics of this issue have changed: Democrats are less reliant on conservative, rural, gun-owning voters than at any time in the history of the party, due to Dem gains among socially moderate suburbanites, and ongoing demographic shifts that continue to boost the vote share among minorities and young voters  — all voter groups who may not see “gun rights” as a potent issue.

You know those "rural" folk, who cling to their guns and religion. Maybe they can be ignored by Democrats who have other blocs out of which to build victories. But to throw "gays" on the list... well, that's not something those horrible peasants cling to like guns and religion. It's something they're supposedly repelled by, perhaps something like the way those socially moderate suburbanites are imagined to have an aversion to God and guns.

I guess Sargent might love alliteration. GGG. But someone ought to tell him that — coming from a very conspicuous gay guy — GGG stands for "good, giving, and game":  ("good in bed," "giving equal time and equal pleasure," and "game for anything — within reason'").

And some people think "Guns, God and Government" — the work of a not-quite-earless guy with a lady's name.

What does GGG mean to you? I'm thinking, for me, grammar, graphomania, and...

Is Obama a man of "meaningful action" when it comes to gun control?

Let's go back to December 30, 1999, an article in the Chicago Tribune:

In a surreal day of political maneuvering, even for Springfield, [Senate President James "Pate" Philip] defied [Gov. George Ryan] for the third time this month, leaving the governor glowering and vowing to make passage of the [gun control] bill his priority when the spring session begins Jan. 12. ... Ryan began the day confident his last-minute push across the state had won him enough votes to prevail over his chief Republican nemesis.

But then the governor discovered that two senators who had promised to vote for his compromise bill — Barack Obama (D-Chicago) and Kathleen Parker (R-Northbrook) — had decided to remain on vacation instead of returning to the capital for the third special session since the original law was struck down on Dec. 2.

Furious, Ryan tried to track them down, hoping to send a state plane to whisk them back to Springfield. But no one was in Parker's office, and aides to Obama, who was in Hawaii, refused to tell the governor's staff how to find him....

Here's Obama's version of the story from "The Audacity of Hope" (which I was searching for evidence of his opinion on gun control):

[D]uring the Christmas holidays, after having traveled to Hawaii for an abbreviated five-day trip to visit my grandmother and reacquaint myself with Michelle and then-eighteen-month-old Malia, the state legislature was called back into special session to vote on a piece of gun control legislation. With Malia sick and unable to fly, I missed the vote, and the bill failed. Two days later, I got off the red-eye at O’Hare Airport, a wailing baby in tow, Michelle not speaking to me, and was greeted by a front-page story in the Chicago Tribune indicating that the gun bill had fallen a few votes short, and that state senator and congressional candidate Obama “had decided to remain on vacation” in Hawaii. My campaign manager called, mentioning the potential ad [incumbent Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush] might be running soon—palm trees, a man in a beach chair and straw hat sipping a mai tai, a slack key guitar being strummed softly in the background, the voice-over explaining, “While Chicago suffered the highest murder rate in its history, Barack Obama…”

(For what it's worth: Rush's son had been shot to death in October.)

Is Obama a man of "meaningful action" when it comes down to real gun-control legislation? I'm betting no. He'll talk about guns when plying liberals with lines like "cling to guns or religion" and while performing in the Theater of Grief after a momentous massacre, but when it comes to actual action, he's more the man in the beach chair and straw hat sipping a mai tai .

"It's not surprising that we're so bitter, and we cling to hand grenades and Anglican religion and we use Va-a-a-a-se-line."

That quote ends the previous post, which you need to absorb — perhaps with a piece of toast — to ready yourself for the following exercise in photo comparison.

We have here 2 famous expressions. The first is "Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park" (in the 1962 Diane Arbus photograph) and the second is President Obama, enjoying the perks of the presidency, doing the "not impressed" pose with McKayla Maroney:


(Click photos to enlarge.)

"Question: What kind of dumbass packs a freaking grenade in his carry-on ... and accidentally tries to take it onto a plane?"

"Answer: Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne. And he shut down an Oklahoma City airport in the process."

According to reports, Coyne was flying to LAX to catch a preview of the new Flaming Lips musical "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" -- and told police he was given the dead grenade at a party as a joke.

Shocker, the grenade reportedly resulted in several missed flights ... and lots of wasted money -- but once TSA determined it was harmless, they let Coyne go.

Sorries duly tweeted:

Sorry Sorry Sorry!! Everyone that was inconvenienced because of my grenade at OKC airport!!moby.to/gf33hv
— Wayne Coyne (@waynecoyne) November 10, 2012

ADDED: To demonstrate The Flaming Lips to Meade, I found "She Don't Use Jelly" in YouTube, where there are over 1500 comments, most of which seem to be new verses for the song — which is the kind of song that you can learn immediately and then make up your own words to off the top of your head in the style of the original. I know a girl who... etc. etc. It's easier than limericks. Try it!

Top comment at YouTube:

I know a King who likes to kill
in front of the public - coz it's such a thrill,
but he don't use nooses
and he don't need the police.
He don't use lions
or any of these.
He uses guuuu-iii-lll-otines

"She Don't Use Jelly" came out in 1993 — which was a fun year for watching TV around here. Wikipedia says:

According to Coyne, "The song came to me very quickly...."

I'll bet it did. Let's all strum a guitar, sing like a child (or is that singing like Neil Young?), and use just about the first silly words that come to mind and rhyme. The song got popular a year after its release when it was mocked on "Beavis and Butt-Head."

"You know the chick who makes you toast? Heh heh. So what?"

"I can make toast. Heh heh."

"Really."

"Uh oh. I think this is college music."...

"You know how you can tell this is college music? They're in a field."

"Yeah. Fields suck."

Fascinating how something supremely mockable, originally seen being mocked, gets to be thoroughly liked, and here is this band, 20 years later, still popular, making a musical, and that dumb, easy song is still their biggest hit. The mystery of American pop culture.

AND: I don't accept Coyne's tweeted apology. I want him to apologize by taking that hand grenade and getting a photograph of himself made in the pose of "Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park" — by Diane Arbus:

Arbus captured this photograph by having the boy stand while moving around him, claiming she was trying to find the right angle. The boy became impatient and told her to "Take the picture already!" His expression conveys his exasperation and impatience with the whole endeavor, as the contact sheet for the shoot reveals. In other pictures, he is seen as a happy child.

But the picture became an icon of what's wrong with America — with its mentally ill attachment to weapons. It's not surprising that we're so bitter, and we cling to hand grenades and Anglican religion and we use Va-a-a-a-se-line.

The center of America, Obama wrote, is "a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty."

I'm just dipping back into "Dreams from My Father," looking for something — looking to see if the young Obama, the child Obama, ever played the Hasbro game "Battleship," which somehow sprang to his mind last night at the debate as he was talking about the military. That phrase has nothing to do with battles or toys, but it leaped out at me for its similarity to his old "bitter clingers" remark:

"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 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."

Here's the larger context for the quote in the post headline:

But an old, sepia-toned photograph on the bookshelf... showed Toot’s grandparents, of Scottish and English stock, standing in front of a ramshackle homestead, unsmiling and dressed in coarse wool, their eyes squinting at the sun-baked, flinty life that stretched out before them. Theirs were the faces of American Gothic, the WASP bloodline’s poorer cousins....

 That was the world in which my grandparents had been raised, the dab-smack, landlocked center of the country, a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty. They had grown up less than twenty miles away from each other—my grandmother in Augusta, my grandfather in El Dorado, towns too small to warrant boldface on a road map—and the childhoods they liked to recall for my benefit portrayed small-town, Depression-era America in all its innocent glory: Fourth of July parades and the picture shows on the side of a barn; fireflies in a jar and the taste of vine-ripe tomatoes, sweet as apples; dust storms and hailstorms and classrooms filled with farm boys who got sewn into their woolen underwear at the beginning of winter and stank like pigs as the months wore on.

The secret video of Romney talking to donors.

Presented at Mother Jones as if it's quite disturbing, but I don't see anything bad in there at all.

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

And then he says he can't "worry about those people" as he tries to win votes, because they will never be convinced. He's not saying he doesn't care about them as citizens and human beings, just that he won't devote any attention to trying to cull some of their votes.

Compare the statements Obama made to donors in 2008, which were leaked out — the famous "bitter clingers" remarks.

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," Obama said. "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."

Obama made a problematic judgment call in trying to explain working class culture to a much wealthier audience. He described blue collar Pennsylvanians with a series of what in the eyes of Californians might be considered pure negatives: guns, clinging to religion, antipathy, xenophobia.

The NYT presents liberal fear-mongers as if they were intelligent, sober critics of Republican policy.

Monica Davey, reporting for the NYT from Madison, Wisconsin, looks at why "Many Workers in [the] Public Sector [Are] Retiring Sooner" and what it will mean for the states. Excerpts:

“You start to feel like, ‘What will they do next?’ ” said Bob McLinn, 63, a labor union president who left his job with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections in March, earlier than he planned, after political leaders pressed to cut benefits and collective bargaining rights for workers.

“There’s always been this promise that if you came to work and did your job, at the end there would be your reward — a defined retirement. The idea was you could retire with respect and dignity. But that whole idea has been slashed now, and I felt like, ‘What is the point?’ ”

What demagoguery! We have to contribute more to our pensions as we get each new month's pay, but there was no cut in the ultimate reward. Getting out early isn't a way to preserve the retirement benefit. It's just a decision not to continue putting a chunk of your pay into your pension as you go along working before retirement. If McLinn's communication is typical of labor union presidents, no wonder so many people freaked out and protested last winter.

Now, are states better off if a lot of older workers leave their jobs?

“What we’re going to see is a lot of young people reinventing the wheel,” said Karen Gunderson, 56, who retired this year from her information technology job with the State of Wisconsin after 26 years, a few years sooner than she had intended, saying she felt that public workers were being “turned into scapegoats” for a troubled economy.

“We’re going to waste a lot of tax dollars with young people attempting things that were tried before. You can get people cheaper, but whether you save money, I don’t know.”

I'm mostly curious why the NYT chose to feature this quote and the one above. This isn't serious analysis of what the state did and the real effect on workers. It's more of an effort to propagate hysteria. What did Gunderson — a woman who thinks she was scapegoated — do in "information technology" that younger workers — working at lower pay — would do more expensively? The secret wisdom of the elders is lost, apparently, when somebody retires, and their replacements must puzzle over how to do the complicated work the oldsters had down pat. Is that what it's really like?

[H]ere, in Wisconsin, the battle over public workers may have been the loudest... Union supporters pushed back, leading an effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker next year over the issue. But government workers also left: 16,785 workers filed retirement applications as of Oct. 31, while in all of 2010, 11,750 workers had done so.

“It’s about fear,” said Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association. “A lot of people are seeing this war on public employees and saying, let’s get out.”

Where did that all that irrational fear come from? A lot of people are seeing this war... why? Why are they seeing the governor's effort to fix the budget as a "war"? Why do they see themselves as "scapegoats"?

Remember "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things"?

Why are so many fears in the air, and so many of them unfounded?...

We compound our worries beyond all reason....

We had better learn to doubt our inflated fears before they destroy us. Valid fears have their place; they cue us to danger. False and overdrawn fears only cause hardship....

Any analysis of the culture of fear that ignored the news media would be patently incomplete, and of the several institutions most culpable for creating and sustaining scares the news media are arguably first among equals....

The link goes to a long passage from that book at the "Bowling for Columbine" website. "Bowling for Columbine," you may remember, was the Michael Moore movie about guns in America, and the point was that the gun-clinging sector of America was seized with irrational fear.

I'd like to see some balance in the diagnosis of fear in the media, for example, the New York Times.

Are Pennsylvania hunters upset about the boom in natural gas drilling in the state?

Katharine Seelye deploys some purple prose to help NYT readers think that they are.

STATE GAME LAND 59, Pa. — For those who have ever stalked deer, turkey and bear here in “God’s Country” in north central Pennsylvania, this hunting season is like no other.

God's Country? Yeah, that's the way the folk talk out there in State Game Land 59, Pennsylvania.

For one thing, it is louder. The soundtrack of birds chirping, thorns scraping against a hunter’s brush pants and twigs crunching underfoot is now accompanied by the dull roar of compressor stations and the chugging of big trucks up these hills.

This sounds like one of those NPR reports with a soft-voiced radioman crunching through the leaves.

The Marcellus Shale, a vast reserve of natural gas lies beneath some of this state’s most prized game lands. And now, more and more drills are piercing the hunting grounds. Nine wells have cropped up on this one game land of roughly 7,000 wooded acres in Potter County, and permits have been issued for 19 more.

7,000 wooded acres! Oh my gosh! That's half the size of Manhattan! Before long, what will be left of Pennsylvania?

An old dirt road that meandered up a ridge here has been widened and fortified. Acres of aspen, maple and cherry trees have been cut. In their place is an industrial encampment of rigs, pipes and water-storage ponds, all to support the extraction of natural gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.

Acres of the most beautiful possible trees that people in NYC are capable of picturing. Aspen! Maple! Cherry! Replaced by — God help us! — industrial equipment! Oh, noooo! We had our heart set on thinking about you Pennsylvania rural types as rust-belters.

Remember Barack Obama, campaigning for President, back in 2008? He said, speaking to elites in San Francisco:

"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."

Somehow these communities are gonna regenerate... and now, they are regenerating. They've got a fabulous boom in the works. But the NYT would like us to think that the boom is mussing up the old hunting grounds? There's machinery grinding and clanking making it harder to hear the crunch of fallen leaves!

“Who wants to go into their deer stand in the predawn darkness and listen to a compressor station?” lamented Bob Volkmar, 63, an environmental scientist who went grouse hunting the other day through these noisy autumnal woods. “It kind of ruins the experience.”

Volkmar is a hunter, yes, but he's also an an environmental scientist. That is, he's got a pretty sweet job. What does the average Pennsylvania hunter think? Isn't he stoked about the economic development and the potential for good jobs for lots of Pennsylvanians? And doesn't he know plenty of alternative hunting grounds?

The text of the State of the Union Address from a Democratic insider who has violated the White House embargo.

Via the National Journal.

UPDATE 1:

With their votes, [the people] determined that governing will now be a shared responsibility between parties. New laws will only pass with support from Democrats and Republicans. We will move forward together, or not at all – for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.

But the challenges were "bigger than party, and bigger than politics" before, when you "move[d] forward" on your own, with only your party. Now, you're into togetherness, and it's togetherness with the party that isn't into "moving forward."

At stake right now is not who wins the next election – after all, we just had an election. 

Ha. What a lie! The next election is completely at stake. As for the last election, some of us think it was really important. But you're saying: Eh, it's over. Let's turn away from electoral politics. But we know damned well you're working on 2012, and you opponents want some attention paid to what just happened last November.

UPDATE 2:

Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion....

When was that true? Who is he talking about? I'm 60 and I don't remember that ever being true.

That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts of once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear – proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game....

Proud... and bitter, clinging to their guns and religion. 

What we can do – what America does better than anyone – is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook....

Edison? Can I have my incandescent light bulbs back?

UPDATE 3: I'm skipping a ton of stuff to get to health care:

Now, I’ve heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new health care law. So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses.

What I’m not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

He'll work together with Republicans, but only if they offer little tweaks to the big overhaul he rammed through, with no consideration for their opinion, when they didn't hold the seats in Congress.

UPDATE 4: Hey! I'm just noticing that Obama never says "The state of the union is [?]."

And now, what will I do when the actual speech comes on television? I don't know, but I feel so liberated! I'll just give you some chit-chat about whatever strikes me. The visuals. The screw-ups. The intonations. The hints of gray...

UPDATE 5: I've put up a new post for all the real-time style-over-substance chit-chat.

"Barack Obama is the most partisan politician since Richard Nixon."

Says Victor Davis Hanson, explaining why call for "civility" is bogus:

His brief Senate record, his health-care partisanship of 2009, his snickering amid audience applause after the “inadvertent” middle-fingering of Hillary Clinton, and his polarizing metaphorical speech (e.g., knives, guns, kicking ass, getting angry, getting in their face, hostage takers, trigger fingers, tearing up) all attest to that.

That Obama is a postracial mellifluent Chicago politician does not mean that he is not a Chicago politician. That he blasts the “fat cats,” the “stupidly” acting police, and the limb-lopping surgeons, or that his attorney general calls the American people “cowards,” is typical, not aberrant. For 2012, President Obama will have raised $1 billion in cash. He knows from 2008 (“cling to guns or religion,” “typical white person,” “gun to a knife fight”) that his own emotionalism and polarization both earn him cash and create the “them” against “us” (minorities, youth, gays, women) binaries that might draw attention away from an agenda that a majority simply does not want. Obama has always used polarizing politics, coupled with calls for bipartisanship, to great effect, and he surely — as we just saw again in October 2010 (“punish,” “backseat,” “enemies”) — cannot stop now....

Indeed, hours after President Obama’s calls for a new landscape of civility, Rep. Steven Cohen (D., Tenn.) was comparing Republican opponents of the health-care legislation to Nazis from the House floor, while Slate published a screed by Emily Bazelon on  “Why I Loathe My Connecticut Senator,” with serial expressions of how she “loathed” and “despised” Sen. Joe Lieberman.

"Last week, all humanity thrilled to the footage caught on a mall security camera of a walking-and-texting woman falling into a fountain."

"This week, the once-anonymous woman is doing an airing-of-grievances media blitz, complete with threats of legal action against those who made her hilarious klutziness an internet sensation."

Is there a cause of action for the invasion of privacy that takes place these days when someone catches something stupid that you do — in public — and puts it on YouTube? Hey, don't be stupid! The consequences are much higher today with the internet and viral video. It's a big deterrent. If the legal system turns that deterrent into a monetary gain, it will be incentivizing stupidity.

We need to learn how to live in the world as it is. When we're in public, we have a new dimension of visibility because of digital cameras and the internet. I've been thinking about the effect this is having on politics. Politicians have to watch every single thing they say. That's difficult.

Remember how one word uttered by George Allen destroyed him, because he foolishly thought he was speaking only to a small group and did not foresee how it would play on YouTube. Politicians will have to speak clearly, with a consistent message, and not something tailored to the particular group that they are speaking to at the moment. Obama was able to overcome his "bitter clingers" remark, which was specially designed to reach the hearts of wealthy San Franciscans. But it wasn't easy, and it still dogs him.

Heads up, everybody. Don't stare at the one thing that's right in front of your nose — whether it's your Blackberry or your biggest, wealthiest fans. Pay attention. There's a low wall just ahead, you're about to tumble into the fountain, and the internet is waiting to make you the next sensation.

"Imagine if Obama's gaffe about 'clinging to guns and religion' had been uttered by John McCain, about his own base."

It would look like this...

But, actually, to be fair, that is worse than the hypothetical McCain scenario. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was caught on tape insulting a particular individual — Gillian Duffy — calling her a "bigot" right after talking to her, and her reaction to hearing about it (and then listening to it) is caught on video.

More of Gillian Duffy's amazing real-time response here. (I like when she gets a cell phone call and the reporters can't believe she'd take a phone call while she's on live TV.) Brown has now given Duffy an in-personal apology, but as you can see in that video she says she doesn't want that. She wants to know why her comments were counted as bigotry.

IN THE COMMENTS: Class factotum said:

Josephine the Plumber has been born.

Hey! Wait a minute! Josephine the Plumber? Jane Withers!



When my mother saw those Comet ads, she's always exclaim about how mean Jane Withers was to Shirley Temple. She was the child actress who was most emphatically not Shirley Temple:



And the actor in the wheelchair is Charles Sellon — or as I insist on calling him, Mr. Muckle. Now, open the door for Mr. Muckle:

"It is really good to be here in the land of 10,000 lakes with patriots who love their county... some of you are proudly clinging to your guns and religion."

Sarah Palin pumps up Minnesota: "Minnesota, you are awesome. You just rock."

"When you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it's pretty apparent, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out."

"It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious, and people are feeling that there's a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans. But that's not the vast majority of Americans."

So said Obama today, being characteristically understanding in that patronizing way we've seen before. We all remember the "bitter clingers" remark:

"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."

Obama understands why you feel those negative emotions. The actual ideas you express don't really matter. They are to be disregarded — they're the things you say when you get mad or depressed, because of all the problems — problems that he aims to solve, in his way, for your sake, because he knows better. Now, if you would please, quiet down, and let him get on with the work of giving you what you need.

ADDED:  Funny for Obama of all people to be musing about that "feeling that there's a lot of change that needs to take place." You know, a politician might come along and leverage a presidential campaign on an amorphous emotion like that.

Senator Scott Brown calls the Democrats' push for health care "bitter, destructive and endless."

Well... you know, sometimes they get bitter, and they cling to health care...

"[W]hite Americans do not realize how black they are."

"Even their whiteness is partly scavenged from the fear of - and attraction to - its opposite. From the beginning, in its very marrow, this country was forged out of that racial and cultural interaction."

Englishman Andrew Sullivan bestows his revelation on us, on the occasion of his disgust at something Pat Buchanan wrote. Buchanan's column is "a travesty of history" and evidence of "America's tragedy of self-forgetting." I don't really need Sullivan's help with American self-remembering, but I did need to read Buchanan's column — which I wouldn't have done otherwise — to get what the condescension is all about.

"Traditional Americans are losing their nation," says Buchanan, channeling the discontent of those people who, Obama once said, "get bitter [and] 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." Buchanan not only includes the "bitter clingers" quote in the column: he enacts it.

Sullivan is mainly out to discredit the notion that "traditional Americans" are white Americans. Would that matter to Buchanan? I doubt it. He's speaking of the political issues of the day, describing the views of a demographic group, and rejecting the idea that their attitude arises from racial animosity.

ADDED: Instapundit writes:

“WHITE AMERICANS DO NOT REALIZE HOW BLACK THEY ARE.” Well, possibly. I mean, unless they’ve heard of Elvis, or Rock ‘n’ Roll, or something. Or unless “Pat Buchanan” and “White Americans” are identity sets. Which to a certain class of know-nothing they may seem.

"What makes a photo of something in America 'Americana'?"

That's something I twittered yesterday, after reading Michael Hasenstab's comment: "Thanks for posting the beautiful Americana photos on Memorial Day weekend."

I'm getting some answers over there. BXGD/Jason (the commenter) says:

Basically anything that would make a young person want to go live in a city.

Rschrim says:

If they're from the NY Times, guys drinking wearing elephant masks is Americana, ie. Redneck. I'd say that's their slant.

I don't think that's what Michael H is about. But it does remind me of a recent controversy — wish I could find it easily — where the NYT used a photograph of some awful-looking people to illustrate a story about rural Americans.

Anyway, what do you think: What kind of photographs are "Americana"? Why were mine (if they were)? Is it that you can see I have an outsider's perspective and am somehow looking down on people? Did I somehow project the attitude that was attributed to Barack Obama when he spoke of Americans who get bitter and cling to guns and religion?

So Obama has chosen Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration ceremony.

How interesting! A clever choice. It made me go back to my notes on the Saddleback Forum, the hour-long interviews that Obama and McCain gave to Rick Warren back in August. I liked Warren's style and thought Obama had a good little talk with him. Obama obviously has a problem going back to his own spiritual mentors, and this is a good chance to show some warmth to the Christian evangelicals that he offended with his unfortunate remark about bitter Americans clinging to religion.

Andrew Sullivan says "Ugh":

Warren is a man who believes my marriage removes his freedom of speech and cannot say that authorizing torture is a moral failing. Shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now. He won't be as bad as the Clintons (who, among leading Democrats, could?), but pandering to Christianists at his inauguration is a depressing omen. More evidence that a civil rights movement needs to realize that no politician can deliver for us what we have to deliver on our own.

Who needs omens when Obama was always clear that he opposed same-sex marriage? He said so every time he was asked. It's funny that Sullivan is telling other people to "sober up," when he was the one who was most unsober about Obama during the campaign season.

ADDED: "The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle."

IN THE COMMENTS: Blake challenges me:

Wait, didn't Althouse also take similar stances as Sullivan? Not on gay marriage, but in terms of him saying one thing and meaning the exact opposite?

Am I misremembering?

I respond:

Blake, I wrote [the day after the forum]: "Obama garbled: "The reason that people believe there needs to be a constitutional amendment, some people believe, is because, uh, of the concern that, uh, uh, about same-sex marriage. I'm not somebody who's [sic] promotes same-sec [sic] marriage, but I do believe in civil unions. I do believe that we should not, um, that that for a gay partners [sic] to want to visit each other in the hospital, for the state to say, you know what, that's all right, I don't think in any way inhibits my core beliefs about what marriage are [sic]." I think all those little glitches, especially the glaring grammatical error "what marriage are," strongly suggest that he is hiding what he really thinks."

I thought about that when I wrote this post, but I think that privately Obama supports gay marriage, but as a political leader, he has chosen to take the more moderate position. I think he was lying about his "core beliefs" there, but I think he was telling us his official answer as he has consistently.

Now, I do understand why people who put gay rights first detest the symbolism of picking Warren. But who do they think he should have picked instead?

Now, here's why I'm not on the same page as Sullivan:

1. Though I voted for Obama, I didn't fall in love with him. Throughout the campaign season, I looked at him with a critical eye and often thought he was playing us. I was never set up for disillusionment.

2. I thought and continue to think that Obama is reasonably compassionate toward gay people, but that he's coolly practical about amassing and preserving his own political power. He has remained the same. I'm sure he'd be all for gay rights if he'd become a law professor, but he's got a more complex task at hand, and I respect that.

3. I think same-sex marriage is far down on the list of issues for the President to concern himself with and think gay people, like everyone else, need to be realistic about where politicians should be investing their political capital.

4. I reject the hostility that Sullivan shows toward "Christianists" who hold traditional values that he wishes would change. They are an important part of our culture, and Obama needs to relate to them in a positive way.

5. I don't believe the image of the angry, spiteful gay is helpful to the gay rights cause.

Back to the comments. Blake responds:

Yes, perhaps that's what I was thinking of.

I seem to recall other occasions -- non-gay marriage related -- where Obama said one thing and you were of the idea that he felt the opposite.

I'm not trying for a "gotcha" or anything. McCain may have been saying what he actually felt, but you never knew how he was gonna feel the next moment.

Definitely. I think the public Obama persona is an elaborate creation -- an impressive one. I try to imagine what the real Obama is like. For example, as I've said many times, I don't think Obama is religious (and that's why he's able to use religious rhetoric well).

Freeman Hunt says:

Where does the belief come from that Obama secretly supports gay marriage? Just a guess? Based on what? I'd be more likely to believe that he doesn't care in the slightest about gay marriage or any other gay issue. I bet such things barely register as blips on his mental radar, and that when they do register, it's only insofar as he has to handle such issues delicately in politics due to conflicting constituencies.

I tend to assume he's like all the liberal lawprofs I know, but I concede that these people may be chameleons. They are seeking power and prestige in their domain. (Why won't I say "our domain"?) But you have a point.

Peter Hoh says:

Though it's not perfectly apt for this situation, I'm reminded of Megan McArdle's First Rule of Politics:

small groups get favors from the politicians they support only to the extent that it does not annoy large groups who voted for those politicians.

I think he's still worth reading, but Andy's getting too worked up over this. Calm and steady wins the race. He admired that in Obama. He should take the same approach with regard to the effort to recognize same-sex marriage.

Yeah.

Palladian writes:

[Quoting Zachary Paul Sire:] "Inviting 'Rick' is not a slap in the face to gays as much as it is a disingenuous olive branch to evangelicals. And they're falling for it!"

So your candidate is a liar and a phony who makes false statements about his religious beliefs in order to garner political support? Classy!

"Obama is all about trying to please everyone with gestures and concessions."

Again, you admit that your candidate is a big phony, a big panderer and a big ass-kisser?

"Until he actually starts enacting policies and putting forth his specific agenda, no one should be freaking out."

So when this mythical policy-enacting phase begins, he'll eschew all these lies about religion and beliefs and his true, godless socialist qualities will shine forth?

"And let's be honest. Warren is, as everyone knows, a tool."

Wait, you just admitted that your candidate is a liar and a phony and only says things for political expediency and you're calling Rick Warren a tool? What makes you think you aren't the tool that Obama is using, my little salami-smoker? [NOTE: Both Zachary and Palladian are gay and have been talking to each other in such terms here for a long time. (Titus too.)]

"We should be proud of Obama for using him as well as he is."

We should be proud of Obama for lying about his beliefs and being too ashamed and afraid to admit his true beliefs and feelings about gay rights? So lying and slinking around in the shadows is now a point of pride? Wow. Furl your rainbow flags everyone! Gay pride now means hiding your true feelings and lying your way into high office!

"If this endears another couple hundred thousand evangelicals to Obama, and thus helps him out in 2012, then that's fine by me."

It's fine by you that Obama is lying, just because you think this will give him some political advantage in the next election, even though you don't actually know what he's going to do or whether you'll actually want him to be re-elected? Lying and selling out my true beliefs and double-crossing my countrymen for political gain is admirable? Wow. Reminds me why I don't belong to a political party. I'd rather be a loser than sell my soul to win.

"Trust me, Obama doesn't give a fuck about Rick Warren."

Wow, how admirable a quality in a President! He selects someone who he "doesn't give a fuck about" to give the invocation at his inauguration! Why that kind of cynicism sounds like CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN!

Zachary Paul Sire responds to Palladian:

So when this mythical policy-enacting phase begins, he'll eschew all these lies about religion and beliefs and his true, godless socialist qualities will shine forth?

One can HOPE!

Lying and selling out my true beliefs and double-crossing my countrymen...blah blah blah

You can drop the naive act. As if you, or anyone, ever believed that any politician in modern history didn't lie or mask their true intentions to get elected. Spare me the drama.

I have my suspicions of what he'll do (lead an incredibly balanced, pragmatic administration without ruffling anyone's feathers), and until I'm proven otherwise, I make no judgments about the man "selling out beliefs."

He's playing a game that all of them sign up for, not committing moral suicide.

Palladian says:

"He's playing a game that all of them sign up for, not committing moral suicide."

I don't trust the character judgments of those that are already morally dead.

Zachary Paul Sire says:

I love that Sullivan failed to mention how Rev. Joe Lowery, co-founder of the SCLC and a same-sex marriage supporter, is also on the bill for inauguration day, overseeing the benediction. I guess acknowledging that balance would've undercut his blog post and made his whining look even more childish than it already is (if that's possible).

Titus says:

I am a gay and I don't give a shit if Rick Warren gives the invocation.

How's that for the how some in the gay mafia feel?

None of my gay mafia friends give a shit either.

Now if it was Pat Boone I may feel a little bad... but still wouldn't give a shit.

Rick Warren is physically very repulsive though and for that I do feel bad. I hate seeing a fat man.

He is too fat. He has no chin and he thinks he is funny.

Well, you know, Obama used to be fat. Now, he makes a huge point of keeping rail thin.

WaPo on "racial attitudes" in Wisconsin.

Jeez, they really made Wisconsinites look like a bunch of hicks!

IN THE COMMENTS: Original George said:

A clown making balloon-animals. Big-wheel bikes. An ol' timey band. Cloggers.

Looks like the Village from an episode of "The Prisoner."

Needs a big bouncing bubble-gum bubble....

Dust Bunny Queen said:

Oh, and they make you look like a bunch of hicks, because that's what they really really think you are.

Bitter and clinging to your guns and religion, banjos.....and cheese!!!

Meade said:

The Hick race, from which I descend, has a long proud history of tolerance for banjo players from every race, creed, and religion.