Obama Shoots Back At Clinton Criticism
Rhetoric Grows Increasingly Heated As Democratic Presidential Candidates Trade Barbs
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Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., addresses employees during a campaign stop as Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., right, listens at AM General Assembly Plant, in Mishawaka, Ind., April 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
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Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks during a labor gathering in Steelton, Pa., April 13, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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Obama's Words May Cost Him
Locked in a tight race for Pennsylvania Democrats, Sen. Barack Obama's own words may cost him support. Randall Pinkston reports.
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Obama's 'Bitter' Remark
Barack Obama touched off a political firestorm when he called blue-collar voters "bitter." Opponents in both parties were quick to attack his remarks as "elitist." Randall Pinkston reports.
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Barack Obama
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Hillary Clinton
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"She knows better. Shame on her. Shame on her," Obama told an audience at a union hall here.
The Illinois senator has spent three days on the defensive after comments he made at a San Francisco fundraiser were disclosed that suggested working class people are bitter about their economic circumstances and "cling to guns and religion" as a result.
Obama reiterated his regret for his choice of words at the fundraiser but suggested they had been twisted and mischaracterized. He said he'd expected blowback from GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain, but had been "a little disappointed" to be criticized by Clinton.
Then, laughing along with the union audience, Obama noted that Clinton seemed much more interested in guns since he made his comments than she had in the past.
"She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment. She's talking like she's Annie Oakley," Obama said, invoking the famed female sharpshooter immortalized in the musical "Annie Get Your Gun."
He continued: "Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday. She's packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better. That's some politics being played by Hillary Clinton."
Clinton has told campaign audiences that she supports the rights of hunters. Saturday, she reminisced about learning to shoot on family vacations in Scranton, where her father grew up. She's also said she once shot a duck in Arkansas, where she served as first lady.
Clinton, who is trailing Obama in the popular vote and pledged delegates, has pounded Obama since Friday, when audio from his San Francisco appearance was posted on The Huffington Post Web site. She hoped the comments might give her a new opening to court working-class Democrats less than 10 days before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, which she needs win to keep her campaign going.
At the San Francisco fundraiser, Obama tried to explain his troubles in winning over some working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions: "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."
Campaigning in Scranton on Sunday, Clinton denounced those remarks yet again as "elitist and divisive" and suggested they would alienate voters in Pennsylvania and other states holding primaries in the coming weeks.
"Senator Obama has not owned up to what he said and taken accountability for it," she told reporters during an informal news conference outside a home. "What people are looking for is an explanation. What does he really believe? How does he see people here in this neighborhood, throughout Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, other places in our country? And I think that's what people are looking for, some explanation, and he has simply not provided one."
Indiana and North Carolina vote on May 6.
"You don't have to think back too far to remember that good men running for president were viewed as being elitist and out of touch with the values and the lives of millions of Americans," Clinton added, referring to John Kerry, the defeated 2004 Democratic nominee.
"I think it's very critical that the Democrats really focus in on this and make it clear that we are not (elitist). We are going to stand up and fight for all Americans," Clinton said.
Fighting back, Obama said Clinton's history proved she was not as sensitive to the concerns of blue collar voters as she tried to project.
"I just have to remind people of the track record," Obama said, noting Clinton accepted campaign contributions from PACs and drug and insurance industry lobbyists, which he does not.
"This is the same person who took money from financial folks on Wall Street and then voted for bankruptcy bill that makes it harder for folks right here in Pennsylvania to get a fair shake. Who do you think is out of touch?" Obama said.
"This is the same person who spent a decade with her husband campaigning for NAFTA, and now goes around saying she's opposed to NAFTA," Obama said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement that is widely unpopular in blue collar communities.
The Clinton campaign issued a quick retort to Obama's comments.
"For months, Barack Obama and his campaign have relentlessly attacked Hillary Clinton's character and integrity by using Republican talking points from the 1990s," said spokesman Phil Singer. "The shame is his. Senator Clinton does know better she knows better than to condescend and talk down to voters like Senator Obama did."
Obama planned to further address the question of which candidate was most in touch with middle-class voters in a speech Monday to The Associated Press annual meeting in Washington.
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See all 485 CommentsNOBAMA 08
LOL
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Posted by truth-hurts
The same thing Bush did???
IF OBAMA BECOMES PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL
HE DO ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
WHO WILL REFUSE TO ACCEPT HIM AS PRESIDENT?
HE DO ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
WHO WILL REFUSE TO ACCEPT HIM AS PRESIDENT?
----------------------------------------------
He would probalby get Hamas to come over and take care of the people who did not bow down to Obama.
He does have an in with Hamas, so it is possible. Probable, Not, but possible.
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Posted by truth-hurts
The same thing Bush did???
Posted by Flajoe1 at 09:41 PM : Apr 13, 2008
How about the millions of people who refused to accept Bush as the president. He''s not my president and never has been. He is the opposite of a president and an American. I have zero loyalty to him or what he says and no obligation to follow him at all.
He was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT with his remarks and Hill just acts like big company''s rotten manager, who blames everybody around for the consequences of his wrong doings!
At the same time, a foothold already existed to a small degree in the American black religious community such as is led by Louis Farrakhan.
The mainstream ISM leadership is made up of Palestinian Christian Arabs who are also communists/anarchists and pan-Arab nationalists first, that hold to the philosophy of the Popular Front for The Liberation of Palestine, the second largest faction of the PLO. Using communist revolutionary practices of %u201Csolidarity,%u201D it has been these Palestinian Arab Christian %u201Crevolutionaries,%u201D aligned with Jewish- American communists and anarchists, that have been working so well on the campuses in the US and the UK.
Posted by charleschap at 09:50 PM : Apr 13, 2008
Then you heard a whole different set of comments then I did, or perhaps you heard them the way you wanted to hear them. Obama did not da*mn anyone and certainly not rural folks or small town people. He simply stated the truth. The problem is that some elitist Democrats and republicans who oppose him do not want the people to hear the truth. Obama''s comments were 100% correct and have been twisted by his opponents.
I found that odd, our christian church only accepts members if there christians, they will welcome all, but to become members you have to be christian.
Now, it has become the ISM%u2019s time to deconstruct religious dogma of Israel belonging to the Jews as is preached in US churches and to increase the number of black churches in America that are working in %u201Csolidarity%u201D with this program. Jeremiah Wright%u2019s church is one of them. Even though the national synod of the United Church for Christ rescinded a boycott and divestment plan against Israel, a wing of the UCC church keeps trying to get it reinstated. That wing includes Reverend Wright%u2019s Trinity UCC Church in Chicago. Few people know also, that there are many Muslim members of Reverend Wright%u2019s %u201CChristian%u201D church, a close ally of Sabeel.
In short, Obama saw no problem being lobbied in the past by someone who openly promotes terrorism and discrimination against Jewish-Americans.
Al Awda is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe of the creation of Israel) this coming May thanks to the willingness of the management of Hilton Hotels to overlook anti-Semitism in its facilities to make a buck. A new petition is in the works to get Hilton to stop this. Al Awda%u2019s scheduled guest of honor will be a PFLP terrorist member named Khalida Jarrar, and their website recently gave an homage to the late PFLP founder George Habash. Al Awda wants convicted Islamic Jihad financier/terrorist Sami al Arian released, a murderer of over 100 people abroad, some of them Americans, from terrorist attacks.
If Barack Obama didn%u2019t know about Abunimah%u2019s writings (and Abunimah says he did), the same as his claims of being unaware of Reverend Wright%u2019s remarks after 20 years, then Obama is not competent to be our President. Abunimah likes to lie and claim Al Awda has nothing to do with the ISM or Electronic Intifada, though plenty of evidence exists on the website the homepage at www.StoptheISM.com showing the contrary.
How that is related to OBAMA?
He is NOT EQUAL to Rev. Wrong!
The question is if we want a man in the White House who will regularly give his ear to the likes of a Reverend Wright, his and Sabeel%u2019s replacement theologies, and pro-terrorist propagandists like Ali Abunimah on a regular basis? In one sense, Obama could be considered the ISM%u2019s Manchurian candidate given his wide connections to ISM activists and campaign movements such as the Wheels of Justice Tour, Joseph Carr a.k.a. Joseph Smith, Hannah Mermelstein, Anna Baltzer and others.
canadafreepress.com/index.php/ article/2462
I can accept a president I did not vote for. We''''ve always accepted our presidents whether we personally voted for them or not because we trusted that the majority of ''''We the People'''' did.
Did you know that the majority of "we the people" did not elect GWB either time? Guess not. As far as your liberty, no one has done more to take away and/or limit your liberties than GWB.
Absolutely! She DOES know better, but she doesn''t care. She''s setting up the party to where it''s either her on the ticket or she''ll scr*ew the rest of the party over so badly they might not win in November. It''s the action of a spoiled child. She''s saying "Either I get to win or I''ll knock the game board over!" It''s something worthy of George W. Bush, not a Democrat. Obama is right, she should be ashamed!
HE DO ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
WHO WILL REFUSE TO ACCEPT HIM AS PRESIDENT?
Posted by truth-hurts at 09:43 PM : Apr 13, 2008
He will give them a double dose of TRUTH. And not only will it NOT hurt, it will get them well. It will feel like sitting in a steam room or sauna and sweating out the nasty poison that has built up for 50 years or so. Get on board or get out the way ! OBAMA ''08
The above is an out and out lie and a complete fabrication. Not a single thing Barack said was condescending or "taking down" to the voters and the Clinton campaign saying it was doesn''t make it so. Hillary should be ashamed of herself!
NO-SHAME-NO-BAMA
" mocking her sudden vocal support for gun rights"
kinda something like obama quickly distanced
himself from wright after they told him
what the man was saying in church all
those years he was attending?
good going there obama
you show''em you''re the consistent candidate.
consistently changing.
Yada yada yada lie lie lie bs bs bs. Same old tired lies.
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Posted by hp32970c at 10:00 PM
Careful he maybe listening. Heck...I know he''s listening. NO WARRANTS NEEDED!!
bitter???
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Posted by hp32970c at 10:00 PM
Careful he maybe listening. Heck...I know he''''s listening. NO WARRANTS NEEDED!!
Posted by Flajoe1 at 10:06 PM : Apr 13, 2008
I hope he''s listening! Hey Georgie boy, kiss my as*s!!!
Posted by SgtRDS
Naturally, a Democrat would change the subject of this story from the Slimme and Dirt the Democrats are doing to the Bad old Republicans. When Bill Clinton committed perjury in front of a Federal Grand Jury, it was perfectly ok according to Democrats. There was not a Democrat alive that wanted him prosecuted. But they call Bush a liar. That''s the world famous Democrat Situational Ethics. What ethics can you expect from Atheist Democrats that Hate Christianity as much as any Muslim Terrorist. And this Idiot SgtRDS talks about Democrats and morals in the same sentence. Right.
Suck up to the wealthy when you think nobody''s looking! Believe that rural folks don''t have enough sense to address a real issue...kiss my a/s/s!
It was great seeing Obama in a relaxed setting, talking both in detail and inspiring prose, in what was essentially a large living room.
Too bad there were roaches under the sofa.
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