Obama Jabs Opponents With a Little Humor
LAS VEGAS -- At a town hall meeting last night, Barack Obama sounded more like a stand-up comedian with a string of one-liners than a man running for president as he ranted against Hillary Clinton's criticisms of him.
Obama told the crowd of roughly 700 that when he was down 20 points, people loved him but now that he's running strong, they are critical of him.
Obama poked fun at John Edwards and Hillary Clinton for their response to the "what is your weakness" question at the MSNBC debate. Obama said that he answered the question as an "ordinary person."
"Folks, they don't tell you what they mean!" exclaimed Obama.
"I thought that they meant 'what's your biggest weakness?!' So I said 'well you know I don't handle paper that well, you know, my desk is a mess, I need somebody to help me file and stuff all the time.'"
"So the other two they say well my biggest weakness is 'I'm just too passionate about helping poor people.' I am just too impatient to bring about change in America.'"
Obama joked, "If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. I could have said 'well you know I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don't want to be helped. It's terrible.'"
Obama went on to criticize Clinton for her comments at the debate on the bankruptcy bill.
"She explains, 'well, sort of, I don't know, here's why I did this.' And then she says 'I voted for it but I was glad to see that it didn't pass.' What does that mean? No seriously, what does that mean? if you didn't want to see it passed, then you can vote against it."
The crowd roared with laughter as Obama pounced on the Clinton campaign for mailers that were sent out to Nevada voters stating that Obama supported Yucca Mountain. "What part of 'I'm not for Yucca' do you not understand?"
Obama ended by calling Clinton's comments "tricks" and said voters will stop listening to politicians because of them. At the end of the event, a man yelled out to Obama that he will be a better president than George Bush. Obama responded, "So would you!"