- Posted by Christopher Estep on April 15, 2008
Repeatedly over the weekend, Barack snObama responded to the criticism surrounding his elitist, condescending statements about people in small towns. It's expected of course, but once again, Obamakova channels David Copperfield and uses sleight of mouth and misdirection in the hopes he can make the truth disappear by responding as though the complaints were about him calling people from Pennsylvania "bitter".
It's sort of a reverse straw-man. When someone makes a straw-man argument, they say something negative that is to be presumed as factual and then add on a second argument. A typical straw-man argument from the MSM would be, "since surge is failing, how many troops will be on the ground by election day?" The straw-man is making the notion of surge failure appear to be a foregone conclusion. It's treating perception (or even lies) as reality.
Obama is doing the same thing, but in reverse. He's not making the straw-man to press a point, he's using it to divert from one. It's actually pretty smart, but people are catching on. He does it all of the time!
By characterizing the offense as his use of "bitter", he responds with an entire diversionary argument which causes a counter-response to be what is discussed. Meanwhile, he hopes that people will forget that the real offense was his characterization of gun owners and religious people, declaring that they are only "this way" because of the economy.
He did the same thing with the Wright controversy. The problem people have with Wright is not that he "believes differently" (as Wright has said) but that Obama had him as a trusted advisor for over 20 years and the man himself is a racist and anti-Semite who teaches a militant Black Liberation agenda. But Obama didn't want to talk about his association with an anti-Semite and white-hater, so he gave an "important speech" on race relations. My relations with blacks is fine. Just ask my boss, who is black.
Watch everything he says and look carefully for diversions.
I'll conclude with a portrait of some people in the 1600's who were frustrated and bitter, too. It's the Puritans on their way to church.
