Apparently Fox News hit the streets to find offended industrial-area Pennsylvania voters re: Obama's "bitter" quote (I like how they picked an old white guy in sunglasses, since that demographic's got to be guaranteed umbrage-takers, right?), and discovered that voters agree with Obama.
My thinking on this flap is that his comment isn't nearly as foot-in-mouth as the pundits have been making it out to be. Obama, much more than most politicians, is pretty intimately acquainted with communities that have gotten the short end of the American-prosperity stick (perhaps you've heard of his pastor, a little-known fellow by the name of Wright who gives sermons to this effect?). It seems to (sheltered) me, at least, that bitterness is almost a matter of pride, a hardened cynicsm that one earns by weathering and surviving an unfair lot in life.
I do think the "clinging to their guns or religion or antipathy" was something of a Kinsley gaffe, but I'm heartened by this reaction. I'm encouraged by the idea that these self-described bitter voters, having struggled through eight years of "trickle down" economics, might turn a cynical eye to McCain's bluster and ask what he's going to do to make their hard lives easier.
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