Bitter!

I sat down to toss off a hilarious send up of the final skiing weekend in Vail, Colorado where I saw some decidedly bizarro antics, but then I heard about Barack Obama's latest gaffe, and this is what came out instead:

First of all, ya gotta know that in politics nothing sticks to you unless there's a grain of truth to it, or at least the voters think there is.

That's why Hillary Clinton's 'misstatements' regarding her trip to the Balkans was so damaging. Voters already thought she might say anything to win, and she went and proved them right.
Now its Obama's turn. Blue collar voters were already wondering if this fru-fru looking Harvard lawyer chap was really one of them when he bowled that 37 in a shirt and tie a couple weeks back. Then (in San Fransisco of all places!) he starts explaining Middle America's angst in terms of bitterness and clinging to God and guns.

Good grief! It doesn't matter that what (I think) Obama was trying to say is ...I feel your pain. We may not agree on many issues but I don't judge you 'cause I haven't walked in your shoes. What people heard was condescension and perhaps confirmation that Obama's gutter balls were a sign of a deeper disconnect with people who didn't go to Harvard Law, or even Yale undergrad.

Can he fix it? The bigger question is should he try? He could keep doing what he's been doing....giving out a sort of evolving semi-apology in which he says the sentiment was right but the words were clumsy.

Or he could try something much more risky. Imagine this scenario. At the next debate, Obama is asked about this issue and he says something like---

"Obviously this has been on my mind a lot..and not just because it might cost me some votes, though of course I don't like that. The bigger point is, this incident made me do what I always do when there's legitimate criticism..ask myself if there's something I need to learn here? I know I'm not a good bowler, but everything I've done in my career has been dedicated to not being out of touch with folks of all backrounds--especially people who may not agree with me politically. Remember, I didn't grow up rich. I was lucky enough to go to a fancy school...I loved it, it meant a lot to me. But like a lot of you, I used what I learned there to try and help my community. I soon realized we all have a lot more in common than we have divisions and I always tried to understand why people see issues in vastly different ways. That's what I was trying to get across when I used those unfortunate terms. I still think many Americans are frustrated and angry over the fact that they've played by the rules and the country has let them down. And I'm fighting to change that. I hope we won't get distracted from that deeper message, because win or lose that's what important to me."

Obama could say that. As I've written before, he's been successful by talking to voters like they're actually grownups. Why stop now?