What he is having a harder time distancing himself from, is his own words:
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And 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."
In what may be the perfect example of his inexperience in the political high stakes real of a presidential election, he is now whining that he tired of playing defense and wants be on the offensive.
"I'm tired of playing defense all the time," Barack Obama said this morning. "I want to play some offense."
The problem is, the amount of public exposure that his words have gotten and continues to get today in all the major newspapers, all of which reminding people of his words.
Now his excuse is that he "mangled" his words.
The fact of the matter is, he was speaking to group of elite San Californians, no video, no cameras and no clue that his words would become such public fodder.
He let the mask slip and let the "middle America" people see what lies beneath, and it wasn't pretty and the media, today, is coming down like a ton of bricks on Barack Obama.
George Will, in a Washington Post editorial, titles his piece, "Candidate on a High Horse".
John Fund, via WSJ, points out something that is even more troublesome that Obama's original remarks which he now claims he "mangled" and that is that Obama is,"privately bewildered that anybody took offense".
Barack Obama's San Francisco-Democrat comment last week – about how alienated working-class voters "cling to guns or religion" – is already famous. But the fact that his aides tell reporters he is privately bewildered that anybody took offense is even more remarkable.
Chris Cillizza, from The Fix, asks "where do we go now", and points out the incredible amount of coverage this is still getting, 4 days in.
The important question -- in the immortal words of W. Axl Rose (an Indiana native) -- is where do we go now? The story is everywhere -- television, talk radio, the Web -- for a fourth straight day and it seems extremely unlikely that it will go away before the two Democrats debate on Wednesday night in Philadelphia.
In another Washington Post editorial, E.J. Dionne says, "The Democratic presidential candidates are doing a splendid job of helping John McCain get to the White House."
It is not going away, if anything this is gaining traction, in large part because of bloggers and the media, but also Hillary Clinton has her "bittergate ad" already out. (H/T "Stop the ACLU)
The thing about this is that polls show that Obama's rise in states like Pennsylvania has come to a grinding halt since this hit just 4 days ago, giving Clinton the ammunition needed to go to the superdelegates and make the case that Obama's inexperience makes him distinctly unelectable in Novembers general election against John McCain.
Not to mention, every single bullet she throws at him is a bullet that will be use in that general election as well.
Other polls are showing that if the Pennsylvania primary were held today, Clinton would take Obama by double digits.
PoliGazette puts this well when Michael van der Galien says:
Obama is increasingly showing people that he’s a far-left liberal, and what he really thinks about America and the world. His views are not even almost moderate.
And that could very well prove to be his downfall.
If you look on google news search, right now, April 15, 2008, 2:22pm Eastern time, you will see over 2,500 news story when using the key words, "Barack Obama" and "bitter".
This isn't going away as he tried to make all the other issues that showed his true attitudes and associations and spiritual feelings, did. These were his words, showed his arrogance and condescending and elitist beliefs and he doesn't deserve for people to sweep it under the rug, he deserves to have people see what and who he is without all his charming words covering true man that lies beneath.
Not that there is much the Democratic party can do about this mess because Barack Obama is ahead in delegates and Hillary Clinton will need double digit, definitive wins in Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky, just to name a few, to be able to go to the superdelegates and argue that Obama is not ready and is not good for the country nor the Democratic party.
If she manages to do all that,and she convinces the superdelegates to give her the nomination, then a whole different set of problems emerge for the Democratic party, just starting with the angry and "bitter" reaction that can be expected from Barack Obama supporters towards the party as a whole.
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