Elite me

I think Hillary Clinton's recent broadside of outrage over Barack Obama's remarkably incisive analysis of the forgotten American working class is painfully staged, and drags the standard of debate active in this primary campaign still lower. Once again, as soon as Obama actually began to discuss issues -- and to offer a remarkably cogent argument why Pennsylvania should vote for him -- the Clinton camp freaked out and went into witless pandering overload.

As an overdue preface, here's the gist: Obama pointed out that working class folks in the Rust Belt have been getting screwed over by the decline in manufacturing jobs over that last 25 years, and that little has been done to help remake their communities. Therefore, he noted, incomes fall and people get bitter and search for something to "cling to" like "guns and religion." Hey, he's right! The fall of the unions, the decline of industrial jobs; this has made the Rust Belt measurably worse off.

But how dare he say that! How dare that mean ol' Obama insinuate that you Rust Belt voters are anything other than Mama Hillary's special little guys and gals (of the month)! What a big meanie?

What a joke. Her response was more saccharine and pious than diet communion wine. I hope Pennsylvanians are smart enough to realize when somebody's blowing smoke up their smokestacks.