Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton is remarkable in his insensitivity. I was married to a man like him once. He could sweet talk and lecture all night long, but he could not listen. So he was the very last to know when I left. Like the all male panels on the cable news shows, he had a lot in common with Bill Burton and with Mr. Obama.
Bill Burton inadvertently provides us with a video-clipped glimpse of the gross insensitivity that has taken this assumed banner year for Democrats and transformed it into an intensely dead heated race. The discussion is about the ad, approved by Obama, which mocks McCain for being old and clueless about computers.
Even with help, Burton cannot acknowledge, or hear, the point that Obama's ad offends the large number of voters who share McCain's mocked traits. So now we add 'old computer illiterates' to the list of Obama's Mocked and Maligned Voters. A list which includes: baby boomers, women, Clinton supporters, and bitter working class folks.
Obviously, McCain and his Republican policies are bad for America. McCain will never give us anything close to universal health care or paid maternity/paternity leave. We will take no steps toward alleviating our shamefully high infant mortality and child poverty rates under McCain. If you were kicked off Medicaid under Bush, you won't get back on under McCain. Republicans have wrecked this country to such an extent that they should not even be permitted to compete for the job of wrecking it further. Why on earth is the competition between Republicans and Democrats, instead of Greens and Democrats?
Yet, from my very disillusioned seat in this political theatre of the absurd, it seems crystal clear to me that all the progressive pretty promises in the world will not persuade people to vote for you, or believe you, once they feel they have been insulted and mortified by you, Mr. Obama.
The first part of the clip addresses some of McCain's many tall tales and lies about Obama, and it's worth watching. But the Bill Burton portion is, in my view, symbolic of all that has gone wrong with the Democratic campaign, and a good number of marriages. And to think, we could have made progress toward solving world poverty with all the money and energy invested in this now going on two years election. Hearing-challenged Bill Burton is at 4:17.
video via TVNewser
Minnesota Empathy Politics News Bill Burton Barack Obama John McCain Alienation Election Offending Voters
