A Bit of Better "Bitter" Banter

So this is what it's come to?!?

Though they been raising and spending about fifty million a month collectively, our two heavyweight Democratic presidential contenders are trying to eke out advantages based on whether working people who have lost their jobs ARE/ARE NOT bitter and whether Hillary Clinton DOES/DOES NOT not normally drink shots with beer chasers? This is how we really want to decide the leader of the free world?

John McCain is sitting somewhere laughing and laughing and laughing. Don't laugh too hard, though, Senator. You sounded just as idiotic as Senator Clinton for suggesting Senator Obama is "condescending" and "out of touch" when he said people who have lost their jobs are "bitter."

You see, this Clinton attack is, in essence, a ridiculous reverse compliment, BUT (stay with me on this) you could only expose by proving your own snooty intellectual elitism. Yeah, that'd be me.

How do you think most non-Harvard Law School educated folk define the word "bitter?" Angry or victimized, right? We always say a women is "bitter" when she is out for blood in her divorce, or we call someone a "bitter" old man when he shoots the pellet gun at the kids who sprint to get the baseball they hit onto the grass he cuts daily because he's a yard freak.

The problem is that you can't find that definition in the dictionary, per se. You CAN find what Obama probably meant though, which is "marked by cynicism." But what politician can respond to a ten-second charge of being "out of touch" by saying, "Okay, if you like at Merriam-Webster's Dictionary under definition 3, you'll see that..." Doesn't fly! So, for "the masses," Clinton probably can make Obama look like he is branding everybody who had the misfortune of losing their jobs, healthcare, and/or pensions as crybabies and victims.

Here's the question though. What SHOULD someone in that situation have as his/her attitude?

Clinton's take is emotion-laden and ridiculously pandering. She appeals to our provincialism by saying that the folks in "the heartland" or "the Midwest" who lose their jobs because of NAFTA are LIKE A ROCK (Bob Segar plays in the background). They're the salt of the earth, and they roll with the punches. See what she's doing here? She's making people who've had their lives crumbled by entities whose decision-makers use them like pawns and global forces they can't control feel durable, tough, and bad@ss. She's saying that no matter how bad it gets, they keep that American optimism! But in so doing, she'll also making them come off like a bunch of flipping idiots.

I'm reminded of the words of my good friend Geoff (last name omitted for fear that he might not appreciate people knowing he uses this kind of profanity):

"The working man is getting ----ed every day. The only difference is from which position."

And now they're supposed to like it? Someone please wake me up when we get out of Humpty Dumpty Land. If I worked for thirty years for a company, and they welched on my pension, I wouldn't be bitter. I would be homicidal. If I saw a company's CEO and board jump out with their golden parachutes just before the bankruptcy crash hit, yeah, I think I might want to "have a word with somebody."

Call me crazy, but I see no virtue in enjoying being reamed, and if I weigh the thalidomide effect of Clinton's "we're all happy-go-lucky job losers!" versus Obama's slap in the face wake-up call, I'll take the latter every day. Indignation gets things done; "rolling with the punches" gets you rolled over.

But, Barack, don't get too cutesy yourself. Obama suggested Hillary Clinton was pandering because she went to Bronko's in Crown Point with a camera crew and put down some shots.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/clinton-takes-a.html

Obama's people suggested Hillary was trying to court votes by throwing back drinks should wouldn't normally.

Yeah. And you bowl.

A Bit of Better "Bitter" Banter