Why shouldn't people cling to the things that bring them comfort in hard times?  It doesn't mean that those things only have value or are motivated solely by hard times.

It's like in The Godfather, when Johnny Fontaine comes to the Don's daughter's wedding, and Tom Hagen notes that he's probably there because he's in trouble.  The Don magnanimously replies, "And where else should he come when he is in trouble, but to his Godfather?"

Wouldn't you think that your god would be insulted if his believers didn't come to him in their hour of need, regardless of how they had behaved towards him before?

On Charlie Rose circa 2004 where he puts the whole thing in more detail?

I'll kinda paraphrase. After so much has been taken away from so many over the last 30 years or so, people start holding on even tighter to the things that they do have. Those things are things like guns or their religion. And why wouldn't this be true? And really, there's nothing wrong with this per se. They could vote economics, but when they do, they get something like NAFTA shoved down their throat.

Honestly, I think in the long run this is the core cynicism caused by a conservative-dominated culture. The system can't get any better, so we're better off not even trying. Things are only going to get worse.  For sure, people think they can make things better on a small-scale basis, but in terms of changing the way things work..nope. We're done. It's over.

And that's where the anger starts. Because there's a lot of anger. A ton of it. Look at all the anti-homosexual or anti-immigrant bigotry. It's lashing out, is what it is.

That people think that Obama's quote is bad, that what he's saying is bad, is the big obstacle that needs to be overcome in order to make things better.

They feel like the government is ignoring their other needs, so they're swept up by people who use their religion and guns and hatred of the Other to gain power.

Case in point: Nash McCabe. Here's a woman who lives in a small town, is 52 years old, and is an unemployed, unskilled worker. And yet she thinks the most important issue facing the candidates is whether or not they wear lapel pins.

And "religion" isn't the right word either. By "religion," I think Obama is pointing out the anti-gay, anti-evolution and anti-abortion movements. But to keep from opening up a can of worms, he summarized it, and poorly.

But, then again, I'm just an elitist city-dwelling goddamned atheist with a white collar job who doesn't own any guns. What do I know?

only a couple of comments, it seems like the progressives at SP agree with Obama.  Which is OK, I mean, the right has its own opinions about what makes the left "tick", so to speak, and they're hardly flattering.

What I'm gathering, though, is that Obama chose exactly the words he meant.  Consider some of the comments that have already appeared on this thread:

[Conservatives believe that] the system can't get any better, so we're better off not even trying. Things are only going to get worse.  For sure, people think they can make things better on a small-scale basis, but in terms of changing the way things work..nope. We're done. It's over.

And that's where the anger starts. Because there's a lot of anger. A ton of it. Look at all the anti-homosexual or anti-immigrant bigotry. It's lashing out, is what it is.

That people think that Obama's quote is bad, that what he's saying is bad, is the big obstacle that needs to be overcome in order to make things better.

A fair opinion.  I disagree, but still a fair opinion.  A dismissal of the criticisms toward Obama, with a reiteration of what he said in the first place.  Exactly the kind of sentiment that landed Obama in the mud.

Or:

They feel like the government is ignoring their other needs, so they're swept up by people who use their religion and guns and hatred of the Other to gain power. [emphasis mine]

Hatred.  Being manipulated.  Well, not even Obama went so far as dropping the H-word, but I have no doubt he feels the same way.  His rhetoric was tamer than that, though.

SP and dKos represent a corner of the left that is not in the mainstream.  Similar forums exist on the right.  I claim no moderation, nor do I think moderation in politics is a virtue.  But there is an ideological border on both sides that presidential candidates cross at their peril, especially when the looming general election opponent is widely considered to be safely in the middle.  This was a colossal blunder that he can't afford to repeat.  

really, that people who like Obama, and presumably, know a thing or two about him, including the fact that his faith is important to him and to his community, would take this comment as being against people of faith.  If you're taking it as being against...conservatives?  Or rural people? I can kind of squint and see that.  To me, though, it is not dissimilar to comments he has made about equally hopeless and ill-served communities elsewhere, including inner cities.

And I am completely amazed that the folks commenting don't know people who are like the ones he describes: they focus a huge amount of energy on a few very emotional issues, even though doing that never solves the problems of their communities.  I live in the city now, and people are supporting our scary racist sheriff because he says illegal immigration is our biggest problem and only he can solve it.  When I lived in rural Indiana, there were a few local elections where some issue of values, usually related to children or school, was supposed to be the biggest problem, and somebody was going to solve it by bringing back school prayer or something.  This kind of demagoguery is often very popular.  

I think it's quite possible Obama's words were poorly chosen for expressing what he meant to convey, but if I take them as they are, he's not talking about "clinging to religion" as something bad or indicative of ignorance.  What he's saying is that clinging to single issues, especially lifestyle issues, as solutions to problems that are mainly economic, and mainly beyond the control of the local community, is inneffective and distracting, but completely understandable.

is also along the lines of what I think.  And I thought Fred at Slactivist had a good take on the issue.

Where's the cookie jar?  I mean, I don't agree, and I know you're peeved, but I still want to leave you a cookie!

is that I don't think he was being a wanker. He was in no way disrespecting religion or religious people.

I have a hard time understanding how people could see it that way.

you  think  you're gonna have in November? That ain't a school  board election where there's nine names on the ballot & you get to pick three.

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

Nothing proves the essential truth of an insult like an overly emotional response.

or elitist in nature.

I think he was merely pointing out that the GOP has been wildly successful in rural areas by getting folks to vote God, guns and/or gays rather than on more substantive issues.

And he was right.
I think nobody's mentioned it because it's not news or even noteworthy here on the Street.  In other words, I think we all "got" what he was trying to say and kinda thought, "uh, yeah, good point...now where was that paper clip I just had?"

I guess I get frustrated over the fuss over Obama's remarks because I'm tired of being looked down upon for supposedly not being a "regular" American. My growing up experience in the South with a lot of the clinging (yes, clinging!!) to guns and religion folks was having to deal with "holier-than-thou" snottiness because I asked questions or liked to read or didn't have the same musical tastes.

There are essentially two things here for me:

• Just WHO is the "regular" American that's supposedly being looked down upon? What makes them "regular" and "average"? What determines that particular normative experience? My mom grew up dirt poor on a farm in Mississippi, so did my dad's father. Both used education as a way out of poverty and were able to provide better lives for their children as a result. My mom has been a teacher her whole life, my grandfather a  surgeon, my father in education also. I grew up in the deep South going to church twice a week and in my earlier years decidedly lower-middle class if not close to poor - my mom tells stories of praying that the grocery check wouldn't be cashed for 4-5 days. But, because I have a master's degree and live in the DC metro area - I get disqualified as a "regular" American. I know my privilege, but I also know what my grandparents, parents and I have worked for and I'm really damn tired of being written off as an elitist because I value intelligence and because I think American voters in general are too easily manipulated.
• Following from the above, to what extent is the charge of "elitism" not also an effort to dismiss people who are different? Complexity and ambiguity in anything are often frowned upon as lacking "common sense" or being charged with "relativism"--particularly in faith contexts. "Sunday school answers" are often not real answers to problems, but I was told to accept them as "simple truths" growing up and berated for not towing the line.  So, I essentially see it cutting both ways and mostly just an ongoing effort to demonize what we don't understand about "the other".
  
  

And yes, for the record, I AM a bit bitter myself because I'm tired of seeing ignorance paraded as a virtue and of intellect being demeaned and for anyone naming prejudices and narrow-mindedness for what they are being called an "elitist."

Words are often clumsy things and I haven't said what I wanted to half as well as I need to, but there's a point when things need to be called out - that when politicians refuse to offer real economic solutions, people in general become more vulnerable to wedge issue campaigns, that people do sometimes turn irrationally to faith, and that our culture is overly gun-crazed...they aren't the only truths about this country, but they are truths.

I don't pretend to know better or to know it all, but I don't think my voice should be dismissed either.

/rant

(all of this should be put into a diary in its own right and I'm kinda sorry for invading this space with it, but your diary triggered stuff that I haven't been able to write out yet, so I figured I'd might as well give it a shot now rather than letting is simmer more)

I interpreted what Obama said to mean that clinging to religious-justified bigotry was bad. If I took him literally, that clinging to religion itself is bad, I would wonder why in heck he was attending church all these years. If I thought he was really a closet atheist, I'd question his integrity, given that he's written at length about the role of faith in his life.

I support his candidacy because I think he'd be a better president than Hillary or McCain, but I know he's a politician, not a saint.

I'm open to the possibility that it was vote fraud, rather than "values-voting", that returned Bush to the White House in 2004. But I agree with anyone who suggests there's something pathological about conservative Christians' vehemence against gay sex, while they're willing to give shellfish eaters and wearers of poly-cotton blends a free pass.

I am more offended by fake populism. The whole idea that I should care which candidate I'd rather have a beer with condescends to me as a man.

I remember when Republican Dino Rossi ran for Governor of Washington a few years ago. At the beginning of his candidacy, there was a campaign ad that must have been made from a generic Republican template. It showed real-estate developer Rossi walking through a hayfield, shaking hands with a group of cowboys, while a low-voiced narrator drawled, "He's sahhhned mayunny a paycheck," over a twangy baseline. It took a week or so for his campaign to figure out that Washington is right next to Canada, and a fake Southern accent is not the vox populi.

That's OK.  We all hear and see the world through our own filters.  Here's a pretty good (and rather deep) discussion of what Obama was really saying.

Nowhere in the Senator’s remarks does he say that all religious people are “clinging” to their faith. Several weeks ago, he defended Reverend Wright the man while distancing himself from his remarks by making this very distinction. Nowhere does the Senator suggest that all gun-owners are necessarily more violent than the rest of us, nor that they are interested in arming themselves in an anti-immigrant war of exclusion. What he did say was that things like guns and religion are best assessed as morally neutral, until we see what people choose to do with them. “By your fruits shall ye know them.” And what he was warning was that both issues, religion and guns, are easily exploited by political parties as they speak to the very real uncertainties most in the American electorate feel these days.

It is ironic that the reaction to his remarks, rather than the remarks themselves, confirm the central truth of this originally psychological insight.

http://religiondispatches.org/Gui/Co...

But I think you were being disingenuous when you claimed that you might vote for Obama because of his race speech yet now you find nothing redeeming in his  "cling" speech. You could never vote for Obama even before clinggate. The two speeches were identical in their commitment to changing the conversations we've been having for decades. Conversations that have been dominated by the loudest mouths, the conservatives. Conversations that were always based on false dichotomies. He is the only one with the courage to try and change the conversations and the wisdom to change it to something productive.

Don't blame Obama because your insulted he essentially called religion a fallback issue to vote on. IT IS. Or because he claimed that gun issues will NEVER make or break your life in this country yet too many people vote out of fear they MIGHT. He's right. Most working class people simply want a raise in their standard of living (or at least not a drop) but end up supporting the policies of Cheap Labor Wall St conservatives, which have single handedly created our current devalued currency and this current prolonged period of decreasing buying power for the average american. No laborer should support the cheap laborists agenda. It is BY DEFINITION, counter to their best interests. Yet somehow the white laborers keep supporting them because they are constantly presented with Guns and Gays.