goofballs

Two things. About a week ago Senator Obama said a few things that seemed to denigrate the working, White-ethnic poor. I watched the Republican campaign of Senator McCain and the Republican-light campaign of Senator Clinton react negatively to those comments, and in typical form the Obama response was swift and concise. What I didn't expect was this piece: http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/election_2008/2008/04/11/pavoters/index.html Joan Walsh is the editor-in-chief of the transparently pro-Clinton Salon.com online news magazine. In it, she goes on to say this about the recent Obama-working-poor "gaffe": Barack Obama does have an affluent, educated, Ivy League sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that my Irish Catholic working-class side occasionally chafes at. So does Michelle Obama. So does Jeffrey Toobin. So do some of our Obama supporting readers. So sue me. And I was prepared to try to explain the mounting irritation about Obama's remarks. But ... then I ...

And lo, suddenly the world changed. Within the entire glass menagerie of specious right-wing counter-arguments made whenever some boorish, wrong-headed, dubious, illegal or insane Bush/neocon policy is challenged by their opponents, "they attacked us" and its rhetorical cousins are the most annoying retort I commonly hear. "What do you suggest? Therapy? Hugs for the terrorists?" the argument goes, "they attacked us, we have to fight back. " First of all, who are "they"? Well, if you are talking about 9/11, "they" were largely Saudi Arabian middle-class college students. "They" were goaded into the operation by the son of a Saudi construction magnate of Yemeni decent and an Egyptian doctor, who were in turn disciples (at least in spirit) of an Egyptian dissident named Sayyid Qutb. In America, the "they attacked us" crowd likes to throw around terms like "jihad" and "fatwah" and "sha'ria...