Kinnaman Column - Getting it Right

The Audacity of Bitterness
By Matt Kinnaman

On April 6, 2008, Barack Obama was in San Francisco raising money. In one part of his pitch the Democrat’s harbinger of hope described the embittered populace of small town USA: “They cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

When he was challenged for identifying American bitterness, frustration, and anger as hallmarks of our political culture he was undeterred: "I don't think that is a controversial position. I may not have worded it properly, but there's no doubt that people feel angry."

Between April 6th and April 16th, Obama reiterated and defended his San Francisco statement numerous times.

On April 11th he said, “For 25, 30 years, Democrats and Republicans have come before (voters) and said…we’re going to make your community better. And nothing ever happens, and of course they’re bitter, of course they’re frustrated, you would be too. In fact, many of you are…so people end up voting on issues like guns…like gay marriage.”

On April 12th he maintained that “the underlying truth of what I said remains...”

On April 16th Obama entrenched his position in that evening’s nationally-televised debate: “And so the point I was making was that when people feel like Washington's not listening to them, when they're promised year after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is going to change and it doesn't, then, politically, they end up focusing on those things that are constant like religion. They end up feeling this is a place where I can find some refuge…so this is something that I've said before. It is something that I will repeat again. And, yes, people are frustrated and angry about it.”

Obama has it exactly backwards. His April 6th characterization of religion as something that “bitter” people “cling” to, and his April 16th characterization of religion as a refuge where people “end up” after being disappointed by events in Washington DC are equally in error.

Nowhere was this more evident than at another April 16th event, a transcendent gathering on the South Lawn of the White House. On that spectacularly sunny morning, President Bush officially welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to America.

I was privileged to hold a standing-room-only ticket, putting me barely 200 feet from the podium, and light-years away from Obama’s bitter assessment of American politics.

The multi-fluent Pope spoke in English. “From the dawn of the Republic, America's quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator.”

Benedict XVI described an American history in which “religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement. In our time, too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideas and aspirations.”

In his welcoming remarks to the Pope, President Bush characterized a nation where “each day millions of our citizens approach our Maker on bended knee, seeking His grace and giving thanks for the many blessings He bestows upon us.”

The president offered five faith-inspired observations of our national life: “Here in America you'll find a nation of prayer… Here in America you'll find a nation of compassion… Here in America you'll find a nation that welcomes the role of faith in the public square… Here in America, you'll find a nation that is fully modern, yet guided by ancient and eternal truths…Most of all…you will find in America people whose hearts are open to your message of hope.”

As providence would have it, President Bush’s eloquent five-faceted expression made Orator Obama’s observation of the five objects to which he says bitter people cling (guns, religion, people who aren’t like them, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-trade sentiment) sound as foreign to the American spirit as anything uttered on the presidential campaign trail in recent memory, if not ever.

And Benedict XVI, a man with a deep sense of history, reminded us that in 1796, before anyone had a chance to be disappointed in Washington DC, it was George Washington who taught that “religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.”

If only I had an extra ticket to the South Lawn. Obama could have used it.

Matt Kinnaman’s “Getting it Right” column appears every Thursday in the North Adams Transcript.