I need to point out that this isn't the first time this part of the Obama San Francisco flap has been diaried. But since sunspark says, XStryker and MAL Contends didn't get the attention they deserved, I'm posting it again.
In their rush to judgement, the media has not only misrepresented Obama's message to donors at a San Francisco fundraiser recently, they are spinning the story at rural voters which is completely the opposite of reality.
Once again, like Obama's assurances to Canadian officials about NAFTA, like the media's portrayal of Jeremiah Wright and like their distortion of Michelle Obama's comments that she is proud to see this country unified, the corporate media machine has decided to spin an Obama controversy where there wasn't one.
Just ask West Virginia-born law professor David Coleman, who happened to have heard the same exact remarks that Mayhill Fowler and came away with a much different interpretation of what Obama said.
As a non-journalist who wasn't looking for a titillating storyline from the event, this is Coleman's description of the controversial statement:
At the end of Obama's remarks standing between two rooms of guests -- the fourth appearance in California after traveling earlier in the day from Montana -- a questioner asked, "some of us are going to Pennsylvania to campaign for you. What should we be telling the voters we encounter?"
Obama's response to the questioner was that there are many, many different sections in Pennsylvania comprised of a range of racial, geographic, class, and economic groupings from Appalachia to Philadelphia. So there was not one thing to say to such diverse constituencies in Pennsylvania. But having said that, Obama went on say that his campaign staff in Pennsylvania could provide the questioner (an imminent Pennsylvania volunteer) with all the talking points he needed. But Obama cautioned that such talking points were really not what should be stressed with Pennsylvania voters.
Instead he urged the volunteer to tell Pennsylvania voters he encountered that Obama's campaign is about something more than programs and talking points. It was at this point that Obama began to talk about addressing the bitter feelings that many in some rural communities in Pennsylvania have about being brushed aside in the wake of the global economy. Senator Obama appeared to theorize, perhaps improvidently given the coverage this week, that some of the people in those communities take refuge in political concerns about guns, religion and immigration. But what has not so far been reported is that those statements preceded and were joined with additional observations that black youth in urban areas are told they are no longer "relevant" in the global economy and, feeling marginalized, they engage in destructive behavior. Unlike the week's commentators who have seized upon the remarks about "bitter feelings" in some depressed communities in Pennsylvania, I gleaned a different meaning from the entire answer.
Now, Obama didn't specifically say "political concerns about guns, religion and immigration". But it was clear to this fundraiser attendent that that is what he meant. That Obama wasn't talking about the traditions of guns and religion, but their use as a political refuge for rural voters. But then again, he's not a journalist writing for Huffington Post's "On the Bus", he's not looking for that "Gotcha" statement.
So while the media co-opted Fowler's interpretation of the event, don't look for them to acknowledge the inconvenient interpretation, and the message heard by a "wealthy California donor" and West Virginia native, David Coleman. "Obama stereotypes rural voters" is a much better headline in the mainstream media than "Obama explains 'White Voters Won't Back Barack-myth'". And we all know that selling ad space is more important to most in corporate journalism than reporting the truth.
So help me fight back against the MSM/Clinton/McCain attack on Obama's real San Francisco fundraiser message. Donate to the Obama campaign here! And send this diary out to Democratic voters. We need to fight back against the media's spin of Obama's remarks and Clinton and McCain's false charges of elitism.