A major gaffe this summer has been that, in trying to act more casual and folksy to appeal to working-class white voters, Obama has resorted to a cringe-making use of inner-city black intonations and jokey phrasings -- exactly the wrong tactic.
(Example below:)
The video she cites above is one of Obama giving his masterful "it's like they take pride in being ignorant!" response to McCain's short-lived tire gauge/energy-plan gambit. Pigmently-challenged as I may be, I thought it was brilliant. Paglia, though, characterized it as "Cringe-making use of inner-city black intonations and joking phrasings"?
WTF is she talking about? I can't fathom that she and I watched the same clip! I'm really at a loss. Is it snark? If so, could someone please explain it (English is not my first language)? Maybe she's a closet racist unabashedly displaying her yokel cred? Or perhaps this is totally out of character for her, and she wrote the piece drunk off the kool-aid she shared with Pat Buchanan, David Duke and Maureen Dowd?
Someone please help me understand WTF she's getting at, because her next paragraph does not help:
One of the major doubts those very voters have about him is to what extent he is an agent for the 1960s black power radicalism espoused by his former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It does seem to be the case that Obama, raised in multicultural and tourist-oriented Hawaii, lacks direct experience of any working-class enclave aside from the black one. But so what? In remaking her campaign at the end, Hillary Clinton mimicked the metallic accent of her father's coal-country Scranton origins. Yet nothing in her inexorable climb toward multimillionaire status has ever indicated that Hillary prefers jawing with the humble proles to her favorite company of glitzy celebs, fast-track power players, and slippery, brainiac lawyers.
Disjointed, incoherent, borderline-racist drivel much? Reading comprehension is not my weak suit, but I am at a total loss at WTF she's getting at. I just don't get it.
With Obama supporters like these, who needs McCain surrogates?