Pat Buchanan Misquotes Barack Obama's "Bitter" Line

Speaking on Dan Abrams' Verdict on MSNBC tonight, Pat Buchanan misquoted Sen. Barack Obama's now infamous "bitter" line from a closed-door San Francisco fundraiser. Buchanan said that Obama told his audience that small-town Pennsylvanians "cling to their bibles, and guns and bigotries."

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Comments

[NewtC]

Rightwing pundits are just trying to bolster Clinton's campaign so the GOP can run their “Anyone but Hillary” campaign. She’s the Republicans’ best Get Out The Vote strategy, even more so than their anti-gay and anti-choice strategies that have spurred their followers to vote in the past. Conservatives don’t just dislike her, they actively despise her! Next year there is more at stake than just the presidency. We have a potentially historic opportunity to fire all the Bush-policy rubber-stamping & obstructionist Republicans in the U.S. Senate and replace them with Democrats who can get us out of Iraq, enact true election reform, and get big business out of our government. Unless anti-Hillary hatred brings out conservatives. Obama inspires new voters and might even result in conservatives sitting out the election. That’s got to terrify people like Pat Buchanon.

We’re fed up with Washington and the status quo. Bush and McSame want us to stay in a war that keeps Iraq oil production low so Bush’s Saudi buddies can artificially raise prices. Meanwhile, hard working Americans are falling out of the middle class. Clinton’s NAFTA have wrecked their jobs and worsened the housing bubble bust. Our politicians take our money and votes while lying to us about Iraq and future trade agreements with Columbia The Yes We Can movement is as much about the rest of us wanting to take back our government as it is about Obama. That’s what really scares Clinton backers and GOP.

[Christopher1]

Obama is a bigot with all his black haters against the whites. Can we say Wright, Sharpton. Jackson..........

[meltingpot101]

You are so deep in ignorance that you will just sink it . What are you going to do when Obama is YOUR NEXT PRESIDENT??

Obama's mother and grandparents who helped to raise him are white, have you forgotten??
If what you say were true Obama would be guilty of self-hatred and people selfloathe are anything but succesful. Forget about being on the brink of the Democratic Nominee.

I ask you to call on your basic knowledge of human nature, your theory doesn't add up.

[TommyHollis]

Misquote, but not a misrepresentaton.

[themightychris]

His misquote may have preserved the representation of the quote, but that quote itself misrepresented his point.

If you take the effort to look beyond the sound bite, and actually read for yourself the sentences before and after the bite instead of relying on the talking heads to tell you what to make of it, you'd feel pretty silly for going along with the angle Clinton and McCain have been pushing. What he said was perfectly reasonable, his only crime was dropping his guard and letting himself put a string of words together that could sound bad if chopped off at just the right points and repeated over and over and over.

He was explaining to a campaigner what campaign points would be effective in rural Pennsylvania.

He DID NOT say that people cling to religion or guns because they are bitter.

Rather, he said that people cling to the POLITICAL ISSUES(there's that pesky context thing!) of guns and religion over economic issues, because they have a bitterness towards the issue because past politics that have promised and promised on that end and never delivered for them.

The point was to inform the campaigner that economic issues would be a hard sell.

[STParker]

I forgot to add, what the hell is hillary doing pandering to these people?

[donnajane]

ever since reading his 'brief to whitey', I find myself oddly fascinated when I see him and hear him speak...fascinated in the way you would be if you met a talking dog, or a talking horse....

[morbie5]

You should have been fascinated about how true everything in "brief to whitey" was.

[STParker]

Buchanan is doing is employing time-honored Republicans, when a Democrat says that Republican leaders are liars they say that you are calling their voters easy to decieve. When you say that they foster divisiveness and insecurities with their policies they say you are calling their voters bigots. When you say that the rhetoric bouncing in their echo chamber is unsound factually they say you are calling their voters stupid.

The fact is that there are people who vote for guns, god and, (a ban on) gays. If we start from that basic assumption than we have to look at why, and there are two reasons for that 1) economic security 2) sincere belief.

The people in category #1 care more about the economy than the people in category #2.

The people in category #2 will only come around when they feel the discomfort of the sincere disdain the rest of the world feels for the bigots.

[meltingpot101]

I like Dan Abrahms and watch the show regularly. But sometime he puts people like Tucker Carlson (who's show apparently got canceled and now they gave him some unofficial title and he makes his rounds on MSNBC shows) Anyway also people like Pat Buchanan on. Dan lets these guys mispeak and spew venom and ignorance.

Pat Buchanan also got told he was an "elitest" by some other guy. He told Pat that he had to get rid of his Mercedes when he ran for president and replace it with a lincoln navigator so that he drove something made in the USA. This guy went on to say that there were many elitist in Pat's family. Pat laughed cuz he knew it was true.

Pat is constantly spout out his "good ole boy" ideas and views. It's iritating sometimes but mostly I just figure he's old and has not evolved with most of america. He is not always wrong though. He's probably having a hard time wrapping his brain around the idea of Obama being our next president. Truth is he probably never thought he would see the day....

[southafrica4obama]

this Bikenan Buchanan guy has just been a buffoon on TV. I don't know why they still give him airtime. He's the one bringing down their ratings. Pat and Lou should just leave TV and work in some government urgency in Arizona. I just don't understand why these two old folks hate Obama. Can someone tell me!

[morbie5]

Haha. Countdown aside, Buchanan is one of the only reasons MSNBC is still on the air. They don't hate Obama and just because someone doesn't have liberal white guilt does not mean they are a racist.

[Wildcatdiva]

Bless his little heart...he's needs to be relevant soooooooo badly....
THAT OLD TIRED REDNECK BIGOT.

[Chandidevi]

Who in God's name listens to Pat Buchanan. the old redneck from Alabama??? He needs to be put out to pasture. Bless you Pat, but it's time to roll over and let the young'uns have their say. Bye Bye!

[bamainatlanta]

Why do people like yourself think it is ok to call people from Alabama "rednecks"? And Pat is not from my state of Alabama, FYI. It is attitudes like yours which make some of us "down here" think you are elitist.

And FYI #2: What Buchanan said was correct. Obama was saying that working class white folks cling to feelings of antipathy to immigrants and and people unlike them. Check the quote, as Pat was very close to the original quote. And being against Illegal immigration does not make one anti immigrant!

I challenge any of you to respond to my comments. I am not a conservative. I loathe neoconservatism. But I am beginning to loathe Obamaism as well. Some of you are living in a fantasyland. He can not win in November with this elitist and arrogant attitude.

And one more thing. Where did he get off calling Hillary "Annie Oakley"? She simply mentioned a childhood memory. Obama is really showing his ass now.

[realpolitic]

If Obama said that working class whites cling to feelings of antipathy to immigrants and those unlike them because of economic uncertainties, then Buchanan would certainly agree with Obama. Buchanan has fashioned a career out of arguing that illegal immigration really hurts this country. Then you say you agree with Obama as well, and that being against illegal immigration does not make one against immigrants in general. Well, if you agree with him how then is Obama's statement elitist? He is saying people act on their economic uncertainites. You and Buchanan seem to agree. What is the big deal?

[realpolitic]

Conservative pundits seem to have a license on just making up whatever they like. They do it in excess and never have repercussions. Pat characterizes the Democratic party as elitist. At least, he is not making generalizations, as he accuses Obama. Republicans represent the interests of business elites while wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming to represent middle America. Middle, small town America would rather have access to health insurance and higher minimum wages, than Republican rhetoric on cuts in capital gain's taxes.

[Cedman]

motto.

[Cedman]

Pat has been selling hate for years. If you ain't white you aint right is his model.

[Daly]

yoy forgot christian; you gotta be white and christian

[donnajane]

...and if you ain't white you should smile and say thank you for all that white america has done for you...'A Brief to Whitey'...

[candybar]

well remember b.o. is half white so pat cant be all bad

[Richardini]

Pat Buchanan is the most overrated speaker on TV. He is nothing but another Rush Limbaugh with a better vocabulary. His twisting of Obama's words surprises nobody. He is so catholic that the word religion mentioned by Obama probably set him off. There are speakers whose faces beg to be slapped and his is one of the best in that category. Joan Rivers once called him a Nazi and then she apologized with a joke saying that no, he wasn't a Nazi and that his parents were in a concentration camp. They died when they fell out of the watch tower. I never forgot that joke because it seemed so appropriate to describe this man. He is the epitomy of bigotry and it oozes out of all his pores when he talks. Obama can save this country and no matter what Pat Buchanan or the sick religious right says or does can avoid that. The Republicans have pulled out all stops to defeat this man because they know that if he is nominated, he will steamroll on to the presidency. Neither Hilary nor McCain can hold a candle to him.

[DebofMD]

Absollutely agree.

[ron071]

Richardini has it right about Buchanan'S " March to the sound of" the lock n load crowd. There's little reason to expect anything rational or fair from Buchanan. I've come to the conclusion that the main reason for change in the next administration is to avoid a repeat of the past 8 year disaster. Any who would vote for McSame simply aren't tuned in to their reality, or have some very strongly held Republican beliefs which are of benefit to them-individually as opposed to the vast majority of Americans. How on earth can one vote for the same people and expect a different result?

[Madampotential]

Well pat Bchanan knows bigotry. Does he think McCain is also calling people bigots??

Rick Santorum on the Hugh Hewitt Show:

John McCain was the guy who was working with Ted Kennedy to drive it down our throats, and lectured us repeatedly about how xenophobic we were, lectured us, us being the Republican conference­,...becaus­e having come from Arizona, knowing the strength of the Hispanic community, that we were going to be seen as racists,

Looks like McCain actually did call anti-immigrant republicans bigots!

[jlgottrox]

http://www.realchange.org/buchanan.htm