The Maverick Tribe

A gaffe - to paraphase Michael Kinsley - is when a politician tells the truth.  (See:  Howard Dean, 2003)  And so Barack Obama once again makes the mistake of saying something perceptive and accurate:

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The Clinton campaign pounces.  How condescending!  The McCain campaign pounces.  How elitist!  The Republican National Congressional Committee pounces.  How out of touch!  No word yet on whether Obama might actually have a point.

Cue Hillary Clinton's empty response:

Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families.

No doubt her consultants are proud to have fed her a line that manages to cram the words "stand up", "fight","work hard", "future", "jobs", and "family" all into one sentence. 

This is the kind of thing that makes election rhetoric insincere, anodyne, vacuous and sound-bitey.  If we continue to punish politicians for their candor, then we deserve what we get.