Feeling…bitter! Gun, please.

What’ll Pennsylvanians do after the 22nd? We’re like the spawn of besotted yuppie parents committed to having only one child, citing “environmental concerns.” But then, whoops!

Keystone, say hello to your new brother, Indiana! He’s little, so he needs a lot of attention right now, and we’ll be carrying him around, feeding him and sleeping with him for awhile. But you know how much we love you, too! Right? We’ll do lots of special things together, too. Just us. Promise!

Okay, dumb metaphor. (Besides, I really like creative names like “Ashton” and “Caden” better than “Keystone” and “Indiana!”) Before my great state goes into attention withdrawal, it’s worth checking out some remarks made by Obamessiah in San Francisco more than a week ago. He was characterizing “these small towns in Pennsylvania” as bereft of good jobs and having been left behind economically by Presidents Clinton and Bush (Good strategy so far).

But then,

“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.”

RUT-ROH!

Cue the hyenas (I mean, Merry Christmas in April, McCain and Hillary!). Republicans accused the Chosen One of being an out-of-touch elitist. Hillary alleged that he was arbitrarily judging people in whole swaths of the state as unenlightened.

Really? When I’m bitter, I cling to this and this.

Seriously, I think maybe Ed Rendell (a Hillary fan) had a closer take. He pointed out the obvious when he said that rural Pennsylvanians have always valued hunting–which requires firearms, more often than not–and have their own rich religious traditions. Those things have always been part of the cultural fabric, not the crutches of snaggle-toothed yokels in the backwoods.

And really, hunting is a way of keeping game populations in healthy balance, since we have encroached on the territories of natural predators. What should we do, shoot birth-control darts into deer (I’m talking to you, Main Line!)? As for religion, didn’t Obamessiah just silver-tongue his way out of a little Preacher Problem himself? Antipathy towards people unlike themselves? (I’m talking to you again, Main Line!).

Anti-immigration and anti-trade biases? Well, those things are growing among the disappearing middle class in PA and, uh, everywhere. I don’t think either one is right; I’m just sayin’ that maybe people feel threatened when the brutal gulf between the haves (who can afford to be all self-congratulatory in their embrace of “diversity”) and the used-to-haves (who may be looking for anything to explain the unraveling of their lives: if they can eradicate the causes, maybe things will go back to normal) threatens to swallow them whole.

Probably not an intentional slap at Pennsylvanians on Obama’s part. Just. Very. Dumb. coming from someone who’s very anxious that voters not view him as a stereotype, or hold his particular brand of religion against him.

Read the transcript of Obma’s comments here. I’m-a gonna load up my Winchester, tromp out to the old quarry and pray to Xenu before bed. Aaaargh! So bitter!