You're Darn Right I'm Bitter

One of the most refreshing things about Barack Obama is his fearlessness when it comes to voicing a hard truth. It's an ice cold glass of unsweetened lemonade: hard to swallow, but unmistakably pure. The truth is, if you aren't bitter, you're probably voting for someone who is going to give us more of what we've been getting all along. And all Clinton and McCain seem to be saying is "Let them eat Lemons."

Both Clinton and McCain's response to Barack's comments about voters were incredibly elitist, which is funny since that seemed to be their charge. Hillary said we aren't bitter, we're resilient. In other words, we can take it, right? We can take our wages being frozen while the cost of living doubles. We can take lucrative jobs packing up and moving overseas. We can take the oil companies turning less than a 20% increase in operating expense into a 200% increase in profits. Hey, it's all part of being American. We take a beating and still wake up with a smile on our faces. Since Clinton is so sure the voters are just hunky dory with the way things are going, what would be her imperative to bring rapid and meaningful change? Clinton is completely out of touch. Hilldog, the thousands of people losing their homes right now aren't feeling very tough. They're feeling pretty bitter.

McCain's people had the nerve to call Obama's label of "bitter" condescending and elitist. From the camp of a politician whose first response to the housing crisis was to essentially allow fiscal Darwinism to run its course, this accusation is laughable. There is nothing condescending or elitist about Barack's assessment. In fact, it is just the opposite.

While Clinton and McCain live within the pomp and circumstances of their political propaganda, Obama is showing that he truly understands where voters are coming from. It is why he is winning. Obama's assessment that we are bitter comes directly from understanding that we are tired of the things that come from status quo politicians like Clinton and McCain that have driven the middle class to the edge of extinction. We should be proud to be bitter. It's not a bad thing to be, it just means you have been impacted, and it's not okay.

Of course, the real culprit here is the media. You would expect journalists to know a thing or two about the English language. The use of words like 'Typical' and 'Bitter' to skew a message, apply a racist tone, or deem verbage an insult, is a practice true writers should be abhorred to participate in, and journalists who play into these games should forfeit any claim to integrity. Isn't it more newsworthy that campaigns twist a word to political game, marginalizing our intelligence and language for petty trickery?

It requires minimal intelligence to interpret that Obama meant we were Bitter in that we are fed up, turned off, and have had enough of politics as usual. Personally, I've voted in 5 presidential elections; when I look at what has become of this country during the course of those 20 years, I do feel intensely acrid on the inside. Over the last eight years in particular, when our leaders talk about how they are going to fix something I do respond with cynicism.

So yes I am bitter, and you should be too, and in November we should all vote bitterly against the status quo and for a leader that truly knows how to make Lemons into Lemonade.

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