Obama misspeaks, but Clinton shows a forked tongue

Obama misspeaks, but Clinton shows a forked tongue
Tuesday, April 15th 2008, 4:00 AM
Long ago, I discovered that the word "frankly" often meant a lie was coming my way. I learned this from an insurance agent, who preceded every attempt to sell meuseless coverage with a "frankly." This explains why I distrust what Hillary Clinton said about Barack Obama and his admittedly klutzy statement about guns, church, immigrants and bitterness - "elitist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing," she said. Frankly, I don't believe her.
And this, frankly or not, is the trouble with Clinton. Obama clearly misspoke. But there are very few moments with him where I feel that he does not believe what he is saying - even when, as with his lame capitulation of leadership regarding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright I can't respect it. With Clinton, on the other hand, those moments are frequent.
The current fuss is an example. She has turned Obama's statement into an affront to gun lovers everywhere, which it just might be. But since when is Clinton a gun lover, a hunter or even a weekend skeet shooter? She is, apparently, none of the above - at least she will not say when she last fired a gun. The truth, if a guess is allowed, is that she does not give a damn about guns and hunting, and when she brings up her "churchgoing family" and her "Our Town" values, they are expressions of treacly nostalgia and not the life of incredible affluence and situational morality she now enjoys.
At times, Obama has the air of a maitre d' who shows you to a bad table. It's the impeccable suit. It's the air of consummate confidence. It's the awesome self-assurance that comes from knowing that he has something you want. In the headwaiter's case, it's a good table. In Obama's case, it's himself.
That air of self-confidence can sometimes come off as smugness or indifference.
The signal moment for that came in a New Hampshire debate when Obama glanced at Clinton and said, by way of dismissal, "You're likable enough, Hillary."
It is this quality of Obama's - this sense that you need him more than he needs you - that probably explains why Clinton has seized upon his remarks about the poor of Pennsylvania and elsewhere who, in Obama's artless telling, have turned to God and guns. It was, as he conceded, a bumbling attempt at expressing an economic truth. But the true spirit of what Obama said was not condescension, but empathy. People were hurting. They were bitter. He understood.
Both Clinton and Obama are liberal Democrats - the former less liberal than the latter, but nomatter. One is more experienced than the other. One is white, the other black, and one is a woman and the other is not. Still, on mortgages, Iraq, Israel and almost anything you can name, they are in general agreement.
That's why the campaign has increasingly been about what one or the other candidate said or meant to say or should have said.
Obama should not have attributed a yearning to hunt or attend church to hard economic times. The remarks will haunt him - witness how John McCain has also called them "elitist "
But Obama was right about the economic roots of bitterness and anti-immigrant sentiment. And he's been right, too, about the patent insincerity of Clinton's criticism. Her attack is hardly based on a touching regard for gun owners or, even, churchgoers, but on the desperate hope that the smoothly aloof Obama can be painted as arrogant and elitist. It's old, tiresome politics - the politics of politics - and, paradoxically, more patronizing than anything Obama himself said.
Frankly.
cohenr@washp adapted from nydailynews Opinions 4-15-2008 posted by davidsradiotv2000