Put it this way, AndrewII (is there, btw, an AndrewI on this forum?
), I think it's an awfully big stretch to try to take a remark many also said was accurate if poorly worded in some respects, about the tendencies of people in some small towns when times are hard and the government doesn't listen to them as it should (it was after all clearly intended to be commentary sympathetic to their situation), and also a comment someone made about his own grandmother, perhaps also poorly worded but also seen as accurate by many people (including Chris Wallace, just for example, and to the extent that he took the almost unprecedented step of scolding his co-workers on the air for their decontextualization and criticism of it), both remarks made by a man who has clearly and repeatedly spoken out against such divisions (his widely praised speech on race in Philadelphia being just one example; his widely praised speech in 2004 on political divisions being another; his two widely praised books being two more), and one who in fact embodies in himself a blend of races and and so forth, and to nevertheless conclude that the two remarks outweigh all the rest and prove that his vision of getting past such divisions has failed...
Well, as I say, I think that's bizarre reasoning, but perhaps I'm not understanding you properly and that's not what you're saying... That view strikes me as being like that of the people who comment that this past winter was not so cold where they live, actually, and conclude from that that therefore the whole of the evidence on global warming must be wrong and the idea disproved.
And this is not even to mention that Obama has said he's no more perfect than anyone else is, for one; and for another, it's not strictly speaking
his vision, it is a road open to all of us to choose to make ourselves better and make the country better, if we really want to. It's not his product he's trying to sell (like a snake oil salesman, the implication of such criticism seems to be), it is just objectively speaking a possibility we can pursue.
But to take the above view and then to further imply (as usually seems to be the case) that he's therefore really just like all other politicians, such as his opponent, who has repeatedly and now more directly and overtly than ever tried to focus this campaign on race in a cynical way, to her own benefit...
Doesn't make sense.
Steve