Obama and Controversy - The Washington Post 4/14/08 - JB

On washingtonpost.com today Sen. Barack Obama’s handling of controversy was dissected, from his dealings with rogue nations to his recent “bitter” remark.

In 2007, Obama was challenged on his position with rogue nations when he stated he would meet with dictators of such nations without any preconditions. Pundits said this was an error of judgment on Obama’s part, but the senator said that this highlighted a major difference between him and Sen. Hillary Clinton’s stance on the subject.

The issue is, can he make the same determination regarding his statement about the people of Pennsylvania being “bitter.”

“Sometimes hope and anger go hand and hand,” Obama said at a dinner meeting he and Clinton attended in Philadelphia Monday night. “People really are angry, they really are fed up, some of them are bitter because Washington’s forgotten them. And because it’s not me that’s out of touch, it’s folks who think that folks are happy when they are out of a job.”

The audience largely supported Obama, and was predominately African-American. Clinton took note, and kept her comments short, and did challenge Obama again on his “bitter” statement.

Clinton raised the issue once again though, 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia, in the suburb of Bristol.

“The founders of our country, the drafters of the Constitution, could have decided that King George was a really bad guy and they were just gonna be upset about it,” Clinton said. “They were gonna be angry and all ripped up about it. They could have gotten bitObter about the way they were treated…but that’s not what happened.”

Clinton went on to say, “You know…when life hits you hard, you have a choice, you can either get bitter or better.”