Obama’s making things worse for himself

Here are the remarks that have gotten lots of people thinking “ Maybe Rev. Wright isn’t the only problem” and others asking, “Does Obama really know about folks like us”:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.”

“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."

Now Reuters is reporting Sen. Obama's clarification:

…Obama said he did not use the right language to describe the anger and frustration small-town residents feel about the struggling economy and the failure of government to help them.

"I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter," Obama said in Muncie, Indiana.

"So I said well you know when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community," he said.

"Now, I didn't say it as well as I should have."

I think he's just stepping deeper into it.

What do you think?

Here’s a link to a vdeo at the Huffington Post in which Obama makes his “they get bitter” remarks.

Here's the entire Reuters report.