Obama: Imus, Outsourcing Comparable to Virginia Tech Massacre

From the Reason Magazine blog, an account of a particularly silly statement from the Democratic presidential candidate and Senator from Illinois. He mentions the shooting at Virginia Tech, and goes on. As described by a reporter for Politico:

“There’s also another kind of violence that we’re going to have to think about. It’s not necessarily the physical violence, but the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways,” he said, and goes on to catalogue other forms of “violence.”

There’s the “verbal violence” of Imus.

There’s “the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country.”

There’s “the violence of children whose voices are not heard in communities that are ignored.”

Just a stray bit of rhetorical excess?

If so, a particularly callous and offensive kind of rhetorical excess. How are parents of the dead students going to react to the use of their children for cheap political points.

We have generally viewed Obama as the strongest of the Democratic presidential pack, more dangerous to the Republicans than the polarizing and not very likable Hillary Clinton, and more attractive than the very conventional John Edwards.

But comments like this will quickly earn him a reputation as a political lightweight.