ShareThisRALEIGH, N.C. -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Saturday in an interview that he regrets offending people in recent remarks in which he said that small-town Americans are "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion."Obama has come under fire the last two days after revelations of the remarks, which he made last weekend at a fundraiser in San Francisco. Referring to small-town residents of Pennsylvania, Obama said at the fundraiser on April 6, "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."The quote was reported Friday on the Web site HuffingtonPost.com, and both Hillary Clinton and many Republicans immediately attacked Obama, calling him condescending. On the campaign trail, Obama initially seemed to stand behind his comments, but in a phone interview with the Winston-Salem Journal Saturday afternoon, he expressed regret about the remarks, while simultaneously defending the core of what he was trying to say.In the interview, Obama was asked whether he would apologize to small-town Americans who were offended by his quote in San Francisco.Obama said: "Well look, if there -- obviously, if I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that. But the underlying truth of what I said remains, which is simply that people who have seen their way of life upended because of economic distress are frustrated and rightfully so. And I hear it all the time when I visit these communities. People say they feel as if nobody is paying attention or listening to them and that is something -- that is one of the reasons I am running for president. I saw this when I first started off as a community organizer and the steel plants had closed, and I was working with churches in communities that had fallen on hard times. And they felt angry and frustrated."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Obama regrets 'bitter' take on small-town voters
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