I’m shocked. Seriously, I thought he was different. You know, smarter. And decent. Or at least shrewder. Maybe I was wrong.

In a speech yesterday, Barack Obama compared what happened at Virginia Tech to Don Imus’s “verbal violence,” and the undefined kind of “violence” that outsourcing effects. According to Obama, the latter is “violence” because “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.” Offering these types of comments while 32 families are grieving? Astonishingly inappropriate at best. “Appalling” probably hits closer to the mark for most people.

What’s really distressing about these comments is that judging what happened at Virginia Tech is, morally speaking, a lay up. As reader Mark put it so well in an email, “A cruel, sick man gave in to the voices of evil.”

To steal borrow from Allah, an exit question – Does Obama really believe his own claptrap, or was he merely making a misguided but also disturbing effort to cater to the Democratic base and score political points?

(Thanks to reader Larwyn. As always.)

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