Breaking: Obama's "Gategate" gaffe at Indiana high school

Ill. Senator Barack Obama stood in front of this white gate in Indiana and delivered his offensive remarks Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

EVANSVILLE (AP) — In the midst of daunting pressure from his rivals, Barack Obama caused an outburst and renewed cries of racism today when he called a white fence "black."

The remarks by Obama came as he was under increasing pressure from his chief rival, Hillary Clinton, whose astounding win in last night's Pennsylvania primary is bolstering calls for him to drop out of the race.

Speaking in front of a crowd of thousands outside of a high school here, Obama was discussing how to change Washington politics and improve the lives of everyday Americans when he made the inflammatory remarks.

"Americans simply don't believe that Washington knows how to solve their problems. I want to change Washington. As I stand here today, in front of this black gate, remember that with your vote, we can change Washington and fix the problems that are causing voters so much pain."

The fence, however, was a shade of off-white, clearly not the black that Obama called it.

Hillary Clinton immediately called Obama "out of touch with everyday Americans."

"Well that hasn't been my gate experience," said Clinton. "I know that when true Americans—as in, white, blue collar, Catholic, elderly, female, working class citizens who make under $50,000 a year—walk through the gates of their foreclosed homes to go to work every day, they know what color those gates are."

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called the gaffe simply "Gategate."

CNN's Lou Dobbs, Harvard '67, also called Obama out of touch with working class Americans on his show Lou Dobbs Tonight. "This is the biggest gaffe of Obama's political career. Clearly he believes that the gate represents white Americans and, by calling it black, obviously shows his belief that African-Americans are the dominant race. This is the clearest example of 'The War on the Middle Class' that I've ever shown on this program. Gategate will go down in history as the gaffe that cost Obama the White House."

Immediately following Obama's remarks, Hillary Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson released this statement, entitled "Gategate: Racist Obama Hates White Babies?":

"The Clinton campaign is deeply troubled by Senator Obama's remarks concerning the white gate. We hope that the obviously pro-Obama media will stop their biased coverage of actual news stories, and will instead spend the remaining 2 weeks before North Carolina and Indiana discussing how voters and superdelegates will flee to Clinton because of Senator Obama's flagrant disregard for the truth. And because he doesn't wear a flag pin. Remember, he hates America."

Obama, pressed later to explain the criticism, defended his comments. "Look, I turned around, I saw a fence, but the sun was in my eyes, and so I thought it was black. There's no deeper meaning than that."

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for John McCain, dismissed Obama's justification. "Only an elitist would say that the sun was in his eyes. John McCain isn't out of touch. He wears sunglasses like true American patriots. You just can't see them."

___

Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Bill Clinton contributed to this report.

© 2008 The Dom Pody Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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