POLL: 56% disagree with Obama’s comments on small-town America. Plus, this email from reader Madhu Dahiya:

So I listened to that Trace Adkins song and I can see how it’s perfect rebuttal to Obama’s ‘so bitter about jobs (or lack of) they turn to God and Guns’ comment.

But, you know what? You don’t need to be a small town person to find Obama’s comments annoying. I’m a city person and I find them incredibly irritating. He sounded like a know-it-all. “I know more about your motivations than you, little person, know about your own motivations.’ Oh, really, Senator?

That’s the real problem with his comments. It’s a glimpse into his mindset and that mindset is: I know better than you. I can just imagine the type of government coming out of that mindset. Four years of talking down to me and asking me to pay for it.

“Four years of talking down to me and asking me to pay for it.” That sounds about right.

UPDATE: Related item here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Juliette Ochieng: It’s the “White” Church that Obama’s Talking About.

If you think about it, the fact that Obama lumped the perceived religion of the white, rural Pennsylvanian with “antipathy toward those not like them”–that is, racism, bigotry and anti-immigration (sic)–makes perfect sense.* The latter is bad and so is the former—if one is observing from the perspective of Black Liberation Theology.

In Obama’s mind, the religion clung to by the “average poor white Pennsylvanian” is BLT’s demonic “white” Church. The “white” Church the tool of oppression for all—including poor whites—and should be shaken off just like other social maladies. . . . Never forget where this guy is coming from.

Hadn’t looked at it that way.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In Slate: “When I went back there, and visited similar small towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, one thing I heard over and over—from registered Democrats!—was that their national party leaders were elitists who couldn’t seem to relate to their struggles. . . . Now, if Obama is sticking by the essence of what he said out of stubbornness or arrogance, that’s one kind of problem. But if he really doesn’t see why this could be a game-changer, that’s worse.”