Is it just me?

This non-story on Obama gaff reminds me of a scene in Mississippi Burning. Obama's one line from a thoughtful answer that has everyone going nuts:

And 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."

And Willam Defoe and Gene Hackman in the 1988 classic:

Mr Ward: Where does it come from, all this hatred?

Mr. Anderson: You know, when I was a little boy there was an old Negro farmer lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was, well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. My daddy hated that mule. His friends kidded him that they saw Monroe ploughin' with his new mule and Monroe was gonna rent another field now that he had a mule.

One morning that mule just showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that there was never any mention about that mule around my daddy. One time we were drivin' past Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He'd just packed up and left, I guess. Gone up North or somethin'.

I looked over at my daddy's face and I knew he'd done it. And he saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and he said “If you ain't better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?"

Mr Ward: Do you think that's an excuse?

Mr. Anderson: No, it's not an excuse. It's just a story about my daddy.

Mr Ward: Where does that leave you?

Mr. Anderson: With an old man who was so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killin' him.

Isnt the Senator saying roughly the same thing? People look for someone to blame for their lot in life which reminds me that President Shepard said the same thing in The American President:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.