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Hillary: "screw 'em"

Hillary is clearly going to take some grief for this. It's worth noting, however, contra the Huffington Post's misleading* headline claiming that Hillary was referring to "working class whites," what she was (apparently--based on the excerpt in the HuffPo story) talking about specifically were the Southern "angry white males" who had just voted in a GOP Congress that would torment the Clintons for the next six years. She was understandably furious and wounded about that--and was making a point about tit-for-tat politics, not American culture generally.

That said, it guarantees an unpleasant moment at tonight's debate, at a minimum. And as I think some of my colleagues are already blogging, Obama supporters are going to treat it as welcome karmic payback for her attacks on Obama as an elitist, even if the glove doesn't quite fit.

*It's the HuffPo home page hed that's misleading; the article page itself more responsibly specifies "Southern" working class whites. Update: The headline now refers to "Southern Working Class Whites." Kudos to them for changing it.

Update: Esteemed TNR contributor Alan Wolfe was present at the meeting in question and confirms the account.

--Michael Crowley