(MCT) MUNCIE, Ind. – Battling persistent suggestions that he can seem elitist, Sen. Barack… (MCT) MUNCIE, Ind. – Battling persistent suggestions that he can seem elitist, Sen. Barack Obama defended himself Saturday against continued criticism over recent remarks of his now being called insulting to the very working-class voters he needs in crucial upcoming primaries.

For the second day in a row, he aggressively pushed back against complaints over comments he made last weekend at a private San Francisco fundraiser, remarks the two other presidential candidates suggest smack of big city arrogance.

“I didn’t say it as well as I should have,” the Illinois Democrat confessed to an audience at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., referring to a comment he made a week ago that many rural, working-class Americans are “bitter” over their economic plight.

After being asked at the fundraiser why he has struggled to win over such voters, he reportedly said: “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.”

Obama has repeatedly battled suggestions during his presidential bid that he is a liberal elitist, a Harvard-educated former law school lecturer whose eloquence allows him to falsely present himself in more moderate tones.

With the crucial Pennsylvania primary slightly more than a week away, the remarks provided an opening for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign to again question his general election ability to woo working-class voters, a group he long struggled to gain traction with until he built momentum by winning state primaries and caucuses.

Besides in Pennsylvania, blue collar and small-town voters will also make up a significant share of the Democratic electorate on May 6 in Indiana and North Carolina – two other critical upcoming primary states.

Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, aggressively sought to fan the controversy, which neatly fit into the former first lady’s message that Obama is not well vetted and would struggle against a Republican in a general election.

Campaigning in Indianapolis, she said she was “taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small town America.” – John McCormick, Chicago Tribune

(MCT) URUMQI, China – The International Olympics chief said Thursday that the Summer Games scheduled for August in China are in “crisis” amid protests following the Olympic torch and the sense of emergency surrounding the games grew Thursday, when China declared that it had smashed a Muslim terrorist ring that was plotting to kidnap Olympic athletes.

The Ministry of Public Security said it broke up a terror ring of 35 members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in this predominantly Muslim city in far west China. It said the group planned a variety of actions to disrupt the Aug. 8 to 24 games, including setting off bombs in Beijing and Shanghai.

The arrests occurred March 26 to April 6, Public Security Ministry spokesman Wu Heping told a news conference in Beijing, adding that police also seized 21 pounds of explosives, eight detonators and two explosive devices.

“The violent terrorist group plotted to kidnap foreign journalists, tourists and athletes during the Beijing Olympics and, by creating an international impact, achieve the goal of wrecking the Beijing Olympics,” Wu said.

“We are facing a real threat from terrorism,” Wu said, declining to take questions.

At the same time, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge acknowledged that protests of the Olympic torch during the past week have been tough on the Olympic movement.

“It is a crisis, no doubt about it,” Rogge told other Olympics representatives meeting in Beijing as he urged them to reassure athletes that the games “will be very well-organized.”

The Olympic torch moved from San Francisco to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where some 1,200 police were on hand to stop the kind of disruptions that marred the relay earlier in the week in London and Paris amid protests over China’s rights record.

A sense of crisis surrounding the Beijing Olympics intensified on other fronts. In Brussels, Belgium, the European Parliament voted 580-24 to urge European Union leaders to consider a mass boycott of the Olympics opening ceremony unless China enters direct negotiations with the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetans, said he supports the Beijing Olympics and opposes violence around the torch relay, but he warned China that pro-Tibetan activists are entitled to speak out. – Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) CHICAGO – Ah Spring. The crocuses are beginning to poke their pretty heads above the soil; the birds are building nests; and, throughout the land, a resounding chorus of rejection is heard.

This has been a record year for college applications and, hence, a banner year as well for rejections. Admission rates are down at Yale and Princeton, and Harvard took in the lowest percentage of applicants in the school’s history.

Indeed the rejection is difficult on both sides. All the admissions officers interviewed for this story noted that this is a time of stress around their offices. Some letters address this. “It is painful to us that we must turn away so many superbly talented students,” Yale’s letter notes.

“We know how hard it is to get a rejection letter and we know how hard it is to send one,” said Monica Inzer, Director of Admission and Financial Aid at Hamilton College, a private liberal arts school in Clinton, N.Y. “We have two letters we send out. One of them is softer, though we think both are fairly soft.”

Hamilton has seen a 19 percent increase in applications over the last two years. Last spring “was more of a bloodbath,” Inzer said.

The super-soft letter, which goes to children of graduates or of employees or siblings of students, begins with a gentle “no” like the other letter but goes on with more explanation about the increased quality of the current pool of applicants.

It ends with Inzer’s personal invitation to call her for further explanations.

Steve Syverson, vice president for admissions at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., said the letter he sends to those who didn’t make the cut is “intended to let them down gently and preserve their dignity.” – Charles Leroux, Chicago Tribune