Check Out an Excerpt from Todd Starnes' New Book, 'Dispatches from Bitter America'!

Editor's note: FoxNews.com is pleased to present an excerpt from "Dispatches From Bitter America" the new book by Todd Starnes. host of Fox News & Commentary.

I am a gun-toting, chicken-eating son of a Baptist. And according to the president of the United States, I am a bitter American.

President Obama delivered the diagnosis for my condition during the 2008 presidential campaign. In one of his rare, unscripted moments, then Senator Obama vented to a group of supporters in San Francisco about white, working-class voters.

“So it’s not surprising then that 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,”1 he said, according to a transcript on The Huffington Post.

What a relief! I can pack away the antacid tablets. I always thought that bitter feeling in my belly was an upset stomach. But I don’t have acid indigestion. I’m just a bitter American. I can’t begin to tell you how indebted I am to the president of the United States for diagnosing my condition.

The antithesis of bitter Americans, I imagine, would be our countrymen who’ve been educated in Ivy League schools, who listen to highbrow music, and who dine on arugula and fermented soy. They are well-bred men who marry high-society women named Babs and Muffy. They are Americans who believe the only free speech should be their own. They are Americans who would rather the criminals have guns than law-abiding citizens. And they are Americans who believe mankind created the heavens and the earth and that man created God in his likeness.

But I do wonder about my prognosis for recovery. Will I have to turn my guns over to the federal government? Will I need to repent for the mass slaughter of innocent chickens to satisfy my bloodlust for finger-licking good food? Will I need to renounce my faith in the King of kings and instead bow my knee to whoever Oprah Winfrey ordains as “The One”?

Kind readers, these are lofty questions far above my pickup truck-driving, country music-listening, Paula Deen-loving pedigree. So I decided to hit the road in search of answers. What does it mean to be a bitter American? Is there a cure? And if so, do I want to take the medicine?

My search for answers took me through the cornfields of Iowa and the waters of South Carolina’s low country; I traversed the Mississippi Delta and braved the scorching heat of the Nevada deserts. I was nearly mugged in Detroit and caught flu in Chicago, but I pressed on toward the prize. And one day it suddenly hit me. I was somewhere between a red state and a blue state when I had something of a political epiphany.

It happened at a small diner tucked away on a side street in the picturesque town of Manchester, New Hampshire. The Red Arrow Diner has been serving up blue-plate specials on Lowell Street since 1922. And it’s also become a mandatory stop on the campaign trail for anyone who wants to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It was a cold, snowy day, just before the New Hampshire primary. I peeled off my winter coat and grabbed the first stool I could find. The waitress told me they made the best cheeseburger in town so that’s what I ordered—along with a root beer.

As I was waiting for my meal, I thought about my epiphany. The network television reporters like to tell us we are a divided people—that most Americans don’t buy into God and country. But that’s not what I discovered along my journey. I found a nation with a lot more in common than the network news agencies would admit.

Most folks across the fruited plain really are alike. We work hard, tend backyard gardens, go to high school football games on Friday night, and go to church on Sunday. In a way that’s what makes our country so wonderful and the fabric of our freedom so strong.

Consider our countrymen in New Hampshire. They understand the cost of freedom. It’s emblazoned on every car in the state: “Live Free or Die.” As soon as I crossed the state line from Massachusetts, I found a Cracker Barrel restaurant, picked up a country music station on the radio, and found a NASCAR racetrack. For a minute I thought I made a wrong turn and ended up in Alabama.

In between bites of my all-beef cheeseburger, I contemplated the American narrative—wondering why God chose to shed His grace on this land, on this people. I came up with five reasons.
 

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Fox News & Commentary's Todd Starnes reflects on his new book, Dispatches from Bitter America, on "Fox & Friends.

CLICK HERE to buy Dispatches from Bitter America