… get up with fleas. Conservative operative Andrew “Bareback Andy” Sullivan, early Obama endorser, explains to Obama what he’s got to do to win. It’s an old, old, game with these guys, isn’t it?

Obama needs not just to distance himself from Wright’s views; he needs to disown him at this point. Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer,
Vietnam era’s obsession with its red-blue, white-black, pro and anti-America fixations. That is not what this election needs to be about; and Wright’s massive, racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.

We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison…

That’s going to be hard, given how Obama’s already smeared the Clintons as racists.

…. however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man’s politics with another. It is  now about Wright attempting to
associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also given him another opportunity. He needs to seize it.

I always love it when Republicans explain to Democrats how to win; it’s cute, as long as you don’t pay any attention to it. Sullivan’s already thrown the generational apple of discord into the race, so he must be looking for more damage to do.  Read more 

Now this is a great speech:

In recent weeks, every one of us has been made aware of a simple truth — white Americans and black Americans often see the same world in drastically different ways — ways that go beyond and beneath the Simpson trial and its aftermath, which brought these perceptions so starkly into the open.

Abraham Lincoln reminded us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. When divisions have threatened to bring our house down, somehow we have always moved together to shore it up. My fellow Americans, our house is the greatest democracy in all human history. And with all its racial and ethnic diversity, it has beaten the odds of human history. But we know that divisions remain, and we still have work to do. (Applause.)

Recognizing one another’s real grievances is only the first step. We must all take responsibility for ourselves, our conduct and our attitudes. America, we must clean our house of racism. (Applause.)

Of course, that was Bill Clinton’s speech on the Million Man March in 1995 — the very same Bill Clinton that the Obama campaign has been systematically marginalizing as a racist, and the very same Bill Clinton who arguably took much greater political risks that day than Obama did yesterday, since the Million Man March was organized by Louis Farrakhan, a figure then far more demonized than Wright today, and Clinton was a sitting President, rather than a candidate seeking to kick start a stalled campaign. Obviously, we can answer Cornerite Charles Murray’s rhetorical question (quoted approvingly by Mat Yglesias) “Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one?” with a resounding “Yes! Bill Clinton did!” But then, the creatures of the Conservative Movement have never give the Clintons credit for anything, and their descendants in today’s famously free press and today’s famously self-correcting blogosphere play by those same rules.

But let that pass. After all, 1995 was a long time ago, and many may not even remember that time. Let’s focus on Obama’s — I hardly dare to use the lower case “s” — speech. We all know that Obama gives a terrific speech — not least because prepared-for eloquence rules out any requirement that he think fast on his feet or take questions — and so the excellence* of Obama’s rhetoric** really isn’t the question here. (Nor do I care about Wright, who is certainly as sane as, say, Henry Kissinger. So Obama’s beautiful description of his church is interesting but to me, academic.) But when I, case-hardened cynic that I am, start looking at the pesky detail… Start trying to match up Obama’s words with Obama’s actions… I start asking questions.

Questions like:

Does Obama live up to his own speech in the way he’s running his campaign?  Read more 

Mickey Kaus at Slate notes that Andrew Sullivan preceded Geraldine Ferraro’s scurrilous racial comments by several months.

Kaus cites many of the inflammatory, racially-charged phrases Sullivan used in a piece from the Atlantic that can’t help but remind one of the most repugnant moments of The Birth of a Nation:

If one of the “foremost” things Obama offers voters is the “face of a brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia, etc.” doesn’t that mean “he would not be in this position if he were white”? If you like Obama because he might “rebrand” America to the world—well, he wouldn’t accomplish that simply by having his election televised, as Sullivan suggests he would, if he were white, would he?

Is Hillary going to stand by idly while Sullivan fuels her agenda of race-baiting, or will she speak out against Grand Wizard Andy?  Read more 

Bareback Andy’s headline:

A Dam Breaks?

Paper towels, anyone?  Read more 

[Welcome, Sideshow readers.]

C’mon, Andy. Don’t you think Barney Frank deserves a little more from you than a snarky putdown?

Here’s the context. Sullivan is responding to Frank’s article in HuffPo. I quote the text [DCOW] of Sullivan’s riposte in its entirety:

My friend Congressman Frank doesn’t want to say “goodbye to all that.” Presumably, that’s why he’s backing Clinton.

[Rimshot. Laughter. Try the veal!]

Andy, I’d say this post isn’t up to your usual fine standard.

One, it’s not on point. Your post misrepresents the serious point Frank is making. Here’s what Frank, well-known hater of ponies, wrote in HuffPo:

[FRANK] I agree that it would have been better not to have had to fight over some of the issues that occupied us in the nineties. But there would have been only one way to avoid them — and that would have been to give up. More importantly, the only way I can think of to avoid “refighting the same fights we had in the 1990’s”, to quote Senator Obama, is to let our opponents win these fights without a struggle.

How can we say “goodbye” to the 90s when they won’t go away? That’s the point at issue, Andy, and “presumably” obfuscates it. No, not “presumably.” Nothing “presumably” about it.

Two, it’s insulting to Frank. Andy, it’s not like Frank’s fighting our (and your) battles out of whimsy, or because he’s been eating radishes, or out of personal pique. It’s because the battles still need to be fought.

Andy, I’m sure if you’d taken a moment to think before pressing Submit, you would have remembered this speech from Frank on the House floor. Here’s the video:  Read more 

There’s a well-thumbed page in the Republican playbook where Republicans helpfully explain to Democrats what Democrats should do if they want to win elections. And—I know this will surprise you—the answer is always “Be like the Republicans!” (Of course, if people want a Republican, all they have to do is vote for a real one, so the advice always fails. Why would that be, I wonder? Because it’s just a mindfucking ploy by a Republican concern troll, that’s why.)

Naturally, our famously free press pays very well for such Conservative Movement fatuity. Take Andrew Sullivan—please. Here he is in action:

Yes, I know how many of you feel: crushed. This country is being given a chance to move beyond its vicious Partisan, Polarizing past, [double bollocks] and last night [in NH], core Democrats picked the most polarizing [bollocks]figure in the country.

It’s the same play! A Republican telling Democrats how to succeed!

Who could possibly be fooled by this?  Read more 

As I said earlier, I actually enjoyed Sullivan’s talk. I’m a sucker for the “big idea” sort of presentation, which is exactly what Sullivan was doing.  Read more 

Well Andrew Sullivan will be speaking at my school in less than an hour. I met him this afternoon and he did a nice job talking with our students.  Read more 

Much as I prefer the new, class of 2004 Andrew Sullivan to the old, ungraduated one, he still exhibits the classic winger tendency to turn on a logical dime in the space of one or two paragraphs. Proposition #1:

Crisis = Opportunity
What we desperately need right now is less recrimination - can we all agree that the current crew is simply unhinged? - and more imagination with respect to exploiting the opportunities opened up by the moral and strategic catastrophe of the Iraq occupation.

Proposition #2:

This is Condi’s chance. Take it, madam secretary.

Can anybody spot the small problem?  Read more