Andrew Sullivan: The Testing of Obama

[nsd]

Testing_of_Obama

Today will be a crucial day. It will be a day when we will discover if America's racial environment - and the emotions and feelings and anger and fears that it entails - can allow for a black man - with all that entails - to become president. Can a man like Obama both relate and belong to a congregation like Trinity UCC and be inspired by a man like Jeremiah Wright and still reach beyond race to white and Latino and Jewish and Muslim and other Americans who may find the specific racial context as impossible to understand as it is absurd to excuse? ....

(snip)

Much of Wright's worldview I find repugnant. But some of it I also find inspiring. And in trying to understand it in its totality, I do try to think about the racial context and history of America. And so there is a difference, pace Jonah, between a white charlatan like Robertson who chooses to demonize minorities in the name of Jesus and a pastor like Wright who vents rage against a majority that has, in the not-so-distant past, given African-Americans every reason to be angry. And there is a difference between a white politician (like Bush) who seeks to enjoy the support of a Robertson without ever challenging his ugly dimensions and a black politician who, while remaining in a congregation like Wright's, nonetheless has written and spoken as movingly as anyone in my lifetime about the need for racial reconciliation and understanding.

(snip)

But I see Obama as a pioneer on this path - a brave and principled pioneer. I would think much, much less of him if he disowned a spiritual guide because of that man's explicable if inexcusable resort to paranoia and racial separatism and anger. And I would think much, much less of Obama if he had never opened himself to this subculture and its fears, hopes and resentments. That he has done all this - while still attempting to reform and explain it - is a remarkable achievement. Maybe America is not ready for this bridge, for these contradictions, for this complexity. But the promise of Obama is that his campaign appears poised to show that America is ready for this - and the immense healing it would bring.

And so we are suspended between the old politics and the new, between a Clinton who believes in her heart that America is not ready and may never be ready for this leap and should therefore adopt a politics that assumes the ineradicability of this gulf and the need to disguise it and play cynical defense - and an Obama who offers all of us a chance to see that sometimes authentic identity requires an element of contradiction, a bridging of the resentful, angry past and a more complex, integrated future.

[GarbagemanLB]

1. Beautiful. K&R.

[David Dunham]

2. Obama has been inextricably tied to Wright. He cannot defeat McCain

[FrenchieCat]

4. I disagree with you........I know that Obama can defeat McCain.....

just Like I believed that he could defeat Hillary.

[jconner27]

18. It doesn't take much

Andy has been wrong since 2000 and now since he's got a thing for your guy he's all of the sudden right? LOL You Obama would drink anything that had Obama face on it.

[cali]

40. nope, hillbot. bzzzt. I don't care for Sullivan no matter what he says,

And I think Wright could do in Obama. Unlikely, but possible. I don't drink koolaid, hillbot.

[Hieronymus]

5. Did you ever think he could beat McCain?

[grantcart]

16. Yeah McCain doesn't have any problem with ministers lol

[SeattleGirl]

30. Yeah, I really gotta admire McCain and his "The Catholic Church is

a Whore" fundy preacher! Woohoo!!!!! He'd be soooooooooooo much better than Obama! Let's hear it, ya'll!!

Jesus Christ on a fucking crutch! Can people here not SEE that they are doing the reich wing's work for them?

Get a freakin' grip!

[woolldog]

32. I liked Mccain's reaction to that:

he said if that offends Catholics I'm sorry about that. LOL. :rofl: Gotta love McCain...

[SeattleGirl]

33. IF it offends????

He is such a nutjob! :rofl:

[CTyankee]

43. What I see is deplorable: a steady diet of Rev. WRight and NOT ONE MENTION

of McCain's pastor. We have cards stacked against us Democrats because we are in the forefront of change and OF COURSE they attack us!

But killing the messenger who brings the bad news is not the best or most creative use of our time. We've taken a bad hit and we need to move on, but to deny that we have been wounded is to put on blinders.

Let's at least be realistic...

[LSK]

45. Bomb bomb bomb Iran

That is McCain's campaign slogan.

[CatsDogsBabies]

3. Nice post

[papau]

6. that is first Andrew Sullivan in a long while that I felt was a great piece

[Big Blue Marble]

7. What a profound and brilliant piece.

Sullivan has succinctly described both Obama's courage and his challenge.
His challenge then is our challenge. Can we move beyond our past divisions
and into a stronger future together. This is a precious moment. We may miss it
But Obama has given us the opportunity to seize it.

Thank you for sharing this blog.

[David Dunham]

8. Obama's toast thanks to Rev. Wright -- or should it be Rev. Wrong

[gulliver]

9. Kellogg's is calling, Andy. They want you back with the other flakes.

Sullivan is officially around the bend. He ruined the Atlantic, writes like Chris Hitchens on a bad day, and supported Bush until far too recently.

On edit: He didn't really ruin the Atlantic. I had him confused with another guy.

[grantcart]

17. Lets say your right and I know very little about the guys background besides

what has been written in DU - this particular piece is very well written.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. I usually find Sullivan to be shallow and fake-profound

But that piece hit something. I think it was his honesty about his own struggles with and through gay subcultures.

Ot also gives me a clue about what many DUers don't like about him: pluralism. We've been so steeped in an essentially totalitarian politics for so long that when we see pluralism - real pluralism - we want to eradicate it. We call it hypocrisy, style without substance, etc. We want everyone to be a Democrat.

I also agree that this is a great test for the nation, and that it MAY (and perhaps likely will) fail the test. I'll vote for Clinton if we do fail the test, but I'll do so with the HOPE that there are better things on the horizon, that maybe my generation, and the one after mine, and my daughter's, can envision something else for us than what Langston Hughes called "the same old stupid game, of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak." Hughes noted, poignantly, that America never was America for him. I can only imagine the outrage that would pour down on him in these very forums for THAT notion...

Interesting read. Thanks.

[TML]

11. If you look up resonable conservative in the dictionary

It will have Andrew Sullivan. And Jon Swift. :-)

[CitizenLeft]

12. it pains me to see Andrew Sullivan understand the dynamics...

...and complexities of Wright's words... while "liberals" who profess to understand the historical racial inequalities in this country cannot.

Very sad.

[woolldog]

14. Ditto

[apocalypsehow]

15. Yep - agree 100%.

n/t.

[Frank Booth]

25. I believe that most of them (at least the ones on this board) understand this too.

It just isn't politically expedient for them to admit it.

[chyjo]

13. I can't believe that I am saying this

But I love Andrew Sullivan.

[Pablitoclavito]

19. Obama supporters love Gore-hating, Clinton-hating Andrew Sullivan

They love anyone, regarding of his/her past, who supports Barack Obama.

Obama's arrogance has rubbed off.

[woolldog]

20. Don't love him

but on this issue his analysis is spot on...maybe because he himself, as a gay man, knows what it's like to be caught between two different worlds. His piece has poignancy because he obviously has felt himself in the same position.

[Pablitoclavito]

21. On this issue, because he defends Obama

Let's keep it simple.

[woolldog]

23. no b/c I like the analysis.

it is spot-on.

[anigbrowl]

28. Hardly.

I've been a fan of Andrew Sullivan for several years. His is a conservative viewpoint I can respect deeply; he's a good man and a good American.

[QC]

42. They would swoon over Charlie Manson if he flattered Obama.

Sullivan is a prophet now but Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame and Paul Krugman and so many others are scum. Amazing.

[moobu2]

22. healing? you've got to be kidding me

For 20 years, virtually ALL of his adult life Barack closely associated with a hateful, vengeful America hating racist. That's not going to heal shit. All that's going to do is give us 4 more years of Repuk rule.

[Frank Booth]

26. Try reading the article with an open mind.

I have a feeling that you're mind's already made up, and the piece will do nothing to change it. But it's good to read something that challenges your views every once in a while.

[Beregond2]

24. Sullivan

I don't know a thing about Sullivan, but I know truth when I see it. This is the best thing yet written about the meaning of the Obama candidacy. I almost makes me glad all this Wright brouhaha has happened, if it can lead to reflection this profound.

I don't know what Obama plans to say tomorrow, but if he can address these issues with this much sophistication and sensitivity, his speech will be a triumph.

[anigbrowl]

29. You should learn about him

Sullivan started out as a poster-boy conservative journalist, willing to use his rhetorical skills to further the party line. Somewhere along the line, he came to realize that the republican party was deeply hostile to gay people (Sullivan is gay) and had to measure his intellectual and political depth against the value system he had become used to defending. He is still a conservative by conviction, but one who writes from the heart about ideas he sincerely believes rather than a mere hack. I have a lot of respect for him.

[anamandujano]

27. Obama can work out his identity issues on his own. Leave us out

of it. We have other problems.

Sullivan is a world class jerk.

[FrenchieCat]

36. Jerk? Pfffft!

[Oilwellian]

31. Sullivan sees the bigger picture

Great piece. Thanks for posting. K&R

[moobu2]

34. Sullivan could make Michele Obama actually look sane,

Is a very talented writer, usualy dead wrong on everything.

[Guava Jelly]

37. Michele Obama is sane

And I'll bet she is tons smarter than you are.

[JustinL]

35. excellent piece

[Utopian Leftist]

38. Insightful

Sullivan often has good insights.

It's a rare case that anyone turns as far away from the right as he has recently. The fact that the Hillary Hacks can't appreciate him just shows that they are incapable of looking at anything objectively.

[Prophet 451]

39. Sullivan is gaining my respect

This is just the latest. He's still a conservative but that's fine, the political process needs both conservative and progressive voices but he's coming to impress me as that rare commodity, a principled conservative.

[QC]

41. Does Sully consider Obama part of that treasonous, decadent leftist fifth column

that is going to sell America out to the scary A-rabs?

It is absolutely unbelievable that the likes of Andrew Sullivan would be treated as a prophet at DU, but it's been going on for a while now.

[AX10]

46. Sullivan would always condemn these kinds of people.

The thing is that Sullivan hates the Clinton's more than some wack-job extremists hate monger like Wright, so he is willing to over look Wright's hate of America just to keep the Clinton's out of power.
Sullivan is one screwed up SOB.

[IsItJustMe]

44. K&R