Atlantic Cover Story: Andrew Sullivan On Why Obama Matters

Theatlantic.com:

The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama is not, in the end, about Barack Obama. It has little to do with his policy proposals, which are very close to his Democratic rivals' and which, with a few exceptions, exist firmly within the conventions of our politics. It has little to do with Obama's considerable skills as a conciliator, legislator, or even thinker. It has even less to do with his ideological pedigree or legal background or rhetorical skills. Yes, as the many profiles prove, he has considerable intelligence and not a little guile. But so do others, not least his formidably polished and practiced opponent Senator Hillary Clinton.

Obama, moreover, is no saint. He has flaws and tics: Often tired, sometimes crabby, intermittently solipsistic, he's a surprisingly uneven campaigner.

Read the whole story: Theatlantic.com

Comments

[anghiari]

04:09 PM on 11/04/2007

This is a beautifully written, highly intuitive brilliant piece about the state of this country and our options in this election. And not once did Andrew Sullivan mention that Barack Obama was a "lame dancer. Imagine that!

[raker]

11:35 AM on 11/04/2007

Who reads this guy? He tries to piss off reasonable people by cheering on the neocons, and he tries to piss of conservatives by being unabashedly gay. A professional exotic.

It's infuriating that conservatives like Sullivan embrace the whole despicable Republican platform EXCEPT for the plank that would victimize his tribe. If these people had an ounce of empathy or humanity they'd be capable of caring about interests that don't affect them directly.

[Qbear]

11:32 AM on 11/04/2007

Sullivan has made it his life work apologizing for, and ranting against the Repigs he supported. Those Repigs any thinking queer, wouldn't have crossed the street to p*ss on if they burst into flames.

[Qbear]

11:29 AM on 11/04/2007

Andrew says.
http://www.outletradio.com/grantham/archives/andrewsullivan.jpg

"SPIT ON ME Obama/McClurkin, yeah Daddy!"

[Qbear]

11:26 AM on 11/04/2007

OBAMA CURED ME

(of wanting to vote for him)

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2006-8/1210139/bus.jpg

[Simone]

10:42 AM on 11/04/2007

Who gives a rat's ass what Bush-enabler Sullivan thinks?

[HeevenSteven]

09:05 AM on 11/04/2007

Sullivan is trying too hard to be "fair and balanced" in this piece. For example on Bush's failure to be a uniter:

"It wasn’t entirely his fault. On the left, the truest believers were unprepared to give the president the benefit of any doubt in the wake of the 2000 election, and they even judged the 9/11 attacks to be a legitimate response to decades of U.S. foreign policy."

Sullivan ignores the fact that the Repugs held the white house and BOTH houses of congress, and used that power like a steam roller; and 9/11 didn't happen in a vacuum; there is such a thing as "blow back".

And then there's this gem of a strawman on the 2004 election:

"And so the campaign became a matter of symbolism—pitting those who took the terror threat “seriously” against those who didn’t."

Here we go again: Democrats don't take terror seriously! Gimme a break Andrew!

I agree with him about Obama; but his intro would have been better if he'd left the straw men in the corn field.

[starrianna]

01:39 AM on 11/04/2007

*******************************************
OBAMA: The PARIS HILTON of Politics
*******************************************

[racetoinfinity]

10:55 PM on 11/03/2007

Gotta hand it to Sullivan - he's not dumb. A fairly astute piece of analysis with a few blind spots.

A few comments of mine -

-"....between God-fearing Americans and the peacenik atheist hippies of lore...."

the REAL hippies were not atheist but mystics - into higher spirituality as experience rather than lower mythic downtown religious dogma and belief. The New Left was athestic, but rational atheism is often a modern bridge from pre-modern mythic religion to post-modern spiritual awareness, i.e. a growth in development.

He's quite right about the need for a new modern/postmodern spirituality in the world, and the unfortunate choice that Europe made in the 16-17th centuries to throw the religious/spiritual line of development out of the picture (of development).

May I suggest Ken Wilber's book "Integral Spirituality" as one very good answer to this very real and pressing dillemma (of people going backwards to fundamentalist mythic dogma to meet their spiritual needs.)

Sullivan calls Evangelicalism "occasionally" anti-intellectual; nonsense, it is de-facto anti-intellectual, with a few exceptions.

Since Sullivan is on the right, he doesn't mention the increasing failure of free-market capitalism to provide an equitable economy for any but the upper echelons of the country, a huge problem, and leaves out countless moves toward imperialism and anti-democratic incipient fascism that the neo-cons have foisted upon us. I know this was a limited essay, but there are many blind spots. On the whole, though, concerning Obama and Hillary it's an interesting and fairly astute essay, I think.

[JackNasty]

10:02 PM on 11/03/2007

It's ironic that some Obama supporters are now pointing to Andrew Sullivan to defend Obama"s pandering to homophobic voters with Donnie McClurkin's ex-gay freak show in Carolina.

Andrew Sullivan, as editor of "The New Republic", devoted most of the October 31, 1994 issue to a debate with the racist pseudo-scientist Charles Murray, author of "The Bell Curve". Sullivan rationalized including Murray"s insupportable propaganda with the following bizarre statement: "The notion that there might be resilient ethnic differences in intelligence is not, we believe, an inherently racist belief."

Silly me, I thought the very idea that some races are inherently inferior to others is the essence of racism.

Using Andrew Sullivan to excuse Obama's use of McClurkin is just more of Obama and his supporters bringin' people together.

[JackNasty]

09:57 PM on 11/03/2007

It’s ironic that some Obama supporters are pointing to Andrew Sullivan to defend Obama’s pandering to homophobic voters with Donnie McClurkin's ex-gay freak show in Carolina. Andrew Sullivan, as editor of “The New Republic”, devoted most of the October 31, 1994 issue to a debate with the racist pseudo-scientist Charles Murray, author of "The Bell Curve". Sullivan rationalized including Murray’s insupportable propaganda with the following bizarre statement: "The notion that there might be resilient ethnic differences in intelligence is not, we believe, an inherently racist belief." The very idea that some races are inherently inferior to others is the essence of racism.

Using Andrew Sullivan to excuse Obama's use of McClurkin is just more of Obama and his supporters bringin' people together.

[Graywolf48]

05:59 PM on 11/03/2007

What I can't understand is why anyone thinks Sullivan and his ponderous pontification matters? Sullivan is a Log Cabin Republican, who until very recently was an ardent supporter of all things George Bush. I give little credence to any of Sullivan's musings.

[realitytrumpsbull]

05:57 PM on 11/03/2007

Well, sure he matters. Barack's a smart guy,
and he's got some OK ideas, but I'm not voting
for him. Why, you ask? I don't approve of
pandering to religious groups, that's why.
I think a good chunk of our national problems,
social problems anyway, can be traced back
to grand larceny wearing a Big Pointy Hat.
Other denominationererers, go ahead and include
yourself here___________, because I think
they're ALL rotten. Panhandling in the name of
________(insert name of preferred Deity) is
FRAUD. Shaking down the public so the churchies
can have a retirement fund isn't just fraud,
it also goes against (here we go) BIBLICAL
principles. Consider the parable of Jesus'
lost sandal. Well, that's not how they tell
it, but that's what it amounts to. So, the
Son of God is walking down the street, and
decides to drop by Dad's house. What's he see?
The roman-era version of a Bank Teller's Office
inside the old temple, there. So, what does
he do? He breaks open a can of the old
Almighty(R) whoop-ass, and throws these guys
out the door. Sound a little self-righteous?
Well, maybe, but he was also RIGHT. And,
if you look at it now, well I just read
another story that says that the Jewish peeps
are trying to suck up to the Megachurch people.
What'd the man say? Follow the MONEY...a
clerical collar is not a license to steal. Period. (Ok, clerical robe, holy bone, stone,
chicken hat, whatever you've got, there).

[Qbear]

05:40 PM on 11/03/2007

For all Sullivan's expounding on Baby Boomers during the Viet Nam war....he wasn't even in America through those years. It's not an experience which can be absorbed second hand, you HAD to be there. Just as Andrew couldn't say what the Civil Rights era was like, he wasn't here. Sullivan was born in 1963 so he was 9 yo in England when Viet Nam was over.

[homovivens]

05:15 PM on 11/03/2007

Mr. Sullivan’s summing up of the last half century of American politics – that of the interminable and internecine grudge match within the baby boomer generation over Vietnam – is specious at best. A more accurate and compelling reading of the politics of the previous century is offered by New York Times columnist and Princeton professor Paul Krugman in his current book, “The Conscience of A Liberal,” wherein he draws the battle lines quite differently – New Deal politics and the distribution of wealth.

But then, Sullivan is not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

As for his thesis of there being a sort of convergence of historical forces upon the timeliness of Obama’s candidacy for the presidency: his premises are wrong (for the above reasons) but his conclusion may not be far off. Obama, for quite different reasons, offers a fresh perspective wrapped in a judicious intelligence and all those attractive qualities one gets from him – that Lincolnesque je ne se qua.