Say Hello to Say Goodbye: Sullivan's Kairos Doctrine on Obama

First, AS's essay on Obama is marred by an ugly juxtaposition that he's used before, that is simply inaccurate:

MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” on the one side, Ann Coulter’s Treason on the other;

If AS thinks that MoveOn is like unto Ann Coulter then he should prove it (as requested). Otherwise, here is the list of what Moveon.org is involved in. How is this the same as Ann Coulter's deliberate sensationalism?

BABY-BOOM ANGST IN THE BALANCE?

I'm not sure I buy that as a foundation for the tension that is to be resolved by an Obama Presidency.

I'd submit that many (if not most) folks on the progressive side of politics feel like the "culture war" was largely manufactured in order to support the politics of the Reagan Devolution.

It's arguable that the reason Bill Clinton was "polarizing" was because he was so talented and potentially so effective. If you cannot stop him, then you have to slow him down. That's the agenda of he-who-must-not-be-named, who started the funding for the campaign to hobble them.

How is Bill Clinton effective? Well, for one, he has a sense for the sweep of liberal-vs-conservative politics and the current state of it. I don't get that sense for Obama (and certainly not from some of his advisers, like Goolsbee, for instance).

Put another way, I don't yet have the sense - and perhaps it is my own lack of watching closely enough or not being informed - that Obama is thoroughly steeped in the liberal-progressive tradition enough to transcend it (or to be a strong enough political master to lead an evolution of it - "transformation", Andrew's term, requires sustainable political capital, too, ya know).

ESCAPE FROM PARTISANSHIP?

Two or three things.

I'd submit that many (if not most) folks on the progressive side of politics feel like the "culture war" was largely manufactured in order to support the politics of the Reagan Devolution. A few seedlings were slyly turned into mammoth issues, requiring full moral focus.

The way past that kind of thing is really when those pushing it get punished sufficiently to themselves change tact. It probably has little to do with a candidate who is non-polarizing, because it is a politics that seeks polarization, not reconciliation (or even persuasion).

The broad outline of the forces threatening to "the constitutional order" probably goes beyond individual candidates. ...
the truly great rise in wealth inequality ...
The breakdown of the civility and the functioning of the Senate as a truly deliberative body ... the civic ennui that attends Republics that grow fat and happy

Hoping for an escape from partisanship in Washington seems naive to me. What one is hoping for is candidates that have sufficient character not become subsumed by their own partisanship (as did Nixon, as did Reagan at some low points, viz. Ollie North, et. al.) or to become arrogant, as have Cheney-Bush, who have treated the Senate as a side-show, for the most part.

The broad outline of the forces threatening to "the constitutional order" probably goes beyond individual candidates. It's probably no coincidence that the truly great rise in wealth inequality, dating from the 80s, has been accompanied by an intensification of political partisanship.

The breakdown of the civility and the functioning of the Senate as a truly deliberative body have roots that probably go deeper than baby-boom angst, and tie-in with many things, not the least of which is one that Clinton warned of in his last years in office: the civic ennui that attends Republics that grow fat and happy and the inattentiveness of those who think that today is a good predictor of tomorrow, while the Devolutionaries are slowly unraveling every fiber.

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