Obama is a brave and principled pioneer and we are suspended between the old politics and the new

[BeyondGeography]

The Testing Of Obama
By Andrew Sullivan

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?

...Maybe this is a bridge too far. But in thinking about Obama for this past year, and reading the subtle critique of, say, Shelby Steele, as well as the palpable racial discomfort of some white conservatives, I have to say that it is precisely the wide span of Obama's bridge that makes me admire him. He has refused to disown Wright, while also refusing to endorse all of his message. You can call that opportunistic or expedient or cynical. You can also call it intelligent and brave and principled. Obama could have chosen the Shelby Steele route or even the Alan Keyes or Condi Rice path. He could equally have chosen the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton path. But what is unique about Obama is that he tried and is trying to do much more than any of them have - to express all of these racial strategies and to transcend them. While being human. He isn't a saint or a savior. But he is trying.

I think this is part of his appeal to the next generation. And maybe it's appropriate for me at this point to express how he has inspired me as a gay man to keep trying to maintain the bridge over the gulfs of my own various identities rather than to burn it. It is possible in American public life to be defined as a gay person and to embrace every aspect of gay culture - the good, the bad and the ugly. It is also possible to be closeted or semi-closeted so that these questions do not easily arise. And it is possible to be a gay man completely divorced from gay culture, and to buy access to power and influence by simply adopting a relationship to the gay world that is indistinguishable from many straight people. I don't think there's any perfect solution to this terrible dilemma of identity - of belonging and transcending, of empathizing and maintaining a proper distance. I don't blame any gay man or woman for failing to make all this work. We live in many worlds and not all of them fit. And there have been times in my life when the roughest edges of a gay subculture I do not want to disown and have been a full part of reach out and target me again. Whether it be an embarrassing online personal ad or sexual mishaps or a long night at the Black Party, I know that part of the straight world stands poised to attack and condemn, pigeon-hole and dismiss. So be it. I have no desire to disown much of gay culture that the straight world finds abhorrent. At the same time, I also know that not all of this subculture is healthy or good and I have an obligation to address and engage and reform those parts of it. That I have also tried to do - with uneven success. And I know, as I watch Obama, that these strains are not easy and those who have never had to walk this path do not fully know how hard it can be.

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...

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

1. Really, Like, With All Due Respect And Stuff, He's Just A Man.

And really, like, with all due respect and stuff, he ain't a whole heck of a lot different than any other dem politician. Really, like, I've watched him for a few years now in the Senate and stuff, and he's really kinda just blended in with everyyyyyybody else. Yet people keep acting like he's this political messiah that is a politician the likes of which we've never seen etc. But c'mon, we've seen him for years already. He's a good politician with good integrity and traits, but he ain't this 'new politics' savior some of y'all are talkin about. Come back down to earth a little. Jeez.

Having that said, his speech tomorrow could nonetheless be one for the ages because it's a speech, whether hit or miss, that needs to be heard.

I wish Senator Obama the best of luck tomorrow, and hope he kicks some major ass.

[housewolf]

2. As John Edwards kept reminding us

The entrenched "powers that be" ALWAYS resist the new. The "new" isn't here yet. The question is whether it will manifest sooner or later. The potential exists for sooner (with Obama) rather than later, but it's not guaranteed, it remains to be seen whether we can pull it off this year or not. It's still POSSIBLE.

[Recursion]

4. Transparency is the beginning

Before we can have "the new", we need transparency and openness in government. Nobody has done as much for that one goal as Obama, and nobody seems as committed to the idea.

[Drachasor]

9. Indeed. It is one of the biggest reasons I am for Obama. I am surprised by the lack of support...

...on these boards.

Why isn't everyone here adamantly in favor of Open Government?

[ruggerson]

3. Hey, Andrew, we're not electing a Maharishi

to guide us to a place of better national identity consciousness

We're electing a commander in chief and, hopefully, a smart, capable, nuts and bolts leader.

If I thought presidential elections were about feeling good about transforming all our societal divides at once, I'd be looking to support a black, jewish, lesbian transsexual drag queen who advocates Palestinian autonomy.

And, Andrew, I spent my entire youth hanging in the Garage downtown (some will know what I'm talking about) so I can give you a run for your money on sub-sub-sub culture identity conflict.

[housewolf]

5. No...

We're electing a President who is ALSO the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces. The President is not the C-i-C of the COUNTRY, only of the Armed Forces. He's also the head of the Executive Branch, one of 3 co-equal branches of our government.

[Drachasor]

11. Leaders lead, so why is it that the subject and first sentence of your post suggest the President...

...shouldn't lead?

In times of internal strife, racial tensions unaddressed and ignored, poverty overlooked, and other social problems, we need a President that will point out the problems and LEAD us to solutions. That might be a policy, that might be a speech, that might be many things, but a President is a leader first and foremost. You propose that they should only do part of their job.

[K Gardner]

6. Being able to inspire people, rather than scare or shame them to death, is a really

important quality. He has it in abundance. Thanks for posting this :-)

[Window]

7. K/R.

:kick:

[ClayZ]

8. K and R

[jlake]

10. Good God.... and wince when is Andrew Sullivan an acceptable source?

He is a bloviating RW shill.