Erm... OK.
It looks like the argument I made yesterday and the one Dick Morris makes today are essentially the same.
I'm not happy that Morris and I agree on this, but hey, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day...
UPDATE: Via Andrew Sullivan, John Heilemann disagrees:
...whatever admixture of courage and calculation that one ascribes to Clinton's maneuver, the risk he took in going after Lady Souljah was one that he took voluntarily -- it was a risk of choice. The rapper, though every bit as hysterical and inflammatory as the reverend, had not become an issue in the 1992 campaign. Clinton had no relationship to her. Certainly, her comments posed no peril to his nomination. In all of this, Obama's situation was starkly different. His decision to cut his ties from Parson Wright, which might have been construed as brave if it had come a year or even a month ago, was by no means an act of political fortitude. It was an act of political necessity.
Now, I don't mean remotely to suggest that what Obama did wasn't hard or painful. In fact, the agony involved was evident in his bearing from start to finish as he addressed the cameras. And here we find another crucial difference between his performance and Clinton's. Sixteen years ago, WJC was a model of righteous fury concerning Souljah's hate-filled blatherings; he conveyed a sense that he was personally affronted by her invidiousness.Yet for all the talk about Obama's anger and indignation yesterday, his onscreen affect was downcast, anguished, wounded, wan. The upside of this is that Obama came across as deeply human, profoundly vulnerable. But count me among those who believe he would have done himself a bigger favor -- especially in light of his gathering reputation for being too detached, too professorial for his own good -- had he appeared to be as viscerally pissed-off at Wright as he no doubt is.
It's possible, of course, that Obama's cool demeanor was an attempt to keep things from going thermonuclear between him and the reverend in the days ahead. That Wright has ceased to give a damn about Obama and his presidential aspirations is a fair conclusion based on his performance during his three-day tour of speechifying and preening for the press. The question is how much further he is willing to go -- and what bombs he might eventually drop on his wayward pseudo-son. Might Wright detail all the controversial sermons he delivered when Obama was present in the pews? Might he reveal private conversations about politics in which Wright presented his nuthouse views and Obama registered no disagreement? True or not, such allegations could dog the hopemonger all throughout the fall campaign.
Back in 1992, it should be recalled, Sister Souljah railed at Clinton for demagoguing her. And so did Jackson, who accused 42 of trying to "set off a dynamic to compete with Dan Quayle on the cultural-elite issue and the family-value issue." But this reaction was precisely what Clinton had been counting on from the outset; the counterpunches served his purpose, which was to demonstrate that he was "a different kind of Democrat." Thus the main reason Obama's severance from Wright doesn't really qualify as a Sister Souljah moment: In 1992, there was no other shoe to drop on Clinton, but Obama may yet find himself facing a hailstorm of very ugly footwear.
Three thoughts...
One: The original Sister Souljah moment (who knew I had always misspelled her name? Its "er," not "a") was essentially staged by Clinton, no matter how genuine his anger might have appeared and/or become, whereas Obama's problems with Wright were not. That is a key difference that shapes virtually every detail in the story. Nevertheless, I do not think it invalidates the comparison. A "Sister Souljah moment" is one where a political figure acts to publicly repudiate an allegedly extremist position taken by someone viewed by key constituencies as affiliated with the person's campaign or party. In most instances the repudiation is undertaken voluntarily, but I do not see why being forced to act invalidates the comparison.
Two: Obama's reaction did appear to me to be a complex mix of anger and sadness. But if this is how he felt, there was no other way to respond. Given that no two situations are identical, I do not see how this changes the "reject the extremist associated with me" dynamic the term is meant to describe.
Three: Unlike Clinton, I do not think Obama could risk appearing visibly angry. If the problem here is Wright's anger towards the white community (ex: AIDS is a plot by whites to exterminate blacks), the image of one angry black man denouncing another would have been a very, very dangerous path for Obama to tread.
Clinton's moment was powerful because he was a white Southern man standing up to black racism, so although he might have risked a backlash within the black community, there was no such risk with the whites whom he was trying to reach.
With Obama, or course, the dynamic is very different. His problem here isn't simply that Wright was his pastor. It is also that both of them are black. Like Clinton, Obama is attempting to reach out to doubtful whites, but unlike in Clinton's case Obama's race makes the problem is much more complex. Whereas Clinton could meet anger with anger without much risk, Obama cannot.
So on that count, yes, there is an enormous difference. But... I think that makes the comparison more important, not less. If in the course of responding to Wright Obama can permanently distance himself from the type of black extremism that some whites still fear (rightly or wrongly, I must add), then he will have shifted the debate in an incredibly important and beneficial way. Prior to Wright's performance, I saw no way for Obama to thread this needle, and so I suspected this would be something that his campaign would simply have to endure. But Wright's rants opened the door for a much more forceful response. And that's why I think the comparison can be so instructive. If it can illuminate key differences so that we can better understand them, then something very important has been gained.
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