unity through mau-mauing

That seems to be the Obama strategy: shut down dissent.

James Joyner:

One of the major strains of reaction to Barack Obama’s “More Perfect Union” speech is that those who are not persuaded by it are therefore racist or at least unreasoning fools. Poisoning the well in this manner may be an effective rhetorical device but it undercuts the very message of the speech, which is that race remains a very complicated issue in American culture and that we must tolerate a wide range of expressions on the subject.

Andrew Sullivan began sewing [sic] the race seed before the speech and after it adds “some are immune to the grace and hope and civility that Reagan summoned at his best; the anger and bitterness is so palpably fueled by fear and racism it really does mark a moment of revelation to me.”

Kevin Drum:

As good as Obama’s speech was, it’s naive not to also understand it as the political tool it was meant to be. And on that score, I’d say that the Obama supporters James points to are doing precisely what Obama intended: trying to take Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary comments off the table by implying that anyone who still insists on talking about them must be either a simpleton or a racist. He’s basically daring the Sean Hannitys of the world to continue demagoging Wright, and making a savvy bet that the rest of the press will line up behind him to agree that the real issue isn’t Wright, it’s racism and its complex historical legacy. And anyone who doesn’t agree is either a partisan hack or a hopeless primitive. [e.a.]

Mickey Kaus:

Troublesome Equivalence II [bold is Kaus's original; italic is mine]

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street ….

The most disastrous sentence in the speech. If Obama’s saying that those who fear young black men on the street are racists, the equivalents of Rev. Wright in offensiveness, then he’s just insulted a whole lof ot people. If he loses the votes of everyone who fears young black men, he loses the election. People fear black men on the street–as even Jesse Jackson once momentarily admitted–because they cause a wildly disproportionate share of street crime. Does Obama want to be the candidate who says that thought is verboten?

Swampland blog yesterday, March 18, from one of Ana Marie Cox’s emailers:

Well written, intelligent, politically clever in that way he has of ennobling his candidacy even while insulting his opponents and their supporters…But most people aren’t as tuned to insults as campaign staff — the unfair moral equivalence he implied between Wright and Ferraro or the suggestion that white men voting for McCain do so because they are trapped in old resentments.

I find it deeply troubling that Obama supporters either don’t see the insults Obama is hurling at people or think that the everyday Joe doesn’t pick up on what Leon Wieseltier (in an other context and, crucially, written before the videotapes of Wright surfaced and thus before Obama’s speech) referred to as his “hauteur”:

There is nothing about a candidate for the presidency that is not of interest, in the old politics and the new. If you want fewer questions, seek fewer powers. And there is an awful air of impeccability about Obama, with his peculiar mixture of populism and hauteur: criticism of him is not only wrong, it is also impudent. He regularly waves criticisms away as “silly.” He will talk to dictators but not to reporters.

Yes, Obama’s manner is deeply irritating, and he seems unaware of it. I see that he’ll be on CNN tonight telling Anderson Cooper that the Wright controversy has “shaken him up.” He’ll be “sharing,” Oprah-style. The MSM Obamamania is attempting to help him lift off again.

As I write, on Hardball, Chris Matthews is talking to Bill Maher, asking wistfully[I'm paraphrasing]:

Why isn’t Obama connecting with the lunch-bucket working-class guy?

Maher replies: Well, I think I get it. [Pause.} And Obama is very smart to tell those white guys that they’re right to be angry but that anger is directed at the wrong people (blacks). Their enemy is the corporation! This was the argument in What’s the Matter with Kansas? People keep voting against their own interests. They keep voting for people who want to repeal the estate tax, which just puts more money into the pockets of the richest 1% of America. That’s the challenge of the Democrats—to convince people who their real problem is. And their real problem is that corporations have taken over America.

Matthews: You’re a thoughtful guy, Bill. I agree with almost everything you say.

It’s astonishing to see the degree of delusion among Obama supporters. First, they think he can put the toxic Rev. Wright behind him by mau-mauing anyone who refuses to be silenced. Then they think he can run on a Commie-lite platform and win votes.

Right! Other than that, he’s the perfect candidate!