Thanks for the link..

Thomas Frank makes a similar argument in What's The Matter With Kansas?

President in 2008?

I'm pretty sure he's an Edwards supporter.

can take us past the 1960s culture wars?

well, no..

Thomas Frank makes the argument that we are still fighting a culture war from the 60's..  Yet his support of Edwards seem to be related to labor and union issues, not that Edwards can take us past the 60's culture war.

n/t

As a Gen Xer, Sully's article did resonate with me to a degree.  I really was shocked by the ugliness of the Swift Boaters in '04, and immediately turned away as something I did not want to see.  But to be perfectly honest, I think that Sully is not quite seeing that it is not a new non-violent Civil War, but actually a continuation of resentments from the real American Civil War.  After all, the GOP is now a party based in the South, and I think there is a certain an Old South mentality attached to losing Vietnam, and potentially losing in Iraq.  My part of Virginia avoids those conflicts, because it is so heavily military that it is not truly southern with people from all over the country here.  However, I have lived in states farther down South, and the way the SBVT talked reminded me of how I (a native from Conn.) was regarded -- a damned Yankee, of course.

So if my theory on top of Sully's theory is true:  then how exactly is a politician from Illinois evoking Lincoln going to affect things?  I do not know.  Will it be the final healing?  I really do hope so.

Unlike you, Lowell, I have made my decision on who I am supporting, and that is Barack Obama.  But I still think it naive that the GOP will agree to end the culture war (the left really has no interest in fighting it, since they essentially won it), since it has worked electorally so well for so long. 

I'm actually thinking really hard right now about who to support, whether to make a public endorsement, etc.  Not that anyone cares, of course, but now that the 2007 election cycle in Virginia is over I'm turning my attention to 2008.

making an endorsement, as who cares what I think!!  I always leaned Obama, but wasn't ready to fully commit to him until this last week.  I thought his speech was really awesome last Sat., and I also thought he was good on MTP.  I found him to be quite honest, a character trait that is important to me in a president.  But I understand that polls still point to Sen. Clinton winning the nomination.  So be it if that happens; I just think Obama is a better choice, a lot of the reasons eloquently noted by Andrew Sullivan.

I totally agree that the current political situation is a continuation of the Civil War, and not just the 1960s.  The GOP is based in and represents the values of the Confederacy.  America can't go forward without getting past race.

Without the South, America's politics would look a lot like Canada's.  The race question hangs over all policy in the United States, and when we get past it, we will be a much more progressive country leading a much more progressive world.

The generation just younger than I am (I'm 32) is much more progressive because they have (for the most part) gotten past race and how it limits our society.  That doesn't mean that there aren't racists younger than me, but that race doesn't seem to consume them as it does the rest of our society.  As a result, those 16-29 are the most progressive generation of our history.

In that way, Obama's message is a profoundly progressive message.  If we can get past race and the problems of the Civil War and the Culture War, we can finally move forward united as a society.

That said, I haven't yet decided who I will vote for in the 2008 primary.  I'm more liberal than Obama on a host of issues, so I might vote for Kucinich or Dodd, or even Edwards.  But, I think Obama's candidacy is compelling, and I hope that we don't nominate Hillary Clinton.  She'd win, and she can do the job, I just think that we need to look to the future and not the past.

I found it really interesting that a lot of people whose opinions on such things I trust here in Loudoun are supporting Barack Obama.

Personally, I want more populism and passion from Obama, but I haven't watched the JJ speech yet, so I may be all wet.

I'm not supporting ANYONE yet. I'll fight for the nominee, but I'm focused on kicking Frank Wolf to the curb for this year.

E.J. Dionne wrote an entire book about the same topic 16 years ago in "Why Americans Hate Politics."  It is a  good sign, though, that Sullivan took a brief break from his incessant, feverish, and pointless Clinton-bashing.

too, but that doesn't make it any less fascinating or important! :)

I was an Edwards guy for awhile, then was on the fence. After Obama's Iowa JJ speech, he officially turned me.  The guy can actually unite the country, not pay lip service to that goal (which I think Bush, and possibly Clinton or Edwards, have and will do).

We don't need the Democratic version of Dubya in 2008, who can barely cobble enough votes to get elected. We need a leader, we need a uniter, and that's Barack Obama.

Southern historian Dan Carter writes in his book, "The Politics of Rage," a biography of George Wallace, that the entire Wallace rise and fall was a reaction to the new initiatives of the culture of the 1960s, of the Freedom Riders in the South, the integration decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education, the hippies and so on. ". . . as the civil rights movement expanded in the 1960s to inspire the women's rights movement, the antiwar movement, and the politics of sexual liberation, George Wallace adroitly broadened his message," writes Carter. "Journalists might greet this growing counterculture with curiosity, even approval. But Wallace knew - instinctively, intuitively - that tens of millions Americans despised the civil rights agitators, the antiwar demonstrators, the sexual exhibitionists as symbols of a fundamental decline in the traditional cultural compass of God, family, and country."

As such, red state/blue state contention is a continuation of warfare (Civil War) by other means. At the beginning of the Clinton administration, two secession groups formed; The League of the South and The New England Confederation - the NE one ended the day Clinton left office but there are two active secession groups today extended from it, one in Vermont ("U.S. our of Vermont") and one here in NH. Gar Alperowitz, a scholar who writes for The Nation has called these ad hoc seperatist movements one of the central possibilities of radical change in the beginning of our century.

Clintonism is clearly Sixties nostalgico - the work of a generation which won't let go. Two years ago, when Kos had more teeth, Marcos had a significant op-ed in the Washington Post saying a Democratic division was at hand with new politicians - and he mentioned Mark Warner - and calling Clintonism a complete failure.

I see Obama speaking to the new generation and able to be elected in red and blue states. Obama's description of his religious conversion here is rare and authentic.

"when Kos had more teeth."  What do you mean by that, just curious...

Hi Lowell - felt that in the last year - actually since the '06 election - the tone and temper of Daily Kos had changed. I was told that Kos had taken his hand off the tiller to take care of his babies, which is good, but the danger I felt in a venue like Daily Kos was a drift into political nihilism. There is a distinct difference between those who attack opposition to bring forward a better agenda and those who attack simply because they enjoy inflicting pain. I was very disapointed in this year's Yearly Kos. Several of the candidates stated their approval of the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror - including Senator Clinton (and Wesley Clark); Obama opposed - these were the kind of opinions I'd heard before from the extreme right; at the beginning of the war on Iraq I wrote in the Detroit Free Press about Hal Thomas and the nut case fringe out there where the buses don't run bringing forth this idea. Now it was mainstream Democrats at Yearly Kos. But I saw no rebutal. Also, DKos came to be used as a posting board for less than imaginative positions. I was emailed regularly weekend after weekend to comment and recommend standard sets of ideas by mainstream Democrats who seemed simply angry. After awhile I stopped participating.

On the fallacies, I think I'll do a more detailed diary for the right side of this page (off the main/front page) tomorrow or so.  They'd take too long here.  But a few notes:

Though the article is interesting, I think that Obama really blew it by recently dissing an entire generation.  Big mistake.  Many so-called Boomers are still "ripe for the picking."  But not if he sounds the opening salvo in a culture war against boomers.

I also think some of Sully's reasoning is really superficial.  (Obama's face?)

Also, Olbermann is hardly O'Reilly.  The Worst Person segment is a satire.  Why, yesterday, Olbermann named himself Wrost person.  If the musci doesnt' give it away, then what's up with Sully's literalism?

I also hardly think that, though I am not currently a fan of the Clintons, Bill Clinton's actions were commensurate with the hatred conjured up against him by the right and their impeachment scenario.  Nor was anything Kerry did when contrasted to the "Swift boaters."  They were clearly seeking vengeance for Nixon and Bork.  But Watergate was hardly a third-rate burglary alone.  The Watergate tapes clearly show Nixon talking about eliminating his adversaries, including firebombing the Brookings Institution.

Of course, the hard right has had its vengeance against Brookings in another way.  Hard-right funders have insinuated themselves into the BI and who pays the piper... (you know the rest).

More later...

I haven't made my decision yet either.  But recently, I had been leaning back toward Obama again.  I started thinking I'd support him, but then have thought that I like Edwards populism and his toughness regarding the Bush administrations follies and some candidates' going too easy on the admin.

Despite his relative youth, I'd trust Obama with foreign policy more than Hillary.  He already had the judgment she lacked regarding Iraq. 

But just as I started to perk up regarding Obama again, then comes Obama himself to start dissing a generation. NOW's endorsement notwithstanding, I think Hillary's support among older women is not as firm as pollsters think.  Also most women aren't influenced by what NOW does.

Most of us back then were not "hippies" (whatever that means; lived law-abiding lives; weren't in the streets protesting (though this is certainly anyone's right). We went to college, held down jobs (2 in my case) while in school, graduated, married, had children. 

Most of us had family members who served in the war.  Most of us lost relatives and/or friends.  And no matter what we though about the war personally, we cheered when our family members returned to the docks of Long Beach and the Marine, Army and Air Force Bases, etc.  When I cheered at Long Beach, CA, for my brother's return from the VN, there was nothing but patriotism in their welcome home.

And Obama thinks there's a problem with that?

Too many people generalize.  Whatever the generation, we shouldn't be doing that.

Just this week Morley Safer dissed The Millenlials.  While the group of self-indulgent individulas he profiled were pretty pathetic, I hardly believe that constitutes a whole generation. 

Not long ago, the media trashed Gen X.  At that very time, I worked with a number of hard working Gen Xers.  And my own adult kids were putting in long hours and had strong work ethics.