I won’t argue with your main point in this post. Sully has been making me roll my eyes with his hand-wringing lately, too. And you’re right about how mercurial his mood swings can be.

However, just for the record, I disagree with one small point. You said he never made a mea culpa for his post-9/11 attitude. In fact, he did, and it was one of the most handsome mea culpas I’ve ever heard. If you’ve got some time, the diavlog he did with Bob Wright on Bloggingheads.tv (part 1 | part 2) is well worth watching. In this context, if you’re pressed for time, you might want to start with Part 2, titled, oddly enough, Mea Culpa.

Given how Obama can seem to do no wrong and McCain can do no right on this blog, I’d say you just described yourself pretty well Oliver.

Nothing presumptious about a single American thinking he speaks for “the rest of America”.

You know how you get in trouble with words like “every” and “all,” Farris? Add to that list things like “the rest of America.”

What you’re doing is what baseball catchers refer to as “framing a pitch,” where they’ll quickly move their glove into the strike zone to try and fool the umpire into thinking the ball outside the corner was just inside.

“Wasn’t that speech presumptuous?” you say. “You thought it was presumptuous. I saw presumption, don’t you see presumption?”

Which you wouldn’t have to do, of course, if your batterymate could get the ball where you actually want it to go.

Yes, Bozo, but when you’re in a political campaign it’s important to try to take anything good your opponent does and make it a weakness.

In a way, it was Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment.
Negro, please.

SaveFarris, can’t let your “presumptuous” statement go unchallenged. Obama never once stepped outside his position as US Senator in Berlin, deliberately soft-pedaled our recent disastrous foreign relations past. As to the thousands convened, I say if you’re a mere presidential candidate and have that kind of clout, use it! And he used it for good, so far as words alone can do anything.

I can’t believe the junket, with the speech its key moment (Sarkozy’s reception was seen by far fewer viewers here), hasn’t altered the way EVERYONE perceives Obama now, immediate polls and issues be damned. In the long run it will be a net plus.

Because they’re usually changing their viewpoints.

John Cole is now a Kos clone essentially and he’s a star in the left wing of the blogosphere. But it wasn’t long ago that he was being vilified by the very same people that now swoon when he writes.

Jerry, we are to eliminate all pundits who were wrong about big things? Okay, let’s start by ruling out all except those who were anti-war and pro-surge.

Oops, we’re left with a null set.

The Berlin speech was INCREDIBLY presumptuous, and while I’m sure it helped clinch Germany’s electoral votes, it looked to the rest of America like someone who thinks they’ve already won. In a way, it was Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment.

And ever since then, Obama’s been playing defense. Whether it was the German Hospital story, the tire gauge episode, the “Celebrity” ad, or Corsi’s novel, it’s been others driving the narrative and Obama left to respond.

THAT was the point (I assume) Andrew was trying to make.

One of Brad DeLong’s commenters got his number too:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/08/reading-the-atl.html

But how is it that so many turkeys are called out as turkeys one month, and then four months later are THE GOTO GUY for issue X?

It’s not just Sullied. It’s Ambinder, Joyner, and many many other people.

It really does confuse me, how I am directed to a must read post written by someone I seem to recall was the target of a two minute hate (or two hour hate) a few weeks before.

So I’m with you, just say no thank you to Gluteus Andy.