Obama and Keith Ellison: Fact Checking

Andrew Sullivan accurately derides this piece by Scott Johnson as “It is the highbrow equivalent of the Obama-Is-A-Muslim-Terrorist emails. Except it isn’t even that highbrow. It’s a strange attempt to draw parallels between Congressman Keith Ellison’s career and Barack Obama’s.”

I can personally fact check one point made by Johnson, and want to push back on another point:

Johnson claims::”both Ellison and Obama were the leftward-most viable candidates running for the Democratic Party endorsement, and both won endorsement against heirs apparent.”

Hilalry Clinton ran to the left of Obama in the primaries on domestic policy, and John Edwards ran to the left of both of them - and was certainly viable as a candidate in a way that Dennis Kucinich was not (Kucinich is the only other candidate Johnson mentions by name).

But that’s just triviality, really.

The one point I can fact check personally is Johnson’s claim that “Despite the natural alliance that should exist between them, Obama has scrupulously avoided Ellison.” As his only data point, he notes that Obama did not want Ellison to address a mosque. It seems that given the shady sites wrongly linking Obama to being a Muslim, Obama would think that sort of event would be counterproductive.

Indeed, I can think of three events personally that I saw Ellison address Obama, two of which I even live blogged:
1) Obama’s Minneapolis event in the primaries. Would Obama want to hide from Ellison, but still have him address 20,000 people?

2) Obama’s rally the night he won enough delegates to win the nomination in St. Paul. Ellison was in the building, and shook hands with the crowd. 

3) Event as University of Minnesota Law School this year. Ellison spoke there, and in his remarks included why he endorsed Obama. I can’t prove this, obviously, but I think Occam’s Razor is on my side.

And a bonus fact check from Google:

4) Doing a quick check of Google, Ellison campaigned plenty for Obama. There’s even video on Obama’s site.

Sullivan Begins To Turn On Obama

Andrew Sullivan thinks outloud about the “hubris of Obama:”

A few things have unsettled me these past couple of weeks about the Obama campaign. It is not the small adjustments to previously-held positions - FISA, the Second Amendment, Iraq. It’s a sense that Obama’s ample self-regard is lapsing into hubris. The signs of this are pretty trivial on the surface, but they are troubling nonetheless.

I can undestand calling Obama’s recent statements on the 2nd Amendment and Iraq “small adjustments.”  But it’s a big understatement to call Obama’s switch on FISA a “small adjustment;” it wasn’t a small adjustment, it was a significant departure from a previously held position.  I understand the political reasons for doing so.  But, let’s call it what it is.  The discussion shouldn’t be about whether it was a major departure from a previously held position.  Rather, the debate should be whether or not the political gains are worth the cost.

Sullivan goes on to criticize Obama for the Obama seal (which the campaign dropped fast), moving his convention speech outside and for allowing his daughters to be interviewed.  He concludes:

Any one of these misjudgments would be a trivial lapse - and we all make mistakes. It’s the combination that concerns me - and the possibility that this campaign is becoming far too cocky for its own good.

I point this out for a few reasons:

• First, we have been saying for some time that Obama runs the risk of alienating supporters with some of his campaign tactics (see our most receent podcast for a thorough discussion).
• Second, if a die-hard supporter like Sullivan is already becomming irritated with Obama, I wonder how widespread that sentiment is amongst Obama supporters.  I don’t think that this sentiment is widespread, bu I do think (as I have been saying for a few weeks) that it has the potential to, unless some adjustments are made.
• Third, it’s yet another reason to support the conention that Andrew Sullivan is completely overrated.  He is too often either dead wrong or overstates a case so much that he has to constantly reverse himself down the road.  Although, it usually takes Sullivan a bit longer than a few weeks to realize how wrong he was.  I guess now that Hillary’s out the race, Sullivan’s blind support for Obama just doesn’t give him the same thrill anymore.