Sullivan: Blistering Obama's critics

ANDREW SULLIVAN, the widely published author/blogger (Daily Beast), has opened a new front in this yakety political year by damning both ends of the ideological spectrum for failing to credit the successes of the Obama presidency. In a long cover story in the current Newsweek, Sullivan ventures deeply into the record of Obama'a first term, accusing his critics of being "simply - empirically - wrong."

That is not likely to win him a single style point from the folks - particularly Fox News and outraged right-wing blogs - who have been demonizing Obama since Adam and Eve. Nor will it earn him a prominent seat on the dais when he says,

"But given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb."

Sullivan, a self-described "conservative-minded independent," clearly believes Obama deserves a second term while at the same time conceding there have been days when the president ended up in Sullivan's doghouse. There have been moments when liberals like me (You didn't know?) shared the pain of seeing the White House stray from the page of what a progressive president ought to be doing.

It was, indeed, painful to see the Obama economic recovery plan include large loans to Wall Street, and bailout money to the auto industry which Bush delivered. Yet, as Sullivan asserts, , both initiatives succeeded, with much of the loans now returned to the U.S. Treasury. And where would the auto industry, now looking healthy again, have been without the bailout. Or for that matter, the hundreds of thousands workers up and down the line who would be unemployed today.

Sullivan notes that Obama's foreign policy has enjoyed the kinds of success that appeared out of reach - from Libya to the removal of Osama bin Laden - the latter of which Bush had earlier blithely written off as a bad debt.

At home, there was progress in recognizing the validity of gays in the military and other advances in equal rights.

Sullivan is happy to stress that "Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels. Under Obama, a crucial state, New York, made marriage equality for gays an irreversible fact in American life."

The new health care reform law isn't everything that Obama wanted , but as Sullivan writes, the heavily assailed measure "crosses the Rubicon of universal access to private health care," noting that "making 44 million current free-riders pay into the system is not fiscally reckless; it is fiscally prudent. It is, dare I say it, conservative."

I long ago concluded that Obama, though exasperating at times, was a master chess player who had properly sized up his challenge by the vengeful Republican stonewallers and chose to take a more cautious and certainly more patient view of meeting his goals.

Perhaps Sullivan's most defining statement about the president is that to "understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does."

The piece is timely, intruding on the series of Republican debates that have been geared for sausage lovers. Unless the GOP's level of discourse somehow rises from babbling inanities, the voter may reasonably ask: "Good grief! Is that all you've got?"

Palin Aboard the Traveiing Circus

INDOOR COOK-IN for hot spring day:

Andrew Sullivan reports in the Daily Dish this fragrant quotable from Sarah Palin at her Rolling Thunder bike appearance in Washington:

"I love the smell of the emissions."

Now that she's found a way for the media to mention her, has there ever been an over the top national politician who has made so much money purposely doing silly things. Next: a bungee jump without a bounce? Or maybe Medea-like, to soar aloft in a magic chariot!

Finally, did you happen to see the the full-page spread on traveling circuses in today's New York Times. The headline told us: No Elephant Left Behind: On the Road With the Circus.

Although I'm sure it was coincidental, the paper's facing page carried a large photo and story about biker Palin's bid to be.... the elephant that wasn't left behind.

Harper's June Index had this report re religiophiles:

Amount of federal money that went to National Public Radio in 2010: $2,700.000.

To Jerry Falwell's Liberty University: $446,000,000.

John Boehner and others in his crowd are complaining that the reason a majority of Americans oppose the wonderful Ryan Medicare proposal is that they don't understand it. Peter the Great had the same problem with his subjects who were not on the same page with some of his ideas, lamenting: "They understand everything erroneously."

U.S. maps: When is Ohio not Ohio?

THE SHAPE OFTHE U.S. is attracting interest in odd ways as depicted by a couple of maps that have shown up of late. One that appeared on Andrew Sullivan's home page, the Daily Dish, listed each state's best quality. Some may surprise you. Shown within Ohio's borders was credit for the "highest library usage," which may put to rest those critics who insist that only a small portion of Buckeyes can read anything except the scoreboard at Ohio State football games.

South Carolina was credited with the most "golf holes per capita" and Texas's honor was "the most wind power production" - a leadership role that is likely to stay that way so long as Rick Perry is the governor. Oregon had the most "breast-fed babies" while Illinois was the most "average" and Kentucky the "best armed". By now, you get the drift. And in a contentious nation, none of the above is likely to go unchallenged.

The other colorful U.S. map appeared on the cover of the Economist magazine and was headed "State of the Union". In this map, each's state's name inspired a play on words. Ohio, for example, morphed into "Ohno". Some others: New Jersey, "Nojersey"; California, "Califoreclosia:; Idaho, "Doh" and Washington "Washedup". Michigan was renamed "Muchgone" and Alabama was shown as "Alabania."

You can probably do better, but in the whipsaw of winter, we grasp at some lighter banter to counter the side-slapping antics on Capitol Hill. Or is that "Culpable Hill"?

UA's DNA: More than benign alphabet soup

WHAT COULD the University of Akron Board of Trustees possibly have had in mind (if anything) when it approved a policy permitting the University to subject new job applicants to DNA testing? As if the Board and the University didn't have enough on its plate with the Jack Morrison case and several staff image problems, the DNA issue caught fire across the country with predictable alarm from CBS, conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan, the ACLU and countless disapproving voices. Some suggested that anyone thinking about settling down on the UA campus ought to think at least twice. Not good.

The University's official response was that it hadn't asked anybody to submit to the test yet but would find the policy useful if it wanted to. Right. Whatever the rationale, the policy will be trashed on November 21 by a Federal law barring employers from requiring DNA testing by employes.

Too late. The damage has already been done by an indefensible policy lapse rooted in the Board's (and University's) legal counsel, Ted Mallo. He's been around for a long time and should have known better before it inherited this mess. More than a local mess. It sent a terrible message to academia that UA had broken ground as the first American university to turn to possible DNA testing. Such tests, of course, can open up a person to all sorts of problems, including access by health insurance companies on the prowl for finding a preexisting health condition. Even the DNA of prehistoric skeletons can reveal much about the owners.

The CBS reporter went to the trouble of contacting UA constitutional and criminal law professor William Rich for his reaction. It wasn't complimentary to the Board. Noting that the Faculty Senate had not been consulted about the new policy, Rich said: "I think it goes far

far beyond any imaginable justification for requiring DNA samples from job applicants, and I wonder just what the rationale for it was."

If there are a lot of red faces about this issue, there should be. It will take the entire University some time to recover from the nationally reported damage to its claimed image as a progressive institution of learning.

Where does she go from here?

AS HER popularity numbers sink - but not as much as her muddled answers to simple questions and McCain's desperate defense of her - Sarah Palin is getting more advice from conservative pundits to either clean up her act or get out of the race.  Conservative Andrew Sullivan accused Palin of being a "liar"  who "cannot be taken on trust."  Sullivan didn't flat-out write that she should end her role as the life of the party.  He was simply downright nasty.  Still, I don't think calling her a liar many times over is strong enough to force her off the ticket at this late date.  That would suggest - can we say it?  - accepting  defeat without honor, in the oft-spoken words of the GOP nominee about another troubling  matter. Here's the problem: Who is available to step in as McCain's designated hitter?  The prettiest of the bunch, of course, is Mitt Romney.  But my problem with him is that he always seems to be posing for an altarpiece.