Another Edition

of What Digby Said. With some reservations:

The events surrounding the videos of Reverent Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons over the past week or so bear that out, don't you think? It would be pretty to think that the culture war and symbolic boomer battles stuff is all old news, but it clearly isn't. We have made great strides since the 60s and continue to, but these are hard intractable differences that have to be faced and dealt with at each stage of improvement. This was why I took issue with Senator Obama using the myths created by the Republicans about the 60's. I knew that his statement that the country had "moved on" from all those contentious issues would be unsustainable over the course of the campaign and saw little point in pretending otherwise since it was going to be used against us anyway.

From the pragmatist, "what works" side of the argument, there's nothing exceptional here, but I do take exception on the subtext. Obama is, as far as I can see, subverting the myths that Digby refers to, and subverting the entire frame the right has built around the election. To my mind, one of the man's great strengths is that he can see the framing the right has imposed on discourse and go beyond it, turning it back on itself. We need the myths, but we don't have to honor the right's construction of them. In fact, to do so, which has become the standard operating procedure in contemporary politics, is as destructive as the right's policies themselves.

Obama is probably the first Democrat in a generation -- or longer -- who can not only see the flaws in the right's take on the discourse, but who also has a platform to challenge it, which he has done with intelligence and subtlety, simply by ignoring it.