Step Sister Souljah

Andrew Sullivan calls out the media for their instant, unthinking praise of Obama for his "Sister Souljah" moment on torture. For background, Sister Souljah was a rapper who had songs with anti-white lyrics. Bill Clinton, campaigning in 1992, called her out publicly for her racism. The media loved it -- not so much for the merit of his position but because he did the best thing a politician can do in the mainstream media's mind: go against "the base." Here's Sullivan:

David Ignatius describes the president's about-face on torture photos as a "Sister Souljah" moment. The MSM cannot see the question of torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions as a matter of right and wrong, of law and lawlessness. They see it as a matter of right and left. And so an attempt to hold Bush administration officials accountable for the war crimes they proudly admit to committing is "left-wing." And those of us who actually want to uphold the rule of law ... are now the equivalent of rappers urging the murder of white people. And the authorization of torture is reduced, in David's words, to "controversial Bush-era issues such as interrogation."

There is truth and power. In this town, you know what side the MSM is on. Just keep on walking. And let's have no more curiosity about this bizarre cover-up ...

Now I'm sure that Obama did think through his decision, and this issue might not be quite as black and white as Sullivan makes it seem. But on his criticism of the media, I couldn't agree more with Sullivan here. Sullivan is post-partisan in the least 1990s, mainstream media kind of way. He's post-partisan in the way that many people of my generation are post-partisan. He reads widely. He thinks. He takes in dissent. He has clear, uncompromising opinions and he sticks to them. And when he finds out that he's wrong, he changes his mind.

But for some reason the old-guard of the media can't distinguish this kind of post-partisanship from the kind that ruled the day for years. The MSM fetishizes anything that seems like it gets the support of the moderate middle. Any position that can get some Democrats and some Republicans to agree is good. Any position that draws strong dissent from the opposite party is bad. Instead of respecting people like Russ Feingold or Ron Paul, who are post-partisan in that they think for themselves, these leaders are maligned because they just can't seem to get along. The better fellow Senators like you, the more "post-partisan" you are. If you take some conservative stands and some liberal stands, you're too difficult and cranky to figure out. If you take no stands, you're a leader. In the pre-SPAN Society, post-partisanship was about compromise. If Bush wants war, we'll give him a war but give CYA speeches warning about potential problems. If Bush wants two trillion in tax cuts, we'll give him one trillion.

Post-partisanship in the SPAN Society means being tolerant and open-minded. It means that you don't fit neatly into either party because you have some "conservative" positions and some "liberal" positions, not because your position is just a little bit of everything -- a little torture, a little war, a little tax cut, a little stimulus, a little Patriot Act. It doesn't mean that you just cut every tax cut, government program or moral outrage in half, smile for the cameras and call it a day.