quick hits

read this:

Oft-cited, yet still worth recalling, is the spot in his book The Audacity of Hope where Obama wrote: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." At least as importantly, Obama is a master of speaking and acting in ways that gravitate to the center of political gravity.

We should be hard at work at the grassroots to move that center of political gravity in progressive directions, which requires speaking truth about power -- a far different endeavor than reflexively defending or vilifying Obama.

It should be axiomatic -- for commentators who refuse to be partisan hacks, for activists with progressive commitments, for anyone determined to elude Orwellian doublethink -- that presidential actions and policies should be assessed and supported or opposed on their merits.

and this:

For years, media stars ignored the fact that our Government was chronically breaking the law and systematically torturing detainees (look at this extremely detailed exposé by The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Barton Gellman from December, 2002 to get a sense for how much we've known about all of this and for how long we've known it). Now that the sheer criminality of this conduct, really for the first time, has exploded into mainstream political debates as a result of the OLC memos, media stars are forced to address it. Exactly as one would expect, they are closing ranks, demanding (as always) that their big powerful political-official-friends and their elite institutions not be subject to the dirty instruments that are meant only for the masses -- things like the rule of law, investigations, prosecutions, and accountability when they abuse their power.

Emphasis added.