Excuse me? I'm reeling here.

The piece reads as if written in an exciting evening of phrase-turning in Princeton after a nice, long chat with the Clinton campaign. The result is embarrassing to Wilentz, embarrassing to the New Republic, and offensive to those of us who've staked our credibility on wresting truth from storms of racial intimidation, insinuations,and lies.

Good God.

Settle down, pour yourself a nice latte, and try to realize that your own rather sordid insinuations--maybe not racist, but arguably, sexist --will not aid you in proving your point.prove your point.

This article that got your undies in a bunch and provoked such a shocking display of lame hypocrisy was somehow dreamed up by the Clinton campaign, during a "cozy" discussion, no less. Do you have a problem with Princeton because Professor Krugman teaches there?

Isn't this EXACTLY a glaring example of "intimidation, insinuations, and lies? It didn't take you a whole article to do it either. That undistinguished paragraph of unintelligible verbiage did more to hurt you then it did to defend Obama.

I don't think he needs that kind of support.

From anyone.

If you had a point to this, it got lost in the FACT that you, if anything are just as bad as those you criticize.

If not worse.

Wilentz sounds like he had coffee with Penn, Wolfson and Krugman and decided it was time to act.
Good response Jim.

This campaign has from time to time turned hot and nasty, and pundits from the perpetually apoplectic Frank Rich to Paul Krugman have found themselves manning the partisan barricades.

But this TNR piece by one of our better historians gives a bad name to campaign puffery.

"The New York Times, for example, opened its front page on February 15th to report an utterly inaccurate and possibly wishful story that Representative John Lewis of Georgia--a genuine hero of the civil rights movement, a courageous voice for integration, and a stalwart Clinton supporter--had announced that he had decided that, in his role as superdelegate, he would vote for Obama. Lewis quickly called the story false, although he added that he was wrestling with his conscience over whether to switch.

Utterly false, claims the professor. Not really. It turns out that Rep. Lewis got cold feet, he backed out momentarily, and now he's back.

See Below:

"John Lewis Officially Switches To Obama
By Eric Kleefeld - February 27, 2008, 1:39PM
After about two weeks of confusing reports about whether he was really switching his endorsement from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) has made it official.

"Something's happening in America, something some of us did not see coming," Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Barack Obama has tapped into something that is extraordinary."

There are so many delightfully deceptive sleights of hand.

So we have this: "The Obama mass mailings also attempt to appeal to Ohio's labor vote by claiming that Clinton believed that the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, was a "'boon' to our economy." More falsehood: In fact, Clinton had not said that; Newsday originally applied the word "boon" and has now noted the Obama campaign's distortion. In this campaign, Clinton has called for a moratorium on all trade agreements until they are made consistent with labor and environmental standards--and account for the effect on jobs in the United States."

One must read the preceeding paragraph carefully to pick up the artful dodge: It's in the third sentence, beginning "In this campaign ... "
You see, in past campaigns, Ms. Clinton most certainly favored NAFTA, which is precisely the point made by the the Obama leaflets. (Now, truth told, Obama too has made pro-NAFTA sounds in the past and should be called on that, but this isn't the point made here). We are also assured that Mrs. Clinton opposed NAFTA internally during the 1990s, based on no more sourcing that the Professor Willentz' word)

Then there's this this bit of breathy entre nous: "Senior Clinton campaign officials later told me that reporters contacted them saying that the Obama camp was pushing them very hard to spin Clinton's victory as the latest Bradley Effect result."

So let's walk this one back. His reporting shows that the Obama camp was pushing hard to spin Clinton's victory as Bradley effect. Except that most reporters I know heard no such thing--but not to worry, the good professor's source is ... "Senior Clinton Campaign officials."

Then we have this bit of silliness:

"Hillary Clinton's unexpected popular victory in Nevada and her crushing Super Tuesday wins in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and California seemed, according to media reports, to have been offset by Obama's more numerous victories in much smaller states that Democrats are highly unlikely to win in a general election. His string of victories in caucuses and primaries over the next four weeks gave the Obama campaign undeniable momentum."

"Crushing wins" as opposed to ... Missouri and more to the point those petite mid-Atlantic principalities known as Maryland and Virginia? Where where Obama won by 20 or so percentage points?

The point is not that the Obama team is pure. There was nastiness all around on race, and the usual stupidity. But to equate this with Willie Horton? To pretend that in every case the Clintons are naifs wandering onto the field of battle? The professor is a fine historian; if, 100 years from now, he found this article in some musty file, he'd simply discard it as useless partisan puffery.

Does it at least say "I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve of this message." in the footer?

As I remember it, Foundation by Isaac Asimov is about how outmarriage, like a Joker in a marked deck (personified by the Mule) could destroy the History of civilization envisioned by Hari Krishna. Strangely, it's not described that way by Wilentz.

As usual the Clinton camp wants to have it both ways.

Hillary is constantly declaring that she is the fighter who is best prepared to take on the Republicans because she knows how to counter all their tactics.

Then they send out Lanny Davis and this Princeton puppet of theirs to tell everyone that they are being constantly out maneuvered by an Opponent that Hillary tells us is a lightweight, and far too inexperienced for the job.

Since the Clinton Camp is now claiming that Obama has run rings around Hillery, what does that make her!

What I said is that Wilentz has failed even journalistic standards that would apply even if he weren't an historian, but the fact that he is one makes his behavior here even worse.

As Lois Romano reported in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, I have also said, "Every time these people [the ones playing the race card as Wilentz is doing] open their mouths, they are greasing the skids for Republican swift-boats in the general election."

It would be wrong to suppose that attacks like Wilentz's are somehow excusable because they toughen up Obama for what the Republicans are sure to unleash.

Mr. Seaton, maybe those wounds need to be opened then.
After decades of conservatives pushing thinly veiled insinuations about affirmative action and racism in general, all the while rounding up minorities and stuffing them into for profit prisons, maybe these attitudes should be brought to the fore.

You seem to be implying that because of Obama's color he stands no "real" chance in the race to come due to the ignorance of "white,lower middle and working class America."

Well coming from that group the resentment may be there, but we aren't fools, we see where our tax dollars go, and its not welfare we're descrying these days, unless its corporate.

Troll Alert? Excuse me? Are you kidding?

First of all, Workerbee is a long time poster here, who has a lengthy history of making comments that are perceptive, intelligent, reasoned and balanced. Adjectives I will not necessarily apply to all the writings of Mr. Sleeper.

Second, Mr. Sleeper's exquisitely thin skin notwithstanding, Workerbee's comments in response were entirely fair. Her point was that Sleeper had no point. Sleeper started out as if he was going to go somewhere, and then slowly dissolved into his own verbosity, carping about the demonic Clinton's and the saintly Obama, with all the insight of a gossipy schoolchild. It became a welter of he said, she said, wrapped in gratuitous self-indulgence, ending on a whiny histrionic note.

I have to say she's right. I've read Sleeper's essay three times now, and each time it just hurts more.

Is 'attitudinizing' even a word? How about the 'shirring' of 'shirring perrorations'? Was that a word? Was that a typo? In either incarnation was it a meaningful phrase? "Race-Batier Card" was that Wilentz or Sleeper, can we tell the difference? Who talks like that?

And the tone, oh god. Sleeper starts off hard boiled as a Mickey Spillane novel...

I've spent a lot of time around serious scholarship and even more around real journalism-- the kind that, in print or online, requires "leg work," climbing tenement stairs the second time or making that last phone call or watching the expression on the campaign manager's face as you pop your question. Sometimes there's no substitute for going there to get the story, even if you think you've already figured it out or heard it all before....

Is that tough or what. I can just imagine Hard Jim Sleeper pounding at his word processor, late at night, a ceiling fan stirring the lazy air, a gat tucked in his trousers while a sleepy blond languishes on his couch, tucking back shots of bourbon, waiting for him to finish so he can start on her ...

But he can't sustain it. The hard boiled vibe mutates, into preening self righteous babble.

I know how to expose charming black impressarios of racial street theater and common-room put-downs that freeze white liberals in their seats....

That's Mike Hammer filtered through a liberal arts education, I think.

But I do recognize attitudinizing and pulling rank, academically or streetwise, when I see them, and I know that someone has gone off the deep end...

I honestly don't know what the hell this is. It's trying to be hard boiled and tough, that's plain enough. But the effect is soft, runny and cracked.

As nearly as I can tell, he's objecting to some sort of editorial or article or something by a fellow named Willentz, which he sees as slamming Obama and glorifying Clinton.

His objection is that the article lacks substance, a charge which reminds one of pots calling kettles black at midnight in a coal mine filled with black cats during a power failure after which both have been struck blind. (apologies to Blackadder). To whit: He commits the sins he complains of.

He castigates Wilentz of cheap shots, impenetrable writing and lack of substance, and then does this:

Sometimes he lurches into histrionic poses, as when he instructed a congressional impeachment committee that "history will judge" them -- a pronouncement sufficiently snooty to remind even from those who agreed with him that history will judge Sean Wilentz, too, for shifting burdens of his own responsibility onto others.

Talk about lurching into histrionic poses - that's one single, endless, meandering sentence.

There's a strong subtext that there's something more personal at work. That Sleeper's had some sort of history with Willentz and that there's an antipathy, not terribly well concealed, below the surface. All well and good, but I just don't care.

As always, I'm left with the sensation of wanting my money back from Mr. Sleeper.

I hesitate to characterize two wobbly kittens spitting at each other as a controversy. And frankly, I didn't see the Chronicle of Higher Education's quick summary as actually adding any light or providing any insight.

Well, since you agree with WorkerBee, maybe you could find the "sexist" angle in the original post?

At this moment this is an argument among "progressives". Can you imagine what this is going to be like when it's finally official and Hillary hasn't got a chance?

This going to be for sure, the dirtiest, crummiest, presidential campaign in living memory and before it's over there may be blood in the streets

Reality Check:

Hillary Clinton, just this past week, in New Orleans, apologized to the African American Community for what her campaign had done and said. She included her Husband in that apology.

Now you have this Princeton FOB(Friend of Bill) pushing a line that it was Obama did it.

In other words: Either Hillary was lying and just making a fake apology that she did not mean, or this FOB is now lying for his friend Bill.

Which is it?

I've extensively commented on the Wilentz article in the Lanny Davis thread, which I will spare you all from repeating here. But I do point out here that, although Wilentz and TNR neglect to point it out in the article, and Wilentz neglected to tell Tucker Carlson even while explaining to Tucker that he is not in fact friends with the Clintons, Wilentz is a declared Clinton supporter. Sleeper's conjecture that Wilentz had a chat with the campaign before writing this is hardly beyond thee pale.

Readers who click on the words "intimidation," "insinuations," and "lies" at the end of the post will see three very interesting New Republic pieces on race whose journalistic and even scholarly standards I'd like to see Wilentz come close to meeting.

One of them was written just after the OJ acquittal. Another is a profile of Al Sharpton,whom I knew very well at the time. A third, written just after the congressional elections of 2006, shows the folly of drawing election districts racially. This last piece became part of the third chapter of the book Liberal Racism.