Around the Blogosphere

By Kevin Robinson in Miscellaneous on Jan 18, 2007 5:30PM

Now that Obama has inched closer to out-and-out announcing that he is going to run for President, it seems that the right is cranking up the talking points. We were shocked, and frankly a little dissapointed to read this piece on Illinoize by Bill Baar. Although his political leanings aren't immediately evident, and probably are more complex and nuanced than simply left or right, you would be hard pressed to find something like The American Prospect or The Nation linked in his blogroll.

Baar's posts on Illinois politics are usually cogent and thoughtful, even when we disagree with him. But his thoughts on Obama have gotten increasingly bizarre of late, and we wonder what he's getting at here. To say that Obama is selling out Muslims and that these "Muslims" are somehow our allies is ludicrous. In fact, in defending these outrageous statements in the comments section of his blog, he doesn't bother mentioning any of these Muslim allies, except perhaps Al-Sistani. For all his grandstanding and seeming grasp of historical footnotes and minutiae, he paints with a broad brush when talking about the war in Iraq. It reads suspiciously like a talking-points memo from a neo-conservative think tank.

As the national election season gets underway, we hope that this is an anomaly and not a preview of what is to come.