Bill Kristol Makes Pinch Sulzberger Proud Again

Hey, imagine that, a movement conservative leads with his chin again and gets embarrassed by reality (although the extent to which he can ever be embarrassed, after all he's been wrong about, is questionable):

Bill Kristol, in the print edition of this morning’s New York Times:

"NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on “Meet the Press” that “the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. … What they’re putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.”

That’s pretty astonishing, since there seems to be absolutely no basis for the charge. But the fact that Obama’s people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him."

News story in today’s New York Times, print and online editions:

"Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.

Senator John McCain of Arizona at a forum on Saturday with the host, the Rev. Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church in California.

Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book 'The Purpose Driven Life.'"

Bill Kristol’s desperate last-minute attempt to salvage some shred of dignity by rewriting his column for the online edition of this morning’s New York TImes:

"NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported on “Meet the Press” that “the Obama people must feel that he didn’t do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context. … What they’re putting out privately is that McCain … may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.”

There’s no evidence that McCain had any such advantage. But the fact that Obama’s people made this suggestion means they know McCain outperformed him."

Let's also focus on the SUBSTANCE of this claim, too. To say that McCain outperformed Obama at a gathering of evangelical conservative Christians would be as silly as saying Obama outperformed McCain at the NAACP. Obama was never going to "win" this, so grading them on without noting that is absurd. However, I think we have a rare instance of a liberal dogwhistle here:

“Now, let’s deal with abortion,” the Rev. Rick Warren said. “Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. You know, as a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time. All of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions. At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

Obama responded, “Well, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade. But let me just speak more generally about the issue of abortion because this is something obviously the country wrestles with. One thing that I’m absolutely convinced of is there is a moral and ethical content to this issue….” Obama went on to explain how (and why) we can reduce the number of abortions in this country, and why he’s pro-choice.

The right is flipping out over the "above my pay grade" comment, but they're not understanding that this Obama appeared to be expressing humility in the face of God. Conservative bloggers yelling "nothing is above the pay grade of the President!" are missing the point. If Obama does sway a significant portion of evangelicals in November, it'll be because of little moments like this, which display that he can speak their language to a degree. We'll see if this gets swamped by the tribal impulses to support the "party of life" or whatever, but I have a feeling that this was kind of brilliant and that Obama is not at all upset about the right ginning up a controversy over this.

Americablog has more on cone of silence-gate.