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The Audacity of Sneering

12:32 PM, Mar 9, 2008 • By DEAN BARNETT
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Matt Stoller, one of the leading lights of the progressive blogosphere, underscores some of the far left's discomfort with Barack Obama:

"Insulting liberals is a standard Obama tactic…So too is Obama's tendency to dismiss and sneer at progressives. There's a dual claim from the Obama camp that I find irritating. One, they want to be taken seriously and given credit as progressives, and two, they want to insult the left and dismiss the idea that one should have a coherent ideology or fight domestically in politics."

Obviously, Stoller has so far resisted the urge to swoon. But what are conservatives to make of the assertion that Obama "sneers at progressives?" Could there perhaps be some merit to those claims of Obama's superior judgment?

For the record, I've never noticed Obama sneering at those who describe themselves as progressives. What's more, the progressive community is notoriously thin-skinned. Nevertheless, the mere possibility that Obama is spending some amount of time sneering at progressives fills me with…what's the word?

Got it - HOPE!

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