I used to think Jon Meacham...

...was a pompous ass, but I've softened on him in recent months. (Maybe he's gotten a little more humble since Newsweek went up for sale.) Yesterday I read a piece of his at the doctor's office, "When the Facts Get in the Way," and I thought it was particularly good. I especially liked this observation about the Shirley Sherrod episode:

The seasonal issue is one particular to the age of Obama, if universal to American politics: the underlying role that white prejudice against blacks plays in our national life. The Sherrod video was posted in order to execute a bit of sulfurous jujitsu. See, the right wing was saying, they really are after us. Look what happens if you let them have power: they screw us. A difficult but inescapable irony is at work for President Obama. As he continues to win legislative battles, he will face an ever more irrational and radical opposition. Appeals to racial fears are only the most extreme manifestations of a reflexive and ultimately unhealthy habit of mind that casts everything the president does as somehow un-American.