And, of course, if you'd gone back further we'd have to acknowledge FDR.

And, of course, if you'd gone back further we'd have to acknowledge FDR.

I guess we just differ in our assessments.

As I say, it's not in the text: “thanks to MLK, to those who marched beside him [any mush-heads?], and to the tens of millions to whom he gave such a powerful voice [any starry-eyed?], we have become better.”

Where is the positive nod to liberals or liberalism, in that? Or here:

“I think I’m not being cynical about liberal democratic politics when I concede that it is a very advanced, civilized, and relatively peaceful form of organized coalitional agression.”

Is that “enthusiastic” praise for liberals/liberalism or a liberal project?

No, the tenor is, 'boy, I'm sure proud of where 'we've' got to”, despite those contemptible, mush-headed liberal followers of Obama, etc.

Here, I'll go a step further. Without the “mush heads” or “starry-eyed” of their day, do you think there would be Wilkersonian pride today?

The main point of the post is about the tremendous moral progress we've made in terms of civil equality. The civil rights movement was largely a liberal project, and Will enthusiastically supports and praises it.

It's the personality cultishness that he insults. That's richly deserved.

I think you are finding more in the text than is there.

Is there something positive or decent about Liberals or Liberalism that is clearly and unequivocally brought forward in this piece?

If there were, it might substantiate your qualification, “some”, but really I don't see it.

I think he sees some (the ones he's going to be hard on) of Obama's followers as “starry-eyed” and “mush headed”. That seems uncontroversially true to me. Some are.

And, I haven't seen anything he's written that implied that either 'liberal moral progress' or Obama were farcical.

You seem to be bringing some of these ideas with you, rather than finding them here.

Frankly, I'm rather frustratingly bored to see the continual equation of “liberal” with “mush headed”.

And I don't see any intellectually superior or insouciant position of Will's that makes it interesting analysis to more or less label 'liberal moral progress' (or Obama) as something like Le Bon Doctor, Malgre Lui.