I've actually been meaning to link to this for a couple days, but Seth Colter Walls' effort to recall the original context of Bill Clinton's Sister Souljah move is a useful exercise. Of late, there's been a lot of talk of Obama moving to the center, but there's a difference between emphasizing previously expressed moderate positions, as Obama is, and using a particular political controversy to ostentatiously demonstrate independence from a particular wing of the party, as Clinton did. That's true whether or not you think Clinton's condemnation of Sister Souljah was cynical, or unfair.
