Ardent Barack Obama supporter Andrew Sullivan, he of the fever-pitched rhetoric, has two more real beauties posted on his site today.

In the first post, titled, Quote For The Day, Sullivan links to a report from West Virginia by the Los Angeles Times' Stephen Braun, from which he prints this excerpt purportedly describing Obama's political opponents:

"They're convinced [Obama] is a Muslim, a terrorist, a guy who's coming to take away their guns. It's just sad," - an Obama supporter in West Virginia.

Using the excerpt from which to support an opinion, Sullivan writes:

The paranoia and delusions of some parts of white America are no less irrational than the paranoia and delusions of some parts of black America....

But the excerpt Sullivan published significantly misrepresents the Times' passage, in which the full paragraph reads:

Neil Gillies, an Obama supporter who runs a local environmental nonprofit group, glumly recounted the gibes that his wife, a schoolteacher, hears regularly from her students. "They're convinced [Obama] is a Muslim, a terrorist, a guy who's coming to take away their guns," Gillies said. "It's just sad."

So ... it turns out the quote Sullivan focuses on is from an Obama supporter complaining about the "jibes" his school teacher wife hears from her students.

Conveniently excluding this important context, Sullivan attempts to falsely conflate the irrationalities expressed by West Virginia school children with those of full-grown voting adults, whose believers include men and women in positions of leadership.

It is either complete sloppiness on the part of Sullivan, or a blatant misrepresentation. I'll let the reader decide.

The second post, titled, California Switches, is Sullivan's attempt to prove that a new California poll showing Obama leading Hillary Clinton by six points in that state is evidence that Californians now favor Obama over Clinton -- despite Clinton's 8-percentage-point victory in the California primary.

The Survey USA poll (pdf file) that Sullivan cites surveyed 1700 voters, 1440 of which were registered.

The California primary (pdf file), which had about 5 million voters, saw Clinton win by 8%, or about 422,000 votes.

Which might one wish to rely on, a poll of 1700 respondents, or an actual election with 5 million participants? I'll allow the reader to decide.

All of this begs the question: Has Andrew Sullivan become a Chicago Democratic precinct captain, albeit one with an English accent?