Andrew Sullivan: Anti-Semitic Neocon Derangement

From William Jacobson's must-read post yesterday, "NeoCon Derangement Syndrome On Steroids":

To read Andrew Sullivan's posts on the suppression of the opposition in Iran, you would think American "NeoCons" (whoever they may be) were in the streets swinging batons from the backs of motorcycles, trashing the library at Tehran University, and breaking into homes in pursuit of demonstrators.

Sullivan's post, The Khamenei-NeoCon Agreement, is the latest in his recurring conspiracy theory that supporters of freedom for Iranians are actually against freedom for Iranians.

Also, as Michael Goldfarb indicates, Sullivan's blogging is demonstrably anti-Semitic, "Sullivan and Khamenei Agree: Jews Control the Media," and "Hiatt and Goldberg on Sullivan." (The latter post includes an update from Jeffrey Goldberg writing last year, "Andrew and the Jew-Baiters.")

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Andrew's latest post this afternoon, speaking of President Obama's most recent statement, also makes mention of the "evil" neocons, "Obama's Response":

Did you notice how many times he invoked the word "justice" in his message? That's the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance. What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy - refusing to be baited by Khamenei or the neocons, and yet taking an eloquent stand, as we all do, in defense of freedom and non-violence [emphasis added].

So, "Khamenei" and "the neocons" together in one breath.

God, this man is nasty, as I've demonstrated many times.

Ace of Spades HQ adds this:

It's jawdropping that Sullivan would claim that "neocons" and "AIPAC" would want the revolution to fail. One American clearly seeks the failure of the revolution, but that's his own fantasy-boyfriend Barack Obama. And Sullivan can't say that his would-be boyfriend is in the wrong, so he puts Barack Obama's words into the mouths of his enemies - "neocons" (by which he means Jews) and AIPAC (by which he means Jews).

Did I say one American opposed the revolution? My bad. Two. The man Sullivan passionately supported on the Republican side of the campaign - Jew-hatin' race-baitin' conspiracy-addled Ron Paul - also does.

So that's two of Andi's crushbook favorites who are flacking for Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. But who gets blamed? The Jews, naturally.

And:

If you have any doubt that Sullivan is an anti-semite, I invite you once again to ponder how risible the claim is that Jews, of all people, are actually buddies with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. And carrying their water.

Or neocons, for that matter, who aren't Jews (though Sullivan uses them as rough synonyms).

Iran has been fighting a proxy war against Israel since 1979 and its highest officers routinely threaten to wipe it off the map with a first-strike nuclear holocaust.

Any supporter of Israel -- Jewish or not -- would dearly wish Ahmadinejad to crumble into dust.

This is the most madcap of old-timey Jewish conspiracy ranting, where not only are Jews to be blamed for making trouble with foreign powers to further their own suspiciously-Yiddish interests, they're also, incoherently, alleged to be making secret pacts with those same foreign powers to further their dangerously-Hebraic agendas.

This is Nazi-type stuff, claiming Jews are both on both sides of every conflict and in fact the puppet-masters puppeteering both sides for their own nefarious, gefilte- stinking ends.

There's more in an update, "Take Two: Let Me Explain What Sullivan Is Saying." Ace explains the dementia of "Andi The Anti-Semite Sullivan":

... he's suffering from cognitive dissonance: He's a passionate supporter of both Obama and the Iranian Revolution, and his addled, demented brain is having trouble reconciling the fact that the Love of His Life actually seems to be the one flacking for Ahmadinejad, while neocon-Jews he despises actually seem to be against Ahmadinejad.

It also could be due to self-love, his unrelenting, insatiable narcissism. He wants himself to be the most passionate supporter of the Iranian uprising in America, and so when Charles Krauthammer appears to be an even more passionate supporter, saying crazy things like "Barack Obama should support the uprising," Sullivan needs some way to explain that Krauthammer is actually not what he seems.

Krauthammer seems to be more forward-leaning than Sullivan? Easily explained: He's actually supporting Ahmadinejad, deliberately, trying to trick guileless Gentiles into taking steps that will undermine the protesters. An agent provocateur.

Andrew Sullivan's narcissistic, demented worldview will not admit of someone being "more right" than he is. He must come up with some mechanism by which the only two people who have it exactly right are Andrew Sullivan and his dreamlover Barack Hussein Obama.

As readers can see, this is just one more reason why I don't like Andrew Sullivan. But the lefties will no doubt be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Andi The Anti-Semite Sullivan. Also, recall my essay from last year, "Kos and Andrew: Merchants of Hate" (and by lefties, we can safely include Conor Friederdorf in that category as well).

Image Credit: Darleen Click, "Excitable Andy: ‘Watch out for the Jooooos!’"

A Final Solution to Understanding Andrew Sullivan

This essay is a genuine masterpiece, "Through the Looking Glass With Andrew Sullivan."

It desperately needs more links than the two now up at a Memeorandum, Patterico's Pontifications and RedState. A third I found while searching for the author, Christopher Badeaux.

I am unaware of Mr. Badeaux. I'm pleased to come across his work. I'm also extremely fascinated by this comment at Solomonia, which mentions that part of the essay which is indeed most compelling:

Oh bravo. This is priceless, a must read.

I've been following the Iran story on Sullivan's blog, which otherwise makes me nervous - and couldn't help but encounter his piece on Froomkin and other references to "neocons".

I love the paragraphs in the linked story about his disdain for Bush, The Big Spender, juxtaposed with his admiration for President Obama, the Even Bigger Spender.

Great stuff.

Yes, great stuff, magisterial even.

I've noted lately that I'm in the middle of two of Sullivan's books, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality and The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right.

Yet, I'm still figuring out Andrew Sullivan. The woman's comment above offers an excuse to excerpt the a hefty portion of the passage in question. The key is Sullivan's anti-Semitism. I've blogged on this a couple of times recently. Only only Ace of Spades HQ has offered as comprehense an explication of Sullivan's Jew-hating as Badeaux here:

More than his fascination with the delivery of Trig Palin, more than his quixotic quest to convince anyone other than himself that the Catholic Church is a Protestant denomination, perhaps the largest image for which Andrew Sullivan has been known these last fifteen years is a political wanderer. A Brit unable to vote in this country, its governance ranks up there with his obsession with the Pet Shop Boys (in fairness, topics of roughly equal gravity) in the volume and intensity of his writings. Long-time readers of Sullivan – those who do not speak seriously of the Elder Gods – note that he was an iconoclastic supporter of Bill Clinton, who was disgusted by the Clintons by the time they left office; then an iconoclastic supporter of George W. Bush, who was disgusted with Bush by the time he left office; and is now a fairly open, unabashed, gushing admirer of President Obama. What’s interesting, though, is how his politics have changed in just four years.

Here he is discussing George W. Bush’s 2004 Convention speech:

THE END OF CONSERVATISM: But conservatism as we have known it is now over. People like me who became conservatives because of the appeal of smaller government and more domestic freedom are now marginalized in a big-government party, bent on using the power of the state to direct people’s lives, give them meaning and protect them from all dangers. Just remember all that Bush promised last night: an astonishingly expensive bid to spend much more money to help people in ways that conservatives once abjured. He pledged to provide record levels of education funding, colleges and healthcare centers in poor towns, more Pell grants, seven million more affordable homes, expensive new HSAs, and a phenomenally expensive bid to reform the social security system. I look forward to someone adding it all up, but it’s easily in the trillions ....

Barely four years later, here he is discussing Barack Obama’s Convention speech:

It was a deeply substantive speech, full of policy detail, full of people other than the candidate, centered overwhelmingly on domestic economic anxiety. It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism - in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy….

I’ve said it before - months and months ago. I should say it again tonight. This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.

Know hope.

What’s remarkable here is what’s missing: Talk of tax reform, talk of control over rampant spending, talk of prudence. Remarkably, at the height of the Iraq War, Sullivan seemed fixated on spending, and with Iraq under control and terrorism muted and spending through the roof, his first focus was on the war powers of the Presidency. A cynic might say that Sullivan could only see Bush’s weaknesses and was inordinately blind to Obama’s.

But we’re not cynics here. Instead, we are devotees trying to track our way through Sullivan’s mental progression, disciples whose only hope lies in understanding how so great a man could so completely whipsaw from a critical view of a man he’d once supported to a sycophantic lay worshiper of another, equally obvious politician.

Some attribute this to President Obama’s pretty face. That’s demeaning. Some attribute it to George W. Bush’s stance on gay marriage – but that would be ridiculous, not merely because it would suggest that Sullivan is a one-dimensional writer obsessed with sex, but also because it would make Sullivan seem like an utter nutter for hating former Vice President Dick Cheney (a proponent of gay marriage and federalism) with the intensity of a thousand suns. (It would also raise questions about the man’s sanity in another way: Candidate Obama was clear that he opposed gay marriage, and occasionally likes to have a good laugh about angry, protesting gays. Yet Sullivan’s admiration continues.)

No. These are too prosaic, too common, too easy to destroy. What could drive a man from admiration and defense for a governor from Texas who hewed to Sullivan’s then-preferred doctrine of subsidiarity to calling him a war criminal? What could so completely rearrange a man’s entire view of the world – other, of course, than some terrible disease afflicting his mind?

The answer is obvious: The Jews.

One sign of a writer’s mental disfigurement, laziness, undiagnosed psychoses, or, obviously in the case of Sullivan, inhuman insight, is the gradual realization that the term “neoconservative” is a useful stand-in for “Jews whose loyalty belongs first to Israel, and then to the United States, if at all.” Sullivan has clearly reached this point, as one can note from some of his most recent thoughts.

Putting to the side that Danielle Pletka is not, actually, a neoconservative in the traditional sense of the word — she’s been a mainstream conservative, along the lines of John Bolton (who, despite all the boxes drawn online, also rejects the neocon label), for years — this really is a remarkable foray. It’s impressive not only for the acceptance of the blood libel to which the Left has grown too accustomed the last eight years; not only for the implicit suggestion that Sullivan and President Obama have the freedom of the Middle East at heart (a suggestion belied by every word from President Obama’s mouth since he accused the Jews of driving the U.S. into the Iraq War in 2002); but also for the conclusion summed up in the title of the post — “Neocons For Ahmadinejad.” A man who once praised the virtues of incremental change and guarded optimism now sees the public expression of these things as proof of support for a murderous puppet for a dictatorial regime, and therefore for the regime itself – so that America will be forced into a war against Iran.

We who only dwell in an I.Q. range between 100 and 200 would be disturbed were our writing to seem appropriate at The American Conservative or Mother Jones; indeed, for many of us, that would be a signal moment, the point at which we sit down, take a deep breath, and ask a physician for some mind-altering medication. Sullivan transcends such petty concerns, and adopts – presumably because no writing form, no matter how dipped in madness, can remain beyond his formidable talents – the paranoid style so beloved of chlorpromazine recipients the world over, in writing on the Washington Post’s decision to fire its disturbed columnist/blogger/hack, Dan Froomkin:

A simply astounding move by the paper - getting rid of the one blogger, Dan Froomkin, who kept it real and kept it interesting. Dan’s work on torture may be one reason he is now gone. The way in which the WaPo has been coopted by the neocon right, especially in its editorial pages, is getting more and more disturbing. This purge will prompt a real revolt in the blogosphere. And it should.

But this descent into anti-Semitic madness — a case of using indirects to find direction out, certainly — cannot be real. After all, Sullivan denies this canard as being unworthy of response. After all, many of his best friends are Jewish ....

Leon Wieseltier on Andrew Sullivan's Anti-Semitism

It's been a while, but I wrote of Andrew Sullivan's anti-Semitism previously. See, "Andrew Sullivan: Anti-Semitic Neocon Derangement."

As good a case as I might make, it's nothing compared to Leon Wieseltier's utterly breathtaking decimation of Sully, "Something Much Darker" (via Memeorandum):

Consider some squibs that Sullivan recently posted on his blog. “Most American Jews, of course, retain a respect for learning, compassion for the other, and support for minorities (Jews, for example, are the ethnic group most sympathetic to gay rights),” he declared on January 13. “But the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing–that celebrates and believes in government torture, endorses the pulverization of Gazans with glee, and wants to attack Iran–is something else. Something much darker.” Michael Goldfarb is the former online editor of The Weekly Standard, about whom the less said, the better. Charles Krauthammer is Charles Krauthammer. I was not aware that they comprise a “wing” of American Jewry, or that American Jewry has “wings.” What sets them apart from their more enlightened brethren is the unacceptability of their politics to Sullivan. That is his criterion for dividing the American Jewish community into good Jews and bad Jews–a practice with a sordid history.

As far as I can tell, Krauthammer’s position on torture is owed to a deep and sometimes frantic concern for American security, and his position on the war in Gaza to a deep and sometimes frantic concern for Israeli security, and his position on Iran to a deep and sometime frantic concern for American and Israeli security. Whatever the merits of his views, I do not see that his motives are despicable. Moreover, Krauthammer argues for his views; the premises of his analysis are coldly clear, and may be engaged analytically, and when necessary refuted. Unlike Sullivan, he does not present feelings as ideas. Most important, the grounds of Krauthammer’s opinions are no more to be found in, or reduced to, his Jewishness than the grounds of the contrary opinions–the contentions of dovish Jews who denounce torture, and oppose Israeli abuses in the Gaza war, and insist upon a diplomatic solution to the threat of an Iranian nuclear capability–are to be found in, or reduced to, their Jewishness. All these “wings” are fervent Jews and friends of Israel. There are many “Jewish” answers to these questions. We all want the Torah on our side. And the truth is that the Torah has almost nothing to do with it.

Sullivan is hunting for motives, not reasons; for conspiracies, which is the surest sign of a mind’s bankruptcy. These days the self-congratulatory motto above his blog is “Of No Party or Clique,” but in fact Sullivan belongs to the party of Mearsheimer and the clique of Walt (whom he cites frequently and deferentially), to the herd of fearless dissidents who proclaim in all seriousness, without in any way being haunted by the history of such an idea, that Jews control Washington. Sullivan might have a look at the domestic pressures–in lobbies and other forms–upon American diplomacy toward China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Cuba, and give a thought or two to the elaborate and sometimes exasperating nature of foreign-policy-making in a democracy; but he prefers not to dive deep into the substance of anything. It is less immediately satisfying than cursing and linking. Does Sullivan think that Obama’s engagement with Iran–which, accurately described, is an engagement with the Iranian dictatorship and not with the Iranian people–is paying off? Does he believe that the Israeli war against Hamas was an unjust war, or that Israel should have continued to absorb Hamas’s rocket attacks–which were indisputably criminal–and not acted with force against them? His answers may be inferred from his various ejaculations–“the pulverization of Gazans,” for example, is a phrase that is calculatedly indifferent to the wrenching moral and strategic perplexities that are contained in the awful reality of asymmetrical warfare–but they are not so much answers as bar-room retorts; moody explosions of verbal violence; more invective from another American crank. Worst of all, the explanation that Sullivan adopts for almost everything that he does not like about America’s foreign policy, and America’s wars, and America’s role in the world–that it is all the result of the clandestine and cunningly organized power of a single and small ethnic group–has a provenance that should disgust all thinking people.

And this is not all that is disgusting about Sullivan’s approach. His assumption, in his outburst about “the Goldfarb-Krauthammer wing,” that every thought that a Jew thinks is a Jewish thought is an anti-Semitic assumption, and a rather classical one. Bigotry has always made representatives of individuals, and discerned the voice of the group in the voice of every one of its members. Is everything that every gay man says a gay statement? I will give an example. On October 15, 2001, when the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered, Sullivan published a piece in the Times of London called “A British View of the US Post-September 11.” In this piece he accused Bill Clinton of “appeasement,” and praised George W. Bush for assembling “the ideal team” for a “task” that “cannot be done by airpower alone,” and had kind words for America’s “world hegemony”–the politics changes, the fever remains the same–and also included this unforgettable sentence: “The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead – and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.” A fifth column! It is a genuinely sinister sentence. I wish to emphasize two features of Sullivan’s comment. The first is that it is an exercise in demonization: it divides the American people into good Americans and bad Americans. The second is that it is in no way an expression of Sullivan’s homosexuality. It must never be said that when Sullivan lauded the bellicosity of Cheney and Rumsfeld–which wing of American Christianity, by the way, shall we blame for them? –he exchanged the company of the good gays for the company of the bad gays. To say that would be homophobic. Here is what such homophobia would look like: Most American homosexuals, of course, retain a respect for art, and compassion for the other, and support for minorities. But the Sullivan-Shmullivan wing of American homosexuality–that celebrates and believes in torture and war, and endorses the pulverization of Afghan villages with glee, and wants to attack any country where Al Qaeda may be found–is something else. Something much darker. Get it?

RTWT at the link.

Dan Riehl says the enormity is much more than anti-Semitism: "Sullivan is Actually Not An Anti-Semite." Brad DeLong, in a wide, winding path, comes to the same conclusion. And others on the left have circled the wagons.

But I'm with Wieseltier on this one. See also, Darleen Click, "Excitable Andy: ‘Watch out for the Jooooos!’."

Andrew Sullivan: Update on Neocon Derangement

Andrew Sullivan is the moment's most prolific Iran blogger on the web. Yet his work's a travesty of journalism, with all the petty, venal, and scurrilous anti-Semitism we are seeing. On top of that we've also got all of his pathetic Man-Crush Obama blogging.

Dan Riehl has some thoughts:

If Andrew Sullivan wants to jump into the emoting bin at Wal-Mart to pick-out a cheap canned syrupy concoction on Iran to serve up to his readers, he's allowed; but it shouldn't be confused with the insight, or wisdom he colors it up to look to be. And it does matter for reasons that are critically important to America and her security.

The rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ground-up election of Obama in America; and now the rising up of Iranians for freedom and civility with their neighbors: these are the green shoots of recovery from 9/11 and its wake.

Sullivan manages to see Obama's invisible hand having at least some role in all this. But Obama has been more invisible, than he's been a hand in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, or to the Iranian people currently dying in the streets. In fact, he's done more to legitimize the very leadership that still oppresses and shoots innocents down in the streets in Iran, than has he done anything to undermine it. To the extent America has played any role, this movement was not born of the last five months.

Ann Althouse, picking up on the same themes, asserts Sullivan's questionable integrity:

It is possible that Obama is doing exactly the right thing — but I can't take Andrew Sullivan's word for it, because of he's been slathering praise on the man for far too long.

I'm glad to see Sullivan's writing coming under scrutiny.

I've long said it, but the more I read Sullivan the more I'm convinced he's simply an awful man. What's bothersome this morning is Sullivan's opportunism. All week he's been attacking the "evil" neocons - deploying the oldest and most despicable anti-Semitic canards - and then today he turns around to expropriate the day's top neoconservative writing as his own.

In his post, "Today's Must-Reads I: Gerecht," Sullivan spins off Reuel Marc Gerecht's work as validation of his own:

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a neoconservative with intellectual honesty and a real grasp of the region he studies, homes in on the core fact on Day 9 of the uprising, and Day 1 of the battle ...

As Iranians have come to know theocracy intimately, secularism has become increasingly attractive. Iran now produces brilliant clerics who argue in favor of the separation of church and state as a means of saving the faith from corrupting power.

Where Gerecht is analytical, Sullivan scavenges like a vulture. He feeds on the insights of others:

It is hard to overstate the importance of this, which is why, in my judgment, this is potentially the most important positive moment in history since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because it is the clearest and most promising sign that the Islamist Wall is breaking up. We have long wanted and needed a reformation of Islam and Islam's relationship with politics. The two are connected: without some civil space for dialogue, how can anyone do the intellectual and theological work to forge a new Islam more compatible with democratic norms and individual freedom. Iran is beginning to show us how that can happen.

Now step back and note how Sullivan actually repudiates himself in a later post, citing the master Bush-basher, Spencer Ackerman, in "This Conservative Revolution":

I've written before that this reminds me of the American rather than the French revolution - because it is being waged not as a means to destroy the system, but to force it to live up to its democratic promises. And that's why it's so potent. That's also why Obama's emphasis on justice, rather than freedom, is so shrewd. What we have to focus on is simply the election, its fraudulence and the necessity of a new vote. That's all. If those promises are met, the coup-regime will fall. Of course no liberal democracy will instantly follow. Mousavi is not a radical; he's a moderate establishment type. This is Gorbachev not Yeltsin. But this is not something to fear; it is something to embrace, as Reagan did.

Sullivan then quotes Ackerman for authority ("Moussavi’s Message of Reform").

But come on! What democratic promises in 1979?

As I've indicated, Ackerman wants to consolidate a "reformist" Iranian Islamist state "BECAUSE IT OVERTURNED A U.S-BACKED REGIME."

Ayatollah Khomeini did not come to power with the promise of freedom. The revolution of '79 installed a Islamo-fascist dictatorship. Spencer Ackerman sees the Bush administration as a bigger threat to the Iranian regime than the mullahs in Tehran. And Andrew Sullivan, in citing him, is blogging too fast to realize how stupid he makes himself out to be. Once you deconstruct what Sullivan is saying, we see it's all about him and his Man-Crush Dream-Boy Obama.

Iranians DO NOT need regime change to validate President Obama's hollow words on "justice." The Iranian people need to establish the secular state that Reuel Marc Gerecht has laid out, and when they do, they'll vindicate the neoconservative vision that folks like Andrew Sullivan and Spencer Ackerman have worked so hard to destroy.

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UPDATE: Thanks for the links! Atlas Shrugs, Gateway Pundit, and Riehl World View.

Reports: University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan Fired Because She Wouldn't Cut German, Classics Programs

Actually, it's theoretical, but Inside Higher Ed makes a strong case.

See, "Reports Suggest UVa Board Wanted President to Eliminate Language Programs":

One of the key complaints of the board members who orchestrated the ouster of Teresa A. Sullivan as president of the University of Virginia was that she rebuffed their suggestions that she eliminate or sharply cut German programs, sources familiar with the discussions have told Inside Higher Ed. The Washington Post on Sunday reported that one of the most specific disagreements between board members and Sullivan was their view that she "lacked the mettle to trim or shut down programs that couldn't sustain themselves financially, such as obscure academic departments in classics and German."

To faculty members and others at the university who have been puzzled and dismayed since word last Sunday of Sullivan's forced resignation, news that she may have been punished for protecting liberal arts disciplines seems likely only to increase support for Sullivan and anger with the Board of Visitors. Protests by faculty members and students are expected today as the board meets this afternoon, and more calls came Sunday from prominent Virginians seeking to have Sullivan continue on as president. Sullivan has asked to speak to the board in open session, but has been told that she will be permitted to speak only in closed session.

Since her resignation, Sullivan issued a brief statement citing a philosophical difference of opinion with the board and has said nothing more. Board leaders have spoken about a sense that Sullivan was not moving to address changes in higher education and was not bold enough to deal with financial challenges facing the university. Since board members have declined to elaborate, and Sullivan had instituted a well-received new budgeting system that many have said was long overdue, various theories have been floating around campus (many of them without substantiation) about the clash between Sullivan and the board.

The reports that board leaders pushed for cuts of some liberal arts programs and that Sullivan resisted are the most specific details to date about what led the board to seek her removal. So even though most people at the university assume that multiple issues were at play, the difference of opinion over these departments has many faculty members and students angry, even beyond their frustrations with Sullivan's dismissal. In part that is because UVa -- unlike many universities -- is considered a place where liberal arts are central to the institution's identity.

Continue reading.

More at WSET-TV Lynchburg, "Debate Over UVA President's Resignation."

The De-Linking of Andrew Sullivan

There's a big de-linking campaign afoot against well-known author and blogger Andrew Sullivan.

Sullivan's been leading the leftosphere's anti-Palin smear attacks, and Ace of Spades called for a de-linking program in a blistering post calling Sullivan a "taker of loads." That seemed a bit over the top, at least in tone, but I noticed that National Review's policy is to explicity eschew linking to Sullivan as well.

So, with Dean Barnett's essay tonight at the Weekly Standard, "Anatomy of a Smear," which doesn't even mention Sullivan by name, much less link to him, it's pretty clear that the right's had it with Sullivan's man-crush on Barack Obama:

Blogger Charlie Martin has helpfully compiled all of the smears that the left has hurled at Sarah Palin. 54 and counting!

Given that we’re more than halfway to the century mark in Palin smears, I think it’s time to take another brief look at the left’s method of smear dissemination. Yesterday on a blog hosted by the prestigious magazine the Atlantic, a post popped up at 11:49 a.m. with the breathless title, “Here We Go.” The post read in its entirety, “Todd Palin's former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.” The post linked to the Alaskan court system where you could see the motion if you cared to click through.

Although the author didn’t care to make his innuendo explicit, the insinuation was clear – the National Enquirer had previously reported on what it called “a rumor” that the former business partner in question had had an affair with Sarah Palin. The breathless title and the brevity of the post implied that the smoking gun for the affair laid in the court filings that the former business partner wished to conceal. Naturally, because the purported scoop had the imprimatur of the prestigious Atlantic, many other news sources picked it up in rapid order.

Quicker than you can say “conspiracy theory lunatic,” this particular lunatic theory jumped off the tracks. The Court denied the motion to conceal the papers, allowing the curious to sniff through them. Shock of shocks, Sarah Palin’s name wasn’t even mentioned in the filings. Nor was there anything regarding an affair with her. In this particular wild goose chase, the goose flew free.

Thus, the method of the smear mechanism reveals itself – print a lot of speculative crap, all while maintaining a malign indifference as to whether or not you can prove said speculative crap. Actually nailing down a story before running it? That’s so 20th century, at least in the virtual pages of the Atlantic. Doing actual reporting to confirm life-damaging rumors before circulating them? Such quotidian tasks are obviously beneath an Atlantic blogger’s pay grade.

There's more at the link.

It turns out that the information on Palin's business partner's motion to seal his divorce proceedings was first posted at Sullivan's page, so it's not as if Sullivan's just sending earlier allegations viral.

Ace of Spades suggests not to link to Sullivan when rebutting his demonizing dementia: "quote and critique with attribution. But don't link."

Actually, I've never "de-linked" anyone. In fact, I normally link like crazy to focus attention on the nihilist left's many blogs of hate. But I'm generally a low-traffic blogger (although technically no longer a member of the "9th tier"), although my page's been getting more attention, so I can see the practical logic in denying Sullivan attention and hits.

There's is "a politics of linking" on the web, of course, so considering Sullivan's campaign of innuendos and smears, I thought I just pass along this information in furtherance of the de-linking of Andrew Sullivan.

Here's Andrew Sullivan's 'Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?' Piece at Newsweek

ICYMI, here's the earlier entry with the "dumb" cover shot: "Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Smears Obama Critics as 'Dumb' in Newsweek Cover Story."

And here's the moment you've all been waiting for, "How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics."

When reading this, I'm reminding of Sullivan's piece from December 2007 at The Atlantic, "Why Obama Matters." The kind of emotional attachment Sullivan invests in Barack Obama is unique in all of journalism, and apposite of Sullivan's parallel and literally deranged obsession with Sarah Palin's uterus, it's obviously psychologically unhealthy. But he indeed speaks for all of those who saw in Obama the messiah candidate, and this tendency's a deviance that's been evident in wider media reporting now for years: Barack Obama as the "Lightworker" repeatedly portrayed in photography and art as the miracle man with the halo. Such political deification is the essence of the cult of personality built around leaders in totalitarian regimes. That it happened here should make people think again about political partisans calling their enemies "dumb."

At the Newsweek piece, Sullivan deploys his showmanship as a writer, but fails badly at any semblance of evenhandedness --- a disgraceful situation, considering Newsweek continues to bill itself as an objective news source practicing professional journalism. Here's a flavor, from the introduction:

A president in the last year of his first term will always get attacked mercilessly by his partisan opponents, and also, often, by the feistier members of his base. And when unemployment is at remarkably high levels, and with the national debt setting records, the criticism will—and should be—even fiercer. But this time, with this president, something different has happened. It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply—empirically—wrong.

A caveat: I write this as an unabashed supporter of Obama from early 2007 on. I did so not as a liberal, but as a conservative-minded independent appalled by the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture. I did not expect, or want, a messiah. I have one already, thank you very much. And there have been many times when I have disagreed with decisions Obama has made—to drop the Bowles-Simpson debt commission, to ignore the war crimes of the recent past, and to launch a war in Libya without Congress’s sanction, to cite three. But given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb. Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama’s long game—and why his reelection remains, in my view, as essential for this country’s future as his original election in 2008.

I have highlighted Sullivan's dishonesty. The 2007 Atlantic piece was a paean to Obama as a supernatural being, the personification of a new kind of intellectual faith. It struck me as bizarre at the time, and after all that's happened in three years of Democrat Party lies, corruption, scandal, and incompetence, the reader is once again forced to ask if Andrew Sullivan is in his right mind.

Sullivan at the Newsweek "dumb" piece aims his ire and vindictiveness at the "unhinged right," as he calls conservative opponents of the administration. And his style is something of an argumentative Gatling gun: he spews out an endless stream of purported achievements and facts whiles simultaneously omitting even the slightest bit of dis-confirming evidence. We hear, yet again, that Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, but we then get comparisons to the George W. Bush years that are completely removed from the context of that administration's crises (recession, September 11). Sullivan posits that Bush added over $5 trillion in news spending? But Obama added only $1.2 trillion (projected for two terms total), so it's really George W. Bush who is the fiscal socialist, not Obama. Right. Meanwhile, Sullivan neatly ignores the Obama administration's unprecedented deficits and debt and insists again and again on calling the president "moderate" --- even, he "dare says," conservative. ObamaCare is pooh-poohed as a trivial health care reform that "crosses the Rubicon" toward universal access. Not mentioned are the literally thousands of waivers that have been given to companies large and small, especially those belonging to well-connected Democrat Party cronies. This is why Republicans say it should be repealed. It's the biggest farce of social policy since at least the Great Society's "war on poverty."

And don't even get me going on foreign policy. Sullivan trumpets the killing of Osama bin Laden as Barack Obama's personal success (it is not) and he praises the president for America's precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, which was the result of a negotiation blunder of historic proportions. And for some reason Sullivan thinks "leading from behind" is a phrase that deserves praise. The fact is the Obama administration's policy on Libya demonstrated the most amateur conduct of American foreign policy in the last fifty years. Obama was, on the one hand, demanding Muammar Gaddafi's removal from power while, on the other, insisting that regime change wasn't America's end game in Libya. The administration's ineptitude has been replayed over and over again, in the Middle East and beyond, and one foreign policy pledge after another has been broken and disregarded, with virtually the entire national security architecture established during the previous Bush administration retained and expanded --- completely the exact opposite of that promised during the "Lightworker's" campaign in 2008.

Barack Obama's foreign and national security policies have left America both weaker and less secure. Seriously, it's Andrew Sullivan who's looking thoroughly "dumb" here, and this is just the tip of the iceberg of this nasty, partisan hack job piece of journalism. Yep, Newsweek's has done it again with a disastrous cover story and disgraceful example of fluff reporting attempting to leverage a failed administration back in power for four more years. I think I'm going to puke.

Neoclassicons

I'm involved, just a teeny-weeny bit, in this flame war Robert Stacy McCain's having with Conor Friedersdorf.

At Stacy's post yesterday, "Conor Friedersdorf vs. Dan Riehl" (on the debate between Friedersdorf and Dan), I left the link to Conor's post, Iran, Twitter, and The American Information Elite." That link goes to the Atlantic, where Freidersdorf's now a "big ideas" blogger. Stacy's been hammering Friedersdorf pretty hard anyway, but even more now that news of the Freidersdorf's Atlantic gig got out.

I've been thinking about writing something about this. So, I might as well comment on Dan's remark earlier on the conservatives schism (David Frum vs. Rush Limbaugh, etc.), when he noted that "To be honest, I wonder if this whole moderation movement isn't simply about purging the social conservatives."

Well, yeah. I'll just say here that Conor Freidersdorf is an Andrew Sullivan myrmidon. As anyone who's followed the recent conservative debates knows, especially in the months since the election, there's been an amalgamation of moderate conservatives, left-libertarians, and unpatriotic paleocons on the postmodern right. I wrote about this (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) the other day, in "What's Up With David Weigel?" From Conor Friederdorf to David Frum, to Daniel Larison to Andrew Sullivan, and then E.D. Kain, there's a movement afoot that wants desperately to be "conservative," but one that is failing miserably.

The reason is simple: These folks, let's loosely call them neoclassical conservatives, or neoclassicons, are driven by an essentially leftist-libertarian domestic policy orientation that is primarily animated by an intense hatred of "theoconservatism." That's the term Andrew Sullivan deploys in his book, The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right. In Sullivan's case in particular, hatred of theoconservatism emerges out of the psycho-sexual torment of his own homosexuality. For a man who has apparently long preached a standard of homosexual monogamy, his own personal moral breakdown into wild sexual excursions of high-risk barebacking and alleged steroidal drug use makes it difficult for reasonable people to take him seriously. Sullivan's own considerably masterful writing, of course, and his ability to put his finger to the pulse of the latest ideological hot buttons, helps to give him some cachet among those on the left looking for some type of pop-legitimacy to their postmodern agenda.

What's striking about all of this is not just how wrong these folks are on most of the main issues of contemporary conservatism, but also how, from my perspsective, the Sullivan-cadres mount their ideological program completely bereft of decency. Andrew Sullivan himself, as is well known, practically lost his mind last year after Sarah Palin's nomination as the GOP presidential running-mate. His attacks on the Palin family have hit bottom and he keeps digging. Beyond that, I routinely see his followers and allies making the most ridiculously unhinged attacks, allegations, and arguments. Conor Friedersdorf put up a totally absurd piece a couple of weeks back, in an essay called, "A Question for War on Terror Hawks." Friedersdorf advocated waterboarding for folks like the suspect in the murder of George Tiller. I took him to task in my post, "Is Waterboarding Worse Than Abortion?," and he left a hopeless comment noting his exception.

E.D. Kain, another neoclassicon who practically worships Sullivan - and not to mention, Daniel Larison - is himself like a confused adolescent, afraid to engage in an intellectual debate with me at this blog. E.D. Kain was once in regular communication with me as the publisher of Neo-Constant, which was described as a blog of "Hard-line neoconservative political commentary, global politics, and foreign policy." Like Andrew Sullivan, E.D. must feel a need to float along the tides of partisan popularity. He's certainly denuded himself of moral standing among those with whom he had previous communications. But that kind of childishness appears to characterize the neoclassicons overall. Recall that Andrew Sullivan attacked Ann Althouse for her simple decision to get married. Why? Jealousy most likely, but also spite for hetersexuals and traditionalists. This is how these guys roll.

And what for? For all intents and purposes these guys have joined the other side. They're not conservative by any sense of the imagination. One doesn't have to be a devout church-goer to be deeply conservative on the issues, and that includes on such starkly moral questions as the right to life for unborn children. One of the most important conserative intellectuals in the last few decades is Robert Bork. And he claims to be just mildly religious (see Bork's, "Hard Truths About the Culture War" for a penetrating expose on the mainstreaming of postmodern radicalism in contemporary public affairs).

Robert Stacy McCain mostly just writes these people off as little men, a bunch of immature pseudo-conservative social climbers. My take is perhaps rougher. From social policy to international affairs, I see these folks in bed with the hardline activists of the nihilist left. On gay marriage to Iraq, there's little that differentiates them. For them to suggest they're "reclaiming" conservativism is preposterous. No smart conservative on today's right would even deign to associate with views like this. Rush Limbaugh is popular for a reason. Mark Levin's Tyranny and Liberty remains at the top of the bestseller lists, and the mainstream press has refused to give him the time of day. David Frum and Sullivan, on the other hand, are feted like they're top political soothsayers of the age. It's a strange thing.

No matter. Analysis of election data, as well as recent polling, indicates how far out on a limb the neoclassicons have placed themselves. The genuine conservatism of folks like Robert Bork, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin will be making a huge comeback in no time. Frankly, the Obama administration's deficit-driven agenda is already being repudiated in public opinion, and former Obama voters are now having remorse.

It's good to put these neoclassicons in there place, of course. Conservatives have to fight for every inch. The media's in the tank for Obama, and Andrew Sulllivan and his stooges are simply seeking a path of least resistance in their hubristic attempt to excommunicate the traditional right-wing from the political spectrum.

I'll have more on this debate in upcoming posts.

Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan: Merchants of Hate

Some time back, when I reported on Daily Kos' vehemently anti-Semitic essay, "Eulogy Before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel," left-wing commenters here argued that the post was "just a diary," and did not reflect the views of Markos Moultisas himself.

I utterly reject that view, of course, and I've shown here repeatedly that Kos indeed welcomes both the diary contributions AND the individual comments found in the threads to his blog's diaries and essays (commenters at Daily Kos aren't just commenters, "They are creators of content”).

These facts are relevant to the recent left-wing smear attacks against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Almost as soon as John McCain announced Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, Daily Kos began spreading rumors that Governor Palin's 17 year-old daughter Bristol was the mother of Palin's son Trig.

In response to the backlash from the McCain campaign and conservatives, Moultisas refused to take down the allegations, telling the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that the smears were "legitimate" journalism:

The intensity of media inquiries [into Sarah Palin's background] hit a new level after an anonymous blogger on the liberal Web site Daily Kos last weekend charged that McCain's running mate is actually the grandmother of Trig Palin, the 4-month-old baby born with Down syndrome, and that the real mother is her daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin. That led to mainstream media inquiries, which prompted the McCain camp to disclose in a statement Monday that Bristol is five months pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the teenage father.

The site's founder, Markos Moulitsas, said he did not know the contributor's identity but thought that the admittedly "weird" pregnancy questions were a legitimate line of inquiry that he should not suppress.

Keep in mind, that Moultisas has announced that Daily Kos represents the "mainstream" of the Democratic Party, and Moulitsas and Barack Obama openly coordinated on the publication of Obama's certification birth at Daily Kos in June.

Moultisas' key ally in spreading the anti-Palin hate rumors has been Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic, and Sullivan's in fact been the originator of some of the nastiest untruths seeking to destroy the Palin family.

Sullivan's extremism continues this morning. As Darleen Click shows, Sullivan's gone off the deep end with a post attacking Jewish influence in Sarah Palin's foreign policy coaching:

I’m posting a screenshot because I’d rather not link to RAWMUSLGLUTES more than necessary. This morning he is little more than Palin-vulva-phobia spewing. However, in one instance he likes to spread a thin film of anti-Semitism over the PDS like room-temperature cream cheese scraped across a nicely toasted bagel:

Plus, Ace of Spades takes the baton from Dean Barnett to shed additional light on Sullivan's smear merchandising:

Andrew Sullivan is known for many things -- general histrionics, "excitability," intellectual shallowness that requires him to blog about the only things he's marginally capable of discussing (emotion and scandal), unquenchable vanity, a guileless passion for conspiracy theories of all sort, "gobsmacking" outbursts of hypocrisy and inconsistency so laughable he's chiefly read for his inadvertent entertainment, casual antisemtism that was all the rage at British boarding schools but doesn't play as well in America, power glutes, seeking anonymous three-way sex, and an endless stream of insults that sound vaguely "smart" but are really just variations of "fascist" and "hater" tarted-up with a thesaurus and some memories of introductory-level college classes.

And that's the just the beginning! .

Sullivan's a mainstream journalist as well as a partisan blogger, and nowadays that's getting to be a distinction without a difference. Prominent hard-line leftist blogs and top journalists at previously respectable institutions like the Atlantic, can slime, smear, and slander, while the principle of journalistic objectivity is sacrificed upon the altar of Barack Hussein Obama, aka "The One."

There's no denying these facts.

Markos Moultisas and Andrew Sullivans are hate-filled smear merchants. Those who want to argue that Kos doesn't endorse this stuff, or Sullivan's a "legitimate" reporter, are living in an alternative reality.

Why Did Andrew Sullivan Get Special Treatment From the U.S. Attorney?

Unlike Dan Collins, I would have been tiptoeing through the tulips had Andrew Sullivan not gotten special treatment and had his pending claim for U.S. citizenship blown. The guy's a prick, and he broke the law. Since he's not an American, he could potentially face deportation. Why should he get a special deal? I'd say the same thing about a Mexican day laborer.

Gawker's got the story, "Andrew Sullivan's Federal Pot Favors." But Ron Radosh nails it, "Andrew Sullivan’s Bust: The Real Issue":

Why did Andrew Sullivan get special treatment from the U.S. Attorney? As the Collings statement makes clear, other similar offenders have regularly been hauled before the court, and forced to pay the fine if found guilty. In Sullivan’s case, there are other far more important implications.

Andrew Sullivan has moved from the stance of a fierce conservative to that of a liberal supporter of the Obama administration. When Obama met after his election with liberal journalists, Sullivan was part of their group—not among those of the conservative journalists who met the President-elect. He regularly blasts conservatives, especially those having anything to do with the Bush administration, and stands among the group constantly demanding fierce punishment for Cheney and company for authorizing torture of Gitmo detainees.

Now, more than ever, it appears that the United States Attorney is repaying a debt to Sullivan for his support to the administration. Why else would he be singled out for exclusive treatment? And doesn’t it also mean that Sullivan now will be more careful than ever to continue giving the administration his approval, at least until after he becomes a citizen? A debt paid leads to a debt owed.

More at Memeorandum.

But see the U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings court statement, "MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON GOVERNMENT’S REQUEST FOR LEAVE TO FILE A DISMISSAL OF VIOLATION NOTICE."

Hillary Clinton's Case for Michigan and Florida

I haven't posted on the Democratic primaries in a while. It's been hard, frankly, to dream up something new and interesting to say. For months now everyone's been saying "this thing's going to the convention" or, for the last few weeks, "it's not about the math," which has referred to Hillary's magical momentum in keeping the race alive.

So, now that we've had another split decision at the polls this week, in Oregon and Kentucky, how's it going to be? The media's talking like Obama's the nominee, but as I've said before, Hillary's a Roman gladiator, "Hillary Clinton Maximus Decimus Meridius": She just won't die.

So, check out this little kerfuffle over Hillary's speech yesterday, making the case for counting the Michigan and Florida delegations in Denver this summer.

How should we interpret the rules? Well, it depends on the calendar. Before the primaries began, both candidates agreed to eschew campaiging in the bumped-up states, where the DNC had imposed sanctions, so don't count 'em; but now, with the nomination on the line, and voters having trekked to the polls, civil rights (and the will) of the electorate should trump loyalty (or fealty) to Democratic Party institutions, so let the will of the voters prevail.

Andrew Sullivan's going with the former, in response to Hillary's claim that "not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country - that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted":

How do you respond to a sociopath like this? She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

I think she has now made it very important that Obama not ask her to be the veep. The way she is losing is so ugly, so feckless, so riddled with narcissism and pathology that this kind of person should never be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Well, No Quarter's answered Sullivan's query. "How do you respond," to Sullivan, that is?

This idiot by the name of Andrew Sullivan is of the opinion that it is wrong for Hillary to work her heart out to get the delegates of Florida and Michigan seated at the convention. In his myopic opinion Hillary is a Clinton and everyone knows about the Clintons. They Are Legend.

Shameless

The Clintons know no respect for rules or propriety or restraint in the pursuit of power.

Let’s start with the obvious. Sullivan is a lunatic. He groups Bill and Hillary together into this nice neat little bundle that he can blaspheme with impunity. I wonder if he has actually even heard that women are known to have a mind of their own and are separate creatures from men. According to Sullivan, Hillary is just an extension of Bill. Are Cavemen making a comeback that I haven’t heard about yet?

In my not so humble opinion Hillary has nailed this Florida and Michigan thing BIG TIME.

Now, I know that Senator Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot in Michigan, and that was his right. But his choice does not negate the votes of all those who turned out to cast their ballots, and we should not let our process rob them and all of you of your voices. To do so would undermine the very purpose of the nominating process. To ensure that as many Democrats as possible can cast their votes. To ensure that the party selects a nominee who truly represents the will of the voters and to ensure that the Democrats take back the White House to rebuild America.

Now, I’ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules.

I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country - that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted. I remember very well back in 2000, there were those who argued that people’s votes should be discounted over technicalities. For the people of Florida who voted in this primary, the notion of discounting their votes sounds way too much of the same.

Damn right sister. Because the heart of the Democratic Party has always been voter enfranchisement.

But facts like this matter little to Obama Cultists like Sullivan.

She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

Earth to Andrew Sullivan. Not that it matters because you are clearly too stupid to understand something so simple as a fact or two. But for your followers and all the rest of the Cult-Aide addicts, here is a little refresher course in reality.

You'll have to check the rest of No Quarter's post for the rest, "Is Andrew Sullivan a Sociopathetic Hack?"

I have a lot of respect of Sullivan's writing.

His cover story on Obama at the Atlantic in December is the best piece on the Illinois Senator I've read. But to demonize Hillary the way he does shows a profound naiveté on the nature of politics and power.

No one should expect Hillary Clinton to bow out without a fight (or an argument): This is what's she's lived for fall all these years.

Machiavelli would be proud! Not only that, frankly, I think Hill's the better general election candidate. Obama's got a big case to make that not only should Michigan and Florida voters remain disenfranchised, but that he's the better candidate in the fall as well.

And just think, I thought I was plum out of commentary on the Democrats!

See also, "Long Campaign Gives Some Democrats Primary Fatigue;" and Memeorandum as well.

Andrew Sullivan: Unrepentant, Still Clinical

Get a load of this:

I should say I regret nothing about my blogging about Sarah Palin last year and would do it again - with feeling - if such a duplicitous farce of an apparatchik were to be advanced as a possible leader for the US in the future. None of the crucial factual evidence for her constant fabulisms was ever provided and the MSM, as uninterested in the truth as they are eager for their own reputations, curled up into a little ball of deference. As for my use of the term Christianist, here's my defense of the word, from 2006 ...

Andrew Sullivan's in his own clinical world. If folks missed it during the election, the best response to Sullivan's paranoid psychosis is AOSHQ, "Don't Go Over There, But Sullivan Is Pushing (of Course!) Trig Trutherism Now":

He's gone fucking bananas, due to AIDS or steroids or other reasons, and if we're not observing a minimum level of politeness and civility anymore - if innocent 16 year old girls are now valid targets - I see no reason to continue extending the courtesy of polite silence to Sullivan ... Let's see a brain scan, buddy. Let's get some answers to these questions. Medical fucking answers.

What's especially interesting in Sullivan's pathetic self-defense, is how he's responding to another pathetic self-defense, this time at the home of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, where the gang's reduced to calling off accusations of "Sullivan Group Think." That's right, you can't make this stuff up! For example, here:

I’m disinclined to place much stock in those folks who feel like epitheting via Andrew’s name is a damning criticism of anyone’s writing or thought process ... Look, the fact of the matter is that it is a rare (perhaps non-existent) human being who isn’t influenced by someone’s body of work and thought, and the beauty of our modern polities is that we have free rein to decide for ourselves who it is that we choose to be influenced by. The “group think” meme seems to assume that those of us who respect and even — dare I say it? — admire Andrew Sullivan, do so without any speck of criticism for what Andrew says or how he says it. Of course, that simply isn’t true of 99% of the cases, and it certainly isn’t true of this site, where as much criticism gets layed at Andrew’s feet as does praise.

Oh. My. God! You have got to be kidding me!

"Layed" at Andrew's feet? Yo, there's got to be a double entendre in there somewhere! And calling Mr. Webster!

And don't forget to check the Sitemeter folks. Oh, say wot you Ordinary Gentlemen! It's all Sullivan! Thy up to a bit of "bareback" blogging, eh mates? NTTAWWT!

The Sitemeter's spinning Andrew's gold right now, Sunday night, but pretty soon you'll see Ross Douthat, Daniel Larison, Will Wilkinson over there as well. They'll be chanting: "Oh, Great Sully!" Palin-bashing "liberaltarians" of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your "National Greatness"!

Gay Marriage Activists Undermine Their Own Cause

There's a lot of interesting commentary tonight on the gay marriage debate.

Andrew Sullivan has new, windblown essay that is positively infuriating, frankly: "Modernity, Faith, And Marriage" (Pete Abel's got the link if you want it):

If conservatism is to recover as a force in the modern world, the theocons and Christianists have to understand that their concept of a unified polis with a telos guiding all of us to a theologically-understood social good is a non-starter. Modernity has smashed it into a million little pieces. Women will never return in their consciousness to the child-bearing subservience of the not-so-distant past. Gay people will never again internalize a sense of their own "objective disorder" to acquiesce to a civil regime where they are willingly second-class citizens. Straight men and women are never again going to avoid divorce to the degree our parents did. Nor are they going to have kids because contraception is illicit. The only way to force all these genies back into the bottle would require the kind of oppressive police state Rod would not want to live under.

"Rod" is Rod Dreher, to whom Sullivan is responding. I want to comment on Dreher's piece in a later post.

What I find interesting and problematic is Sullivan's declaration of the death of conservatism by nothing other than fiat: His argument is a sophisticated version of the temper tantrum-demonstrations we've seen following the passage of Proposition 8 on November 4th.

Sullivan's assumption, stated in his "never again" declamations, is that success of the gay marriage movement is inevitable. The position, of course, is not only intellectually dishonest, but is radical secular propaganda: This idea of a teleological endpoint, of course, is the universal good of God's grace over mankind. To argue that conservatives must abandon that is like saying that a heart must stop beating. Sullivan appeals to death, because he can't argue straight to existential values, for he reject morals if that suits his utility-maximizing purpose.

Sullivan also can't make up his mind, for example, where tonight he says:

I have nothing against the voluntary and peaceful activities of any religious group, and regard these organizations as some of the greatest strengths of America.

But recall what he said just the other day, of the Mormon Church, which provided financial backing for Proposition 8:

... when they use their money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then they have started a war.

Sullivan's a gasbag, frankly, and he's torn between sinister poles of outward belligerence and surreptitious persuasion.

I'll have more on this later, at least because of Sullivan's delusions of victory (recall that three states passed initiatives confirming marriage as between one man and one woman, so all this talk of inevitability is itself unhinged from fact).

In the meanwhile, readers should read this essay from Lucy Caldwell at the Harvard Crimson (alternative link here):

The push for same-sex marriage is a rally for additional rights. While this characterization of the movement strikes most gay rights activists as harsh, it is a useful distinction to be made when devising ways to advance the cause effectively. Yet gay rights advocates have not taken the appropriate cues from their defeats earlier this month, as reflected in their continued ignorance of their opponents’ thoughts and motives. They seem unable to face that democracy has spoken, and it has said “no” on same-sex marriage.

One major problem with the gay rights movement is that it simultaneously champions democratic government and rejects it. The movement views marriage as a civic institution rather than a religious one (this is one distinction between marriages and civil unions), but only so long as government functions from a pro-gay marriage position. Once the cogs of government have turned to an anti-gay marriage slant, gay rights activists cease to be tolerant of the democratic process. Cue the banners decrying opponents as hateful and intolerant. Is this unfortunate divide what activists seek? Certainly that sort of culture of separatist intolerance is what arises when advocates take this approach.

And it is this very same-marriage authoritarianism that dooms the movement for the near future (who knows what happens in the long term?).

Sullivan's already noted this, but he's now changing his tune, blowing off the movement's violence and intimidation as aberrations, as part of his cognitive dissonance.

I can't say I'm as optimistic as Ms. Caldwell, especially with an activist judiciary caving to the radical secular humanist agenda. But given the outrageous behavior of the gay marriage H8ers so far, there's certainly a strong possibility of a crushing implosion on the activist left.