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.