Kausfiles Slaps Up Sullivan So I Don't Have To

I don't read Sullivan anymore, not even to find something idiotic to rip on.

But I don't need to, I guess. Mickey Kaus is taking after Sullivan like Michael Moore after a Scooter Pie.

Noting that Sullivan is casting himself (perpetually) as a complex-thinking maverick independent unafraid to tell the truth, Kaus uses Sullivan's own words to demonstrate that, by his own admission and according to his own criteria, he got the Iraq War wrong, and yet continues to claim that he alone was right.

What did the Times and Blix have to do to merit a Sullivan apology? Did they have to guess everything correctly--the exact number of canisters in each bunker, maybe? They said Saddam's weapons program wasn't worth going to war over--the "urgency ... was misplaced," as Sullivan delicately puts it. In that they were right, according to Sullivan. A blogger who wanted to be a "solvent of ... rigidity" would swallow his pride and admit as much. ...

I've covered this annoying conceit of Sullivan's previously. Sullivan now pretty much opposes the decision to go to war in Iraq, and yet he maintains, oddly, that his previous hyperemotional advocacy for the invasion remains right-- and courageous, of course.

Like I said: Sullivan is free to critique the war and the decision that brought us to war. No one will take him seriously, however, until he has the "courage" (of which he never tires of claiming he has) to admit forthrightly: I, too, was wrong.

But, much like John Kerry, he maintains he was right on Iraq and Bush was wrong, despite the fact they shared at one time identical opinions.

posted by Ace at 02:21 PM

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