Email of the Day II

Yeahp, let's keep this party groovin':

Yes, Sean, it is a tragedy. Andrew Sullivan used to be very interesting to read. I liked his whole Eagles (new type of hawk for the post-9/11 era, basically) concept, his awards were cute, he was a fiscal conservative, he effectively took on the NY Times, and, yes, I found his take on gay issues to be interesting. His writings on his struggles with Catholicism were also interesting. I liked reading him because he didn't fit in well anywhere on the political spectrum, so that seemed to give him a fresh, outsider point-of-view on many issues.

Then the whole gay marriage thing came up, and it was amazing how quickly he turned into a complete joke. Soon he viewed everything through that prism. Concerns about federalism were swept aside as he cheered on tyrannical judges. Anyone that objected was a "bigot" that wanted to "permanently deny" the "civil rights" of gays and make them "second-class citizens forever". When he started criticizing everything about the Bush administration, it was clear that it was primary due to the gay marriage issue, but he dishonestly and repeatedly claimed that was not the case, damaging his credibility.

Eventually nothing was left but screeds against Bush, screeds against the War on Terror, screeds against "bigots", screeds against the Catholic church, etc. He'd often fly into hysterics and jump to crazy conclusions. For example, a proposed bill would allow civil unions but not make them continguent on a sexual relationship, basically so any two people could give each other legal rights. Sullivan somehow twisted this into you could have a civil union but only if you proved there was no sex involved, and then he ranted at that strawman like there was no tomorrow. What a joke.

Eventually I realized that none of the original reasons I read him were valid anymore, so I stopped checking his site. Yes, maybe occasionally he makes some good points about overspending by the Bush administration, and he can apparently still sock it to the NYT, but sifting throught the hysteria to find the few good parts is just not worth it.

That was from Bob.

posted by Ace at 09:09 AM

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