The Pussyshit Way Of Exhibiting Bush Derangement Syndrome

Andrew Sullivan, once again a pioneer.

For some time, St. Andrew of the Sacred Heart-Ache has been using a disingenuous device to post unhinged shit while retaining plausible deniability.

A reader will send in an unhinged email, and Sullivan will post it prominently. But then, to retain some amount of credibility, he'll give a quick disavowal of the email.

He does so again here. Here's a bit of the email he thought was so important to share with the world:

Having observed the president's behavior in office, I wonder if he might be wrong [about not having been a true, addicted alcoholic]. Perhaps not only the president, but also his administration, suffers from alcoholism. After all, arrogance and the inability to take responsibility for one's actions, classic alcoholic traits, have become trademarks of the Bush presidency.

Sullivan, having shared this "interesting theory" on his blog, then goes into CYA mode with this:

This is too simplistic an analysis, of course. And yet the president's alcoholism is integral to his personality; and it's certainly as worth debating as his predecessor's sexual addiction.

He does this an awful lot. First comes the unhinged post, then comes a tepid rebuttal, like "This overstates the case, but..."

If Andrew Sullivan is as "brave" as he likes to pretend: Why not just float his "interesting theories" under his own byline, rather than through the dishonest device of, ahem, merely quoting his unhinged leftist readers?

Hmmmm... maybe I should try this. I just got this interesting email from a reader calling himself "Illinois Nazi:"

I think that most of the thorniest social problems we struggle with today can be explained, to some extent, by examining them through the Jew-Black Double-Team Prism. Whether it's abortion, or terrorism, or Enron, many problems facing the American public today are attributable to the fact that the JEW is moving in on you, and he's using the BLACK MAN as MUSCLE. And you are left DEFENSELESS.

Well, that may be somewhat reductivist, I suppose. Nevertheless, it certainly does seem a useful template for analyzing today's politics.

Thanks to Allah, who reads Sullivan because I just can't anymore.

Related: And now the BLACK MAN is using JEW MONEY to move in on you, and you are, again, left DEFENSELESS.

Another Interesting Email... From Scot. Well, a comment really.

I think Sullivan's passive aggresiveness is an indication of underlying emotional problems, possibly Borderline Personality Disorder. And, yet, that may be an oversimplified explaination of his behavior.

I would never stoop to making such penny-ante psychiatric diagnoses myself, but I find it nevertheless interesting that Sullivan does, in fact, exhibit many of the symptoms of the Borderline Personality Disorder. Narcissism, solipsism, splitting -- the classic symptom.

Splitting is something BPDers do all the time. First you are the greatest thing since sliced bread and they praise you to the heavens. Then, when you can't remain up on the unreasonably-high platform they've put you on, and you become the worst miscreant who ever benighted the earth by his mere existence.

Splitting. Check out his rather uncomfortably "crushy" early posts on Bush, and compare them to unhinged venom of the past few years.

Anyway, once again, I personally would never, out of my own mouth, propose such a nasty psychiatric diagnosis of someone based only on his writings.

However, I have to say that if Bush's "alcoholism" is relevant for discussing his politics, so is Andrew Sullivan's Borderline Personality Disorder.

Did I say he actually had BPD? Whoops! He may or may not have it, by which I mean he does.

Ooopsie! I said it again. My bad. Okay, let me passively-aggressively say that I don't know if he has BPD -- that's between him and his mental-health-care provider -- but is, let us say, symptomatic.

posted by Ace at 12:26 PM

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