Jaws Trailer, Recut
Plus, Andrew Sullivan Endorses Theory That Roberts' Seizure Was Due To Drug Overdose!

It is not the six billionth Brokeback Mountain parody, so don't stop watching it just because you think you figured it out. It parodies a movie that's even gayer than Brokeback. Overlong, as usual, but worth the payoff.

Now, it is blog etiquette to link the blog one got something from. However, in this case, I'm conflicted. Andrew Sullivan criticizes Instapundit thirty six times a day for "giving an approving link" to conservative blogs he doesn't approve of, claiming that doing so constitutes tacit endorsement of everything said in that post and, sometimes, everything ever said on that blog.

So given I got this link from someone who peddles insane conspiracy theories, how can I in good faith give the old "approving link" to this blog?

Well, I can't. It would compromise my integrity too much.

Incidentally, if Mr. Approving Link Critic is so critical of the approving link, what the hell is this demented nincompoop doing linking a blog claiming that Chief Justice Roberts suffered epilepsy due to illicit drug use?

The moron-blog to which this cockring links:

How Do We Know Justice Roberts is Not On Drugs?

So, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had a “seizure” yesterday. It wasn’t the first time, you know.

According to the New York Daily News, this kind of “seizure” has happened to John Roberts at least one time before. They report that John Roberts also fell down and lost consciousness while playing golf back in 1993.

This time, he was on a dock in at his vacation home in Port Clyde, Maine. I know Port Clyde. It’s not exactly a bustling metropolis. It’s a sleepy little town by the ocean, with bed and breakfasts and rental cottages. It’s the kind of place that people like John Roberts go to in order to relax.

So, I doubt the suggestion in the Daily News article that these seizures could be brought on by stress. The kind of stress that is required to bring on seizures is pretty rare in places like out on the golf course or on a boat dock at a vacation home. If John Roberts really is having stress-induced seizures that lead him to lose consciousness and fall down while playing golf and walking out on the dock at his oceanside vacation home, then he’s a maniac.

There is something other than stress that can induce “seizures” that make people fall down and lose consciousness: Psychoactive drugs. Remember when Britney Spears all of a sudden lost consciousness and had to be carried out of her birthday party? It wasn’t stress that caused that incident.

How do we know that Justice John Roberts isn’t losing consciousness because he’s on some kind of drug obtained by prescription or on the street?

If John Roberts is taking psychoactive drugs, he wouldn’t be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to do so. His predecessor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was hooked on the psychoactive drug Placidyl for years while serving as Chief Justice, and was often under the influence of the drug while hearing arguments in legal cases before the Court.

As to this theory: Um, epileptics are prone to seizures. Many things can cause seizures in all people; epileptics' brains are simply very, very bad about resisting such seizure-inducing situations.

Here's one thing that can give someone a seizure: Failing to get at least 5 hours of good sleep. I know that because whenever I don't get that much sleep I get -- get this -- seizures.

Add a bit of stress to that and I'm dancing on my back.

A raft of other things can cause a seizure, including dehydration or too much sunlight. Add stress to that, bang.

So, um, this, uh, Brain Surgeon seems to have been absent the day they taught neuroscience at Brain Surgeon school.

But I do enjoy how authoritatively he dismisses the idiopathic seizure disorder diagnosis Roberts' doctors decided upon. Oh, he knows better. Far better.

As to Sullivan: Sullivan will claim this wasn't an "approving link" because he called the theory "wild-eyed." Is that the trick, then? Continue the practice of pushing every conceivable smear and conspiracy out there, just throw the words "wild eyed" into the link?

"Just airing" some theories again, Sullivan?

I suggest that Instapundit simply throw in the words "wild-eyed" whenever he links one of these awful insane hateful conservative blogs. That apparently covers you when you're spreading, as usual, deranged, reckless, and utterly unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and smears.

PS: Sullivan also claimed that despite his constant slamming of Instapundit for his "approving links," he was under no obligation whatsoever to correct the record when much of the left blogosphere cited he himself for the proposition that Fred Thompson was a closeted gay man.

So his "colorful and far-ranging sex life" smear was, ahem, "misinterpreted" by the left as meaning Fred Thompson was gay, and Sullivan admitted (after being asked about this point repeatedly) that he knew he was being linked and "misinterpreted" so, but he had no obligation at all to contradict those using his own post to advance that smear.

Approving links, indeed.

Stay classy, Atlantic Monthly. A Chief Justice is stricken by epilepsy and one of your four very classy bloggers is linking smears that he's had an overdose-induced seizure.

For those who care, the actual emails below.

You continue to avoid specific questions. Are you actually claiming you were unaware Wonkette had linked you and "misinterpreted" your insinuation?

Are you actually claiming that no one wrote you an email along the lines of, "Fred Thompson gay?!! Really?! SPILL!"

I do not believe that for one red hot moment, Andrew. The fact that you won't even bother asserting such absurdities as true tends suggest you're not even comfortable lying hard enough to do so.

So you...

1) Just happened to insinuate a gay rumor popular among the gay and the left, who no doubt send you a lot of tips.

2) Just happened to resort to strangely suggestive language -- "colorful" (as in gaily plumed? Christ, colorful was code for gay before "flamboyant"), "far-ranging" (is heterosexual sex that "far-ranging" for a heterosexual?), and suggested that the GOP voters' tolerance for "sexual minorities" would be a boon for Fred Thompson.

2) a) If you only meant he had a lot of sex with women, why didn't you simply say something like "an extensive sexual history" or a "prodigious sexual history," suggesting a lot of sex? Instead, you said "colorful" and "far-ranging," suggesting not just a lot of numbers, but a lot of *variety* wink, wink.

3) And then, when it was quite clear to you that the left/gay left was taking this as an insinuated outing, you did nothing -- NOTHING-- to correct the record for two weeks until I specifically called you on it.

Really?

This is what you're selling?

Incidentally, you claim you "don't out people's sexual privacy," but even by your own claims, you're telling me you meant to let everyone know that Fred Thompson had a lot of heterosexual sex (of the "colorful, far-ranging" variety, one assumes) which we'll all soon know about. [Note: He claimed here he was talking about what a "woman from Tennessee" told him about Fred's sexual exploits, which were not "necessarily" about homoexual sex. So even by his own claims-- he was, in fact, outing someone's private sexual behavior.]

So you're just saying you WILL out someone's private sexual life - at least you'll insinuate about it, promising more details to come from other sources -- you just wouldn't be so ungallant as to out someone as gay.

Another email by me:

And what does "as we'll soon find out" mean, praytell? We already know he banged a bunch of chicks. So please tell me what additional information about his "colorful and far-ranging sexual history" you believe we'll soon be privvy too.

You resorted to the sort of euphemism used by gossip columns when they want to say someone's gay but don't want to risk libel (hey, why not just call him "flamboyant' as well?), you trafficked in a rumor popular on the gay left, it's been two weeks since you said this and you KNEW how it had been "translated" by Wonkette and many, many others but did not "correct" their "misinterpretation"...

Me, again:

Please. It's just a coincidence, I guess, that people have been pushing this rumor since March, and you claim Fred Thompson may benefit from GOP voter's tolerance regarding "sexual minorities"?

You came up with the words "colorful and far-ranging sexual history" to describe a guy *who merely dated a bunch of women*? Have you ever described Bob Kerrey as having a "colorful and far-ranging sexual history"?

Anyway, after this sort of badgering by me (and his general denials which never actually addressed the specific questions I was asking, mixed in with calling me a gay-hater, of course), he finally addressed the question I'd put to him three or four times:

look, i have a lot on my plate and i don't follow all the trackbacks, no.

but a reader emailed me and told me about the wonkette thing. i was surprised. but i didn't think it was worth rebutting a point i didn't even make.

people write all sorts of things about my posts and i can't keep up with them.

He concludes with a flourish, urging me to "leave this viciousness behind."

So, there you go. Instapundit is responsible for the content of every word of post or blog he links, but Andrew Sullivan didn't "think it was worth rebutting" the wide understanding that he was insinuating he had secret knowledge that Fred Thompson's sexual tastes ran towards the... well, towards the JimBimbo side of the dugout, I guess.

posted by Ace at 06:56 PM

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