Excellent (Mr. Burns voice)

Ace,

I read the comments over at Allah. Be glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read your Lenny Kravitz crack, or you'd be buying me a new keyboard & monitor.

The shill, on the other hand, has increased credibility, but only because he's dishonest about his interests.

The catch being, of course, that as soon as the shill is revealed as a shill, he loses all credibility whatsoever, wherease the barker still at least has his honesty.

He's the very definition of a shill.

According to your own definition, a shill is someone who's "working for the house." At which person's or institution's behest is Sullivan working? A vast left-wing conspiracy's? Honestly, I can't think of another blogger as fully committed to his own self-promotion as Oxford Andy.

I posted a comment on my own site about Sully's McCain-ian tendency to pursue unorthodoxy for the sake of being unorthodox (and for the sake of generating the glowing press that follows any conservative who goes that route), but even that's not quite right. I think the bottom line with Sullivan is that he feels an overwhelming need, for whatever reason, to prove again and again his own moral superiority. It's really that simple. For example, many of us on the right agreed with him about Trent Lott even when he pursued that story with a compulsion that seemed, frankly, grotesque. But it sure did prove his opposition to racial prejudice, didn't it? I also agree with him about the shamefulness of Abu Ghraib. What I don't agree with is the need to periodically flagellate myself because of it and drone on about the psychological scars I'll bear for the rest of my days. There's a balance to be struck between productive self-criticism and making such a show of your shame that you destroy morale, and in a wartime setting -- remember the war, Sully? -- you need to be careful with that balance. But on he goes, jonesing on outrage. Wait until the next round of photos comes out; I wouldn't be surprised if he called on Bush to resign.

And finally, inevitably, we come to gay marriage. Why would a bit of realpolitik like Bush's supporting the doomed-to-fail marriage amendment be a dealbreaker for Sullivan? You'd think someone who cares about gay rights would be more concerned with the fact that gays are persecuted throughout the Middle East, and would consider which presidential candidate is more likely to change that. But not our Andy. He's too busy worrying about Jerry Falwell and trying to come up with new and exciting comparisons to the Jim Crow era. Because why win a war -- which you yourself have defined as a struggle for civilization itself -- when you can exult in a warm pool of righteousness?

That leaves us with the real question: Why? Does the guy simply get off on feeling morally superior? Or, more likely, is it that he secretly suspects that his fellow conservatives really do think America would have been better off with Strom Thurmond as president and that it's okay to torture Arabs to death and that gays should be put in ovens or whatever paranoid doomsday scenario he's cooked up this week? I think it's the latter, and I think it shows what utter contempt Sullivan harbors for his supposed colleagues on the right.

At which person's or institution's behest is Sullivan working?

He's working for Kerry's candidacy while claiming to be an undecided independent. I don't see the difficulty in this formulation.

A vast left-wing conspiracy's?

No, for Kerry. I don't get your difficulty with this. He's performing a shill's service -- encouraging an audience to think a certain way while withholding his interest in the matter.

Honestly, I can't think of another blogger as fully committed to his own self-promotion as Oxford Andy.

No argument there. Except for... well, me, for starters.

But Sully-- a close second.

I think the bottom line with Sullivan is that he feels an overwhelming need, for whatever reason, to prove again and again his own moral superiority. It's really that simple.

Yes, that's part of his schtick, and it's part of the psychology of liberalism. You can deny the existence of God, but you can't deny the profound human need to adhere to some sort of a moral code and adjudge oneself superior for following it.

No offense to the religious. I'm not saying that's all religion is. But it's certainly a temptation which causes the misuse of religion.

But on he goes, jonesing on outrage.

Yes, but partly because he's shilling for Kerry.

I can't respond to the rest, because it would just be more of the same. Everything you'd say, I'd just respond: Yes, he's doing that because he's shilling for Kerry.

Let me just point out two facts:

1) He didn't link that Advocate piece. This is remarkable. He eventually links ALL of his pieces, once the three day or one week embargo is lifted.

But not this one.

Why?

Because... he didn't want to bother us with gay stuff?

Are you fucking kidding me?

2) He is a supremely opinionated jackass. That's not necessarily an insult; so am I. You sort of have to be to indulge in this sort of thing.

He also writes a blog which people read for his opinions on things. Opinions are the coin of the realm in blogging.

And yet-- this is also remarkable -- this very opinionated man, always trying to dream up new stuff to write to keep his audience amused, chose, oddly enough, to conceal and withhold this one opinion from his readers.

Why?

I gotta tell ya-- when I have a strong opinion, as Sullivan's opinion on Bush obviously is, I voice it. I declare it. That's rather the whole point of having a blog.

Given the very strangeness of Sullivan not linking this piece, and not offering his opinion on Bush to his blog-readers, I can't conclude anything but a deliberate choice in favor of dishonesty.

I think we're talking past each other.

You seem to be speculating as to why Sully writes the things he writes.

Whereas I'm more concerned about why he didn't write the things he didn't write on his blog, and why he didn't link the article he didn't link on his blog.

I thought the whole point of blogging was Dean-o photoshops, and sweet, sweet cowbell.

HAVE YOU TWO BEEN LYING TO ME??????!!!!!!!

I don't get your difficulty with this. He's performing a shill's service -- encouraging an audience to think a certain way while withholding his interest in the matter.

My difficulty is that a shill colludes with the house. Takes orders from. Acts at the direction of. If that's not what you mean -- if, rather, you're defining "shill" as someone who acts unbidden to serve another entity with whom his interests are allied -- then fine, he's a shill. As is everyone else. A definition that diluted isn't particularly useful.

I think we're talking past each other.

You're right. As you say, the immediate question is why he didn't post a link to the Advocate article. I have no doubt that he consciously chose not to link it. He wants to build dramatic tension for the moment when he, the Conscience of Our Nation, Keeper of America's Moral Flame, finally decrees that it shall be Kerry for our people this year. Where you and I differ is that you seem to think he'll be doing that because he's pro-Kerry and I think he'll be doing it to get back at Bush. And the foreign policy consequences be damned.

Also, I can't believe you let me get away with calling Sullivan the world's most shameless self-promoting blogger. Clearly, clearly, it's Wonkette.

Also, I can't believe you let me get away with calling Sullivan the world's most shameless self-promoting blogger. Clearly, clearly, it's Wonkette.

Isn't Andrew Sullivan just Wonkette with a y chromosome?

Senator,

I haven't lied. I've just withheld certain critical facts from you.

Maybe you got the idea that blogging was about nothing except Paul Anka and cowbells, but I think it should have been "quite obvious" that, as a straight man, I would lack integrity were I to support John F'n Kerry.

Allah,

My difficulty is that a shill colludes with the house. Takes orders from. Acts at the direction of.

No. Wild Bill Hickok could shill for the Belle Union saloon (been watching Deadwood of late), but he wouldn't be some employee of the joint. He would derive a benefit, yes -- room and board, whores, a salary. He'd be an independent contractor.

Sullivan does seek to derive a benefit from the election of John Kerry. See if you can guess what that benefit might mean.

If that's not what you mean -- if, rather, you're defining "shill" as someone who acts unbidden to serve another entity with whom his interests are allied -- then fine, he's a shill. As is everyone else. A definition that diluted isn't particularly useful.

No, you keep missing the MAIN part of the definition. A shill is someone who acts secretly in order to pimp the business of an entity with which he is supposedly unallied.

I'm not a shill, because I'm on record as favoring George Bush. Everyone knows this. George Gaskell just wrote that I'm a little too much in Bush's camp. Now, I don't think so, but I think it's pretty obvious where I'm coming from.

Therefore I'm not a shill. You can't be a shill when you admit you're working for the house. A shill is a shill only when that affiliation is secret.

A promoter is not necessarily a shill.

The only way I could be a shill would be if I were secretly working, contrary to my clear statements, in favor of Kerry. Or Nader. Or LaRouche.

"I think the bottom line with Sullivan is that he feels an overwhelming need, for whatever reason, to prove again and again his own moral superiority."

Hmmmm. Maybe that's what irked me so much about Sullivan's month-long screeching about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" -- about how it was pornographic and sado-masochistic and on and on. Yeah, one column was enough, but for weeks.

And yes, I just looked up shill on m-w, and I found that definition 2 is just "to make a sales pitch." But that's the broader definition, where we say anyone who's pitching something is a shill.

The original meaning of a shill -- and the first definition on m-w -- is someone acting as a "decoy" for the house.

The shill is the "independent stranger" who walks up to a three-card-monte table and "wins" three out of three times, declaring "That's easy!" as he walks away with all the money he just won. And then the patsies come to the table and suddenly find that it's actually very difficult to win.

A shill is a con-man working for the house. He's a con-man because he doesn't tell you he's working for the house. He pretends to be just an average joe, just like you, who just keeps getting super-lucky at faro or roulette or who, perhaps, found that the Miracle Elixer the huckster is selling cured him of tuberculosis.

My whole universe is crashing down on me. All this time, I thought blogging was Deano, cowbell, Anka swinging like a f'ing hammer, and the glorification of Israel's surgical strike ability.

Now I find it's all been a ruse?

When you can't trust strangers on the internet, who can you trust? Next thing you will tell me is that Ace of Spades is really a Jack of Diamonds, and Allah is really Moses.

I'm really a Senator, though.

That last post was me, by the way.

Or was it?

It has become surpassingly clear that Randy Andy has developed a raging hard-on for Bush after his endorsement of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and is now mightily striving to politically bareback him. His covert action is much more than a simple shafting; it's the very definition of a grudge-f**king.

Ace, I sent your paragraphs with the prediction on the upcoming Sullivan nastiness to Lucianne Goldberg with a link. She responded.

Thanks. I'm surprised she/her webmaster responded.

I don't suppose she said, "Okay I'll link it"? I kind of doubt she will. I don't know that the prediction was a terribly difficult one, and she won't want to make herself small by responding to AS.

Thanks for sending off that letter to AS, too. Although, based on your previous letters to him, I don't know if he's counting you as one of his core supporters at this point.

Ace--Fair enough re: the importance of secrecy in "shilling." I still think the word is unhelpful insofar as it suggests collusion (at least in my mind), which opens the door for Sully to mock your criticism as based upon some idea of a vast, left-wing conspiracy. It'd be unfair but would you put it past him? Anyway, we're quibbling over semantics. I'm letting it go.

Ken--I forgot about that. I'm not sure if that was a case of him exercising his moral superiority so much as an excuse to hammer away at the scourge of the planet, the enemy of free men everywhere, the Nazis in our midst, the Demon People, . . . the religious right.

Oh, Most Merciful Allah:

I miss Your schtick (please excuse the Yiddishism -- What's Arabic for "schtick"?). When will You be blogging, again?

Not a blog but--Isn't this O'reilly's purpose for being? Scoop up conservative leaning Dem. males and demoralize them enough so that they don't vote for George Bush.

Ace,

You may be right, or not.

One would be hard pressed to read Sullivan's essay in the NYT Sunday Magazine "This is a Religious War" right after 9/11 and the many thousands of words thereafter regarding the war on terror, and say that his arguments for supporting GWB for so many months were made so that he could eventually support a pro-gay marriage candidate? Am I reading you right?

Sullivan presented some of the most cogent, well-reasoned, and compelling defenses of GWB's policies post 9/11. In fact, he may have been the President's best voice in the blogosphere. It would be difficult to say otherwise.

As for his writing's on the Catholic Church, AIDS, gay marriage, pharmaceutical policy, well, he has stated that he is a gay Catholic man with AIDS. He has written a book on homosexuality, contributed to a new book on gay marriage, and has personal experience with these other issues that so many of his readers do not.

I respect, but do not always agree with his opinions. And on the non-war issues, I have little, if any opinion at all (e.g., whether the Church should withhold communion from abortion-rights supporters).

I do agree with many of your readers, that his blog has become less interesting to read. For me, it's not only the content, but the quality of his writing has lessened, and often his posts are days-old news (hell, this is the Internet after all).

And I totally agree with Allah, it is curious, strangely so, that he did not link to the Advocate article.

But I do not believe that he is a shill for Kerry (and yes, I know all about shills). There is a subtext though, and I think it has more to do with his using his blog on behalf of what he stated as a "civil-rights" issue, that being gay marriage. His position here is similarly well-reasoned and his calling into question the parallels with Jim Crow are difficult to dispute.

Having said that, I am against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (see below) because on its face, as a law, I believe it is unconstitutional. On the other hand, I recognize the desire and need for the State to strengthen and protect marriage. And no, I don't have a solution, but Sullivan's points are very well-taken, even if I disagree with the policy implications of them.

And lastly, as far as homo-phobia goes, one thing is sure (just read the comments below), what so often emerges from these debates is overt hostility against Sullivan's being gay (not necessarily fear) from those who oppose him.

One would be hard pressed to read Sullivan's essay in the NYT Sunday Magazine "This is a Religious War" right after 9/11 and the many thousands of words thereafter regarding the war on terror, and say that his arguments for supporting GWB for so many months were made so that he could eventually support a pro-gay marriage candidate? Am I reading you right?

No. But I am saying that Sullivan poses as a conservative -- he calls himself one in his non-respose to Jonah Goldberg -- in an effort to preach from within the church.

He's not a conservative. He may hold a couple of conservative positions. But he's only a "conservative" by his own bizarre, idiosyncratic definition, which Goldberg, I think, lampooned as his attempt to build an "eagle-schwarzenegger-McCainiac-Catania-liberal Republican-pro-gay marriage-South Park popular front against Bush."

But I don't have to reach back that far to deem him a shill. He's definitely been a shill for the past six months, since he's already belatedly admitted to being in the bag for Kerry, and yet did not admit this fact to his readers for all these months he's been savaging Bush on the deficit and Abu Ghraib.

Only once he's been revealed to be shilling does he concede: "How could it not" be the case that his new positions were influenced by his emotions over gay marriage.

That is shilling.

But yes, I do believe Sullivan has had a long-term conscious plan to misrepresent himself in order to persuade social conservatives from the inside. I'm sure he's essentially said as much on numerous occasions (minus the part about misrepresenting himself).

Sullivan presented some of the most cogent, well-reasoned, and compelling defenses of GWB's policies post 9/11.

Oh, man, I responded to the rest of your post but it didn't post. First time I've had that problem.

Note to all: If you're doing a long response, copy your response before hitting that post button.

For now, MeTooThen, just assume my rejoinders were utterly devastating to your position. Let's just say I won and leave it at that.

Ace,

As above, I said, you may be right, or not. There has been a change in the tenor and content of the blog. I have conceded that. I also stated that it AndrewSullivan.com is not that good anymore.

As far as Sullivan being a conserative or not, who really cares? Is everyone who supports GWB and his administration's prosecution of the war a conservative? Is it a necessary requirement that in order to campaign for W '04 one must be to be a registered Republican, and a conservative at that? What matters is the successful defeat our enemy, not what label you, Sullivan or Jonah Goldberg want to give one another. And if there is dissent within the pro-war camp, so be it. Deal with it. Disagree with it. I can only restate my position that it appears that Andrew Sullivan in his calculus of gay civil rights that he is willing to support Kerry in this regard and risk the successful prosecution of the war by the Democrats, whom he has stated before he does not trust. Do I agree with him, no. Is it shilling, maybe, but I doubt it.

"just assume my rejoinders were utterly devastating to your position. Let's just say I won and leave it at that."

Whatever.

MeTooThen said, "I can only restate my position that it appears that Andrew Sullivan in his calculus of gay civil rights that he is willing to support Kerry in this regard and risk the successful prosecution of the war by the Democrats, whom he has stated before he does not trust."

I think MeTooThen is onto something. If we allow it, then the War on Terror, as important as it is in its own right, can also be used as a club to beat down effective opposition based on any other issue. Both sides have played this game: Sullivan says, in effect, "How can people propose anything as divisive as the FMA when there's a war on?" Ace, Allah, et al. say, "How can anyone oppose Bush because of the FMA when there's a war on?"

Abstracting somewhat from the FMA, I think the answer to the question "How can anyone oppose Bush because of issue X when there's a war on?" is brinksmanship on the model of Mutually Assured Destruction. In order to oppose the governing party on any issue during a war, you have to be willing to court destruction.

Let's be clear: I think the Democrats are a race of nelly, piece-of-shit Carter clones. I think voting for Democrats is a form of slow suicide or slow enslavement that takes everyone down with you. And the cumulative effect of the public humiliation of having a Constitutional amendment written about me, having the President come out in favor of it, seeing the war used as a club to beat down opposition, and reading all the taunts has left me with the view that to submit and vote Republican again anyway would be just too gay.

A plague. A plague on both your houses. A plague on both your houses. I'll pull the Democratic levers this fall out of contempt and hatred for Democrat and Republican alike.

I'm waiting for some homosexual to say, "Okay, I disagree with Bush's support of the FMA, but I plan to vote for him *anyway* because he's doing the right thing in the WoT (or whatever).

Unfortunately, the homosexuals I've read on the Net seem to be opposed to Bush. Period. For a time, Sullivan seemed to be the exception, but now he's rejoined the flock, so to speak.

One almost wishes the Dems would win, and 20 years from now the Islamofacists would take over the U.S., so the homosexual anti-Bush crowd could see how tolerant those people are of their lifestyle.

Sometimes the most fitting justice is to reap what you've sown...

Sullivan LIED. It's not just that he tried to create an impression of being undecided, and only came clean for the Advocate. Sullivan wrote the in response to K. Lopez:

"Some of us are actually trying to figure out who's the better candidate for
the next four years and haven't made our minds up already. "

Sullivan had already said that the FMA was a "dealbreaker" (he now says that it was clear he couldn't vote for Bush because he made this comment). Lopez wrote on NRO that he may as well come out for Kerry. The above is a clip from his response. He's now saying that he only implied he hadn't decided whether to vote for Kerry or to sit this election out. Huh? "Figure out who's the better candidate" means Kerry vs Nader? Kerry vs no one?

He's bullshitting. He outright denied that he'd made his mind up not to endorse Bush - to Lopez, and to all the readers who more or less thought as she did. All he had to say to Lopez was that he hadn't made up his mind about kerry - he went further and said that he hadn't made up his mind who was the better candidate. He's now just doing a Clinton-style denial.

I've seen him be tendentious & whiny before, but this is the first outright lie I've seen from him.

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