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May 18, 2005

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

Comments

Sex is the most powerful force on the planet. Even looking like you're going to interfere with somebody getting his or her jollies will result in a vicious response.

It's just my personal theory, but I think the root of 99.9% of racism is the irrational fear that a black man is going to have sex with a white woman.

Posted by: PlacidPundit on May 18, 2005 09:34 AM

Let me sum up Andy:

His whole exisistance is to use the State to force people to accept that him sticking his unit in someone's butt is the exact same thing as man and women in love and doing what God/nature/evolution programmed humans to do.

Well some of us won't. And we don't care if calls us bigotracistfacistsetc.

Posted by: on May 18, 2005 09:47 AM

I never trusted Excitable Andy anway...He was either (1) a plant by the left, (2) doing some graduate work, or (3) working on an undercover segment for 20/20. His fundraising "schemes" were also a load of wet balderdash.

Posted by: Winston on May 18, 2005 09:49 AM

I'm basically in Andrew's corner - I would like to see gay marriage enacted legislatively, and would certainly vote for it.

But I confess, I have lost interest in him so thoroughly that I can't even muster up much interest in discussing where he went wrong.

Posted by: J Mann on May 18, 2005 10:05 AM

You know if we just ignore this guy he'll get even wackier to get our attention back.

Besides what would Andy do if they did legalize gay weddings?

Posted by: Iblis on May 18, 2005 11:26 AM

Well, get married probably.

Then divorced in short order.

Posted by: vonKreedon on May 18, 2005 11:35 AM

It looks like Excitable Andrea* is tacking back to the right again with a quote from a loony Palestinian imam.

I guess he's finally feeling the readership bleed.

*I've found that the best way to read AS is to simply assume he's a menopausal woman. Everything he writes makes sense that way.

Posted by: hobgoblin on May 18, 2005 11:49 AM

scrolling down to the post "THE HYSTERIA MOUNTS" made me laugh out loud. That post is the most hysterical screed I've come across outside of kos and DU.

Posted by: hobgoblin on May 18, 2005 11:58 AM

Even more precious:

CHILL, GUYS: Pejman and Althouse need to get a grip. Have bloggers become that touchy? I thought David Greenberg (disclosure: an old friend) got a lot about blogging dead-on. It's harder to do well than it looks; and you need a skin as thick as a dinosaur's. Or mine.

*snicker*

Posted by: hobgoblin on May 18, 2005 12:00 PM

Dear sweet Jesus, hobgoblin...how could we ever have missed that quote before? It's utterly priceless.

Nice catch.

Posted by: Jeff B. on May 18, 2005 01:33 PM

Sully only took on the Times because Howell Raines fired him & he wanted payback. After Raines left, Sully lost interest in the Times' numerous gaffes

Posted by: beautifulatrocities on May 18, 2005 03:01 PM

Nice catch.

In the current context, I think I'd avoid that idiomatic expression.

Posted by: PlacidPundit on May 18, 2005 03:56 PM

Amen - I agree with Bob 100%. I did the same thing and stopped going there.
DKK

Posted by: LifeTrek on May 18, 2005 04:55 PM

Ditto to Bob. Yes on gay marriage. Still read Sullivan but frequently want to give him a good smack upside the head.

Posted by: Yehudit on May 19, 2005 03:49 AM