You know you’re in trouble when Sullivan titles a post, “Consistency Revisited.”
And apropos of nothing, Andrew sure knows how ruin someone on the right — my reputation amongst my fellow Neocon Rightwing Death Beasts is forever tarnished, as Sullivan utters those dreaded words, “Ed Driscoll has a good point”:
I’ve noticed a few right-of-center blogs complaining of double standards on the left, in the denunciations of extremist rhetoric and imagery of the Tea Party marches. Ed Driscoll has a good point. The extremes of the anti-war left before Iraq were every bit as inflammatory and loopy as the Tea Partiers today. Now, they were opposing a war that turned out to be a catastrophe for all involved [Especially for Saddam -- Ed], while the Tea Partiers are just opposing the working poor having a chance to buy health insurance. But if Godwin’s Law is the point, many (but not all) on the left currently do not have a leg to stand on.
Of course, Andrew backed the Iraq War himself, at least until his great schism of 2004, which led to writing this about President Bush’s opponent in 2004: “Kerry may be the right man – and the conservative choice – for a difficult and perilous time.”
By 2007, Andrew found a neat way to make a subtle variation on the increasingly shopworn Bush=Hitler chorus, by arguing that Bush equaled Hindenburg(!), when Sullivan dubbed him “The Weimar President.” Back then, I wrote:
My current favorite is Andrew Sullivan’s newest riff, on “The Weimar President”. I can only guess that Andrew believes that President Bush is an elderly figurehead leading a weakened but relatively benign quasi-socialist administration suffering the ravages of hyper-inflation and that Hillary, Obama or whoever his successor is, is the next Hitler, about to install a terribly malevolent war machine and concurrent massive welfare state?
Further deconstruction of this lead zeppelin of an analogy, here.
As I suggested in that post, perhaps Sullivan was merely getting a jump on the next administration. And speaking of which, in May of 2009, Sullivan wrote:
This speech, to my mind, was a conservative one by a conservative president who seeks first and foremost to use existing institutions to address the new challenges of the moment, and then seeks pragmatic compromises, always open to future checks and balances, in those places where such institutions clearly need reform and adjustment.
So Kerry and Obama are conservatives; Bush, whom Andrew once staunchly defended for his decisive response in the wake of the terrorist atrocities of 9/11, was the president of the leftwing but impotent Weimar Republic.
Consistency.
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22 Comments
1. Steven Den Beste:Oh noes! Sully praised you! I guess I can’t read this blog anymore…
Nov 8, 2009 - 5:31 pm 2. Steven Den Beste:Could have been worse. It could have been Charles Johnson.
Nov 8, 2009 - 5:31 pm 3. Charlie (Colorado):I just wish I’d once seen someone explain what was so disastrous about a war that liberated 28 million people and had fewer fatalities than the Battle of Iwo Jima alone.
Nov 8, 2009 - 6:19 pm 4. Steven Den Beste:Charlie, you already know the answer to that.
What was wrong is that we won, and we did so after giving the UN the finger. It’s a major step backwards for the cause of transnational governance.
Nov 8, 2009 - 8:05 pm 5. Paco:Don’t worry, Ed. It’s the broken-clock-right-twice a day syndrome. It’s not like Sullivan was right on purpose.
Nov 8, 2009 - 8:41 pm 6. monkeyfan:So in Sullivanworld up is down and left is right?
Nov 8, 2009 - 8:59 pm 7. Jim C.:Andrew Sullivan is incoherent. In other news, dog bites man, Sun rises in east.
Nov 8, 2009 - 9:11 pm 8. Rob:Andrew is consiently reactionary and illogical, and has been unreadable for at least 3 years.
Thanks for reading him so I don’t have to.
Nov 8, 2009 - 9:33 pm 9. Nomilk:Speaking of consistency, like a dog returning to its vomit, Sullivan is back driving the Trig Truther bandwagon. Reading his latest dissection of how Sarah Palin dealt with the anguishing news of Trig’s Downs diagnosis, I literally wanted to puke. He is a truly vile animal and I wish him a speedy demise.
Nov 8, 2009 - 9:47 pm 10. Creative dude:Tea party activists are concerned with our government inability to reach an actual budget. The proposed health insurance cluster served as the (a)last straw. A realization that driving the nation bankrupt is not a good strategy for any of us, and as usual, the poor will suffer most.
Command control does not work with educated humans. It is mainly popular with mis educated graduates of schools no longer capable of teaching objective thinking.
Nov 9, 2009 - 12:16 am 11. AML:Why does anybody bother reading him? The man obviously has mental problems. He should be quietly sectioned.
Nov 9, 2009 - 12:38 am 12. Rich:Andrew who?
Nov 9, 2009 - 5:11 am 13. BlogDog:I suppose it’s impossible by now by Sullivan really needs a good old fashioned Amish shunning.
Nov 9, 2009 - 6:04 am 14. Lost My Cookies:I don’t think anyone’s out there protesting giving the working poor the chance to buy anything. What people are protesting is the government forcing some people to buy something they don’t want and arguably don’t need, at an inflated price and under threat of legal action, fine or imprisonment, depending on which lefty idiot happens to be speaking into an open microphone that day.
Nov 9, 2009 - 6:39 am 15. Rachel1700:it is sad watching a man slowly lose his mental faculties.
Nov 9, 2009 - 7:07 am 16. seguin:“So in Sullivanworld up is down and left is right?”
Actually, in Sullivanword, up is right and left is counter-clockwise.
Nov 9, 2009 - 7:08 am 17. Vinny Vidivici:Lost My Cookies spotted Sullivan’s straw man.
I wonder how many comprise Sullivan’s ‘working poor’.
And why in order to help them it takes a trillion dollars and massive government intrerference in the medical care the rest of us rely upon.[Answer: Because it's not about medical care.]
Nov 9, 2009 - 7:55 am 18. GMarx:Shopwarn? Nice. Wonder if it is worn, too.
Nov 9, 2009 - 8:45 am 19. Ed Driscoll:GMarx,
Thanks — fixed.
Nov 9, 2009 - 10:46 am 20. RebeccaH:Why does anybody pay attention to anything Andrew Sullivan writes anymore? The man is a nut.
Nov 9, 2009 - 1:13 pm 21. Mark M.:Why would anyone bother to read a supposedly serious man that strongly supported the War on Islamo-fascism until his president “betrayed” him by standing against gay marriage?
Thank goodness this new “conservative” president supports gay marriage so we can get back to fighting the anti-liberal islamists with the comfort of our new-found consistency.
Nov 9, 2009 - 6:24 pm 22. Uncle Pinky:Hush. You don’t want to effect his immigration status, do you? Keep it up and he’ll have some toady from DOJ come have a talk with your boss.
To have been linked by Sullivan is to have failed in life, except when you turn it around on him. Nicely done.
Nov 9, 2009 - 6:57 pm