Saturday, November 02, 2002
HOMOPHOBIA ENABLING WATCH:
So, just tell us, Sage of South Goodstone, which party in Hawaii is trying to exploit anti-gay sentiment again?.
Link via the newly-discovered Roger Ailes (a/k/a No, Not That One!) blog, which we urge you to check out.
posted by Sully 11/02/2002 09:19:00 AM
REVISIONISM:
Just thought we should post this link from FAIR via Tom Tomorrow. Seems that when Sullivan and other hawks talk about Saddam having expelled UN weapons inspectors back in 1988, they're forgetting how it really shook down.
posted by Sully 11/02/2002 08:17:00 AM
Friday, November 01, 2002
DELONG AND WINDING ROAD ... :
There are two sentences in his lead post this a.m. that deserve to be completed differently:
�Brad DeLong, with whom I often disagree but who�s invariably worth reading ...�
... except when he makes some devastating criticisms of my posts, in which case I don�t even acknowledge him.
�As readers know, I�m no trained economist ...�
Or mathematician, or, hell, even journalist for that matter. And just how would they know that? Certainly not from reading your attempts at pretending to be one!
It�s sort of bittersweet to see Sully finally admitting what has long been said about him in the comments section at DeLong and Sawicky�s sites.
And keep that in mind the next time he rips Krugman.
SIMON SMEARS QUEERS:
So Smalltown Boy took up The Horse�s challenge and acknowledged this.
But, as he might say, notice how relatively low-key he makes it here (as he did recently when he was forced to say something about a Texas Republican�s effort to sabotage his party�s county ticket rather than allow an openly gay judge to be elected). Notice here that he merely describes the ads as �has been trying to use anti-gay themes.�
Contrast that with his treatment of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee over an ad that showed a certain Republican Senate candidate in another state in 20-year-old footage the candidate had had shot of himself looking like the swingingest late-�70s swinger doing a man�s hair and face. There, he was absolutely positive that although the word �gay� was never remotely mentioned in the ad at all, it was homophobic, no two ways about it.
And, somehow, we don�t think there�ll be an effort to use this to keep the issue alive through a dozen or so posts over the next week or so. This is probably the last day we�ll read about it.
He might, BTW, also want to read and respond to this entry on the same topic from The Brothers Judd blog, which he later cites as his source for a dishy item about the late Paul Wellstone:
This is not, of course, gay-bashing. For one thing, unlike MT, HI, and SC, it is not meant to play in to a whispering campaign about the sexual orientation of the opposing candidate by using derogatory language and images. More importantly, it addresses a legitimate political issue, how and whether children should be taught about homosexuality in our public schools. Note in particular that the headline is completely misleading. The ad in question does not criticize gays at all. In fact, one need not oppose gays or gay rights in order to think that having the teachers� union instructing our children in morality is a wretched idea.
There is a vast difference between using innuendo to smear people, who if they are gay have remained closeted, and merely arguing about the public policy implications of our society�s increasing acceptance of homosexuality in general. The attempt to portray the latter as �bashing� is little more than an attempt to place all public debate over homosexuality off limits. It is political correctness run amok.
Just another day in the life of Andrew Sullivan, the Great Dependable Enabling Spouse of the Homophobic Right.
BUT HE STILL CAN�T DROP THE SUBJECT:
Meanwhile, on the left side of the aisle, Sullivan is so determined to root out homophobia that he�ll smear a dead man on the secondhand word of an anonymous �gay activist.�
He must be too lazy to Google, as we did, and find this press release as the first thing on the list we got. And this rundown of his pro-gay achievements in Congress was second (granted, these two are from his Senate wesbite and his campaign website).
Coming in third, will Sullivan�s day be made any happier by learning that he is in complete accord on this issue with a a journal coedited by Christopher Hitchens�s evil twin, Alexander Cockburn? Even the author of that piece, Minnesota Green activist Jeff Taylor, has to concede when writing of a 1996 fundraiser where Wellstone publicly proclaimed his belief that marriage only applied to heterosexual couples:
Presumably, Wellstone was also raised to believe that romance and sex should be between one man and one woman, but that hadn�t stopped him from unreservedly supporting gay rights throughout his years as a college teacher, political activist, and office holder.
The picture of the late senator that emerges from our Google search on the issue is of a man who may have opposed gay marriage (perhaps for political purposes) but was gay-friendly on just about everything else. Since Sullivan basically thinks that marriage is the only right gays and lesbians have ever needed or will need to accomplish full equality, it�s not hard to see why he felt compelled to do this.
And, as we noted above, it�s a little hard for us to take Sullivan seriously when he got this story from a blog that attempts to explain away what The Blog Queen himself recognized as homophobia elsewhere.
LAW IS AN ASS:
Oh, perhaps for the same reason that Harvey Pitt hasn�t resigned yet, either?
A VACATION?:
Where�s his Sunday Times of London column this week? It�s only Friday, after all.
OLD MACDONALD ...:
First, very little in her screed (which almost seems to have been written largely by hitting the standard-issue Mighty Wurlitzer Word macro aimed at the reader who will not take any writing seriously unless it contains clich�d propaganda phrases like �liberal elite,� in every other sentence, much like Pravda and Izvestia had to lard their writing with �imperialist aggression� every so often for the sake of the party bosses), is news, even among people who blame Clinton for everything short of their golf outings getting rained out; second, she fails to note that her own ilk (including Sullivan) were, during the Clinton administration, howling constantly about the alleged infringements of civil liberties committed by the White House and actually applauded the 1995 Reno directive and successfully opposed sweeping powers the Clinton Administration wanted to ... fight terrorists.
She also fails to mention that the chief FISC judge, Royce Lamberth, was (we think) a Republican appointee in the first place.
Most conspicuously absent is the FBI director during the Clinton years, Louis Freeh, who reportedly considered counterterrorism a low priority, was so tech-phobic he got rid of the computer his predecessor installed in the office and repeatedly rebuffed Reno�s memos suggesting he actually install the computer upgrades Congress had specifically appropriated money for instead of diverting that money into the travel budget so the top brass could better supervise investigations into golfers in Arizona and Florida leaving divots unreplaced. Polemicists such as the well-paid Heather Mac Donald will of course do their mightiest to miss this, but we think the dispassionate historians of the future will see clearly that it is Freeh�s corpse that should hang in the breeze over what was once Tobin Plaza.
(Sorry for the lack of links here. When and if we have the time, we'll add them).
posted by Sully 11/01/2002 12:45:00 PM
Thursday, October 31, 2002
NAMBLA PAMBLA:
If you just sit around and wait long enough, almost any post of Sullivan�s is sure to be blogged somewhere else.
Atrios, of all people, just took apart The Blog Queen�s latest attempt to stick a finger in Richard Goldstein�s eye, under the guise of how Goldstein sanitized the life of pioneering gay activist Harry Hay in yesterday�s Times.
First, Atrios points out that Hay supported NAMBLA�s right to exist as a purely advocacy organization on free speech grounds. That was the extent of his support.
And Sullivan himself has dirty hands in the matter, having enthusiastically and uncritically promoted the works of Camille Paglia, who has defended pedophilia as something that was cool because the Greeks did it (they also kept slaves and saw nothing wrong with that, either).
After quoting Paglia, Atrios concludes:
Can we call on Sully to now frame all discussion of Ms. Paglia as �Camille Paglia, supporter of the sexual abuse of children?�
There's also his recent canonization of recently slain Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn,who was also an advocate of the decriminalization of �paedo sex,� which was enough to scare off that other member of the Fortuyn fan club Rod Dreher.
Think what you want about NAMBLA and "NAMBLA supporters." Just make sure to include them all.
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 11:28:00 AM
MORE FROM AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE:
The eminently linkable Wyeth Ruthven on Sully�s Salon paranoid anti-paranoia piece:
I daresay that Jerry Falwell, Dan Burton and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page all have more sway over the Republican Party than an alternative political cartoonist and a professor at Buffalo State College do over the Democratic Party.
Note: Some deserved criticism of the Dems, too.
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 10:41:00 AM
TAWDRY BRITISH IMPORTS, INDEED:
Blogger Dimn sends us his take (no permalink, scroll down to 10/29) on Smalltown Boy�s recent TNR cover story.
Some excerpts:
What makes me sickest about this article [free registration required] is that I didn't think of this first. Well, scratch that, I did, I just didn�t think it was a pitchable idea. And it�s not, unless you're a recognizable name already.
[...]
Throughout, I couldn�t help thinking that Andrew Sullivan, as is his general modus operandi, avoids the clearly obvious point � he�s part of the problem.
[...]
Entirely through the piece, Andrew Sullivan exhibits the British self-loathing as only an ex-pat can. At one point: �Americans are still a polite people.� All I can say is, what a kiss ass. And though it may be an observation on his part, it is not a fact or even a factual generalization.
They are no more polite than British people, no less. But hang on. Earlier he writes that America �used to be quite a civilized country.� Well, which way is it, polite or no longer civilized?
[...]
And as a journalistic aside here, how come it is that people who attack the New York Times as an axe-bearing liberal leaning paper, always seem to find a good quote (as Mr. Sullivan does here) inside its pages that agrees with their point?
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 10:37:00 AM
SYMBOL CRASH:
I have a feeling that the Wellstone rally-cum-memorial-service will shortly become a symbol of something: the pre-eminence of political values over humane ones.
Well, we already got that vibe from andrewsullivan.com.
And Bush�s achievement, if any, comes in not seeming to be motivated by such values, while all the while being so.
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 10:07:00 AM
WHO LOST NORTH KOREA?:
Quiddity Quack is again indispensable, laying it all out in a chart how it has been primarily the Bush administration�s belligerence to Pyongyang, including adding them to our nuke target list at a time before they had nukes, that led them to start developing nukes.
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 09:58:00 AM
PUTIN YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS:
And TBogg sticks it to The Sage of South Goodstone on the Russian response:
... [I]f 117 people have to die to make Andy feel all safe and snuggly for a few minutes, well, war is hell, get over it, and let the bombing begin. I think Jeff Danziger disagrees. Where many see tragedy and negligence, Andy sees an opportunity to push for more death to Muslims. It must be nice to have the fires of religious bigotry to keep him warm at night. People dead in Bali: bomb Iraq. People killed by their own security forces in Russia: bomb Iraq. Fox cancels Girl's Club: bomb Iraq. The fact that Saddam�s Iraq is a secular dictatorship isn�t any reason to not blow it up to get at those Islamo-fascists who don�t reside there.
Maybe Ashcroft will let Andy give the needle to John Muhammad and they can both get off on it. Then Andy can feel like he�s part of the war on terrorism.
It's as close as he�ll ever get ... and he knows it.
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 09:48:00 AM
A LOW �HA!�
TBogg has the lowdown on just how credible the source of this alleged gay-baiting in Hawaii is.
posted by Sully 10/31/2002 09:40:00 AM
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
I SEE A MAN IN A WHITE CAR ...:
If Sully�s going to get all lathered up about this, he should also recall that for a while not one but two witnesses described a man, a possible suspect, as something that was definitely not African-American.
Where was all this useless outrage about �racial profiling� when the warbloggers decided that the �olive-skinned� description proved that al-Qaeda was involved? It was sure good enough for them then.
A NEW ORLEANS FUNERAL IN MINNEAPOLIS:
Just about everyone in Left Blogistan has weighed in on this ridiculous Republican response. Senator Wellstone�s family can memorialize him any way they want. If they choose to exhort people to vote for Walter Mondale, a man with far more qualifications at this point then the entire Bush brethren could earn in a thousand lifetimes, that�s their business.
We point yout to MWO for a roundup, and things you can do about it.
posted by Sully 10/30/2002 09:06:00 PM
SO, YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT HOWELL?:
TAPped sez:
But would a paper quite so partisan and �hyper-liberal� as certain online commentators would have you believe really endorse a Republican for governor in that paper's home state? Or a Republican congresswoman in an election that might well decide who controls the House of Representatives next year? Probably not.
POLLACK IS BACK (BUT MAYBE HE NEVER REALLY LEFT:
We were a little too busy to blog yesterday, but fortunately Neal Pollack made that unnecessary.
MONDALE AND MUNDANE:
So if Walter was �arguably the worst presidential candidate in recent memory,� one must assume he slept through 1988.
GUERILLA THEATER AND ITS ENDS:
(Side note: How come no one, during this whole thing, played with that concept? OK, lots of people died, but at a purely conceptual level the idea of taking an entire musical audience hostage does suggest some comic possibilities).
Max Sawicky has the best response.
HATCHET JOB SQUARED:
You know, unlike Sullivan (we're sure) we actually read Arming America. We therefore find it amusing that most of Belleisles� critics freely appropriate the tactics they accuse him of.
Upon reading Sternstein�s rant, we find it at first funny that he accuses Wiener of something underhanded in accusing James Lindgren of being part of the NRA. Isn�t being part of the NRA something for a Second Amendment absolutist to be proud of?
But then we note that he never actually answers the question, instead preferring to change the issue.
He tries to deflect what he tacitly admits was a valid response to the initial criticism of the probate records: that they really only make a small part of Bellesisles�s argument. Alright, he says, but all the initial reviewers of the book thought it was important.
As if that would make it so. It�s really funny how conservatives (Sullivan is but one example) suddenly discover the accuracy and integrity of The New York Times when it suits their ideological ends. When we read the book, we found the accounts of the unreadiness and decline of early 19th-century militias, as well as the increasing social hostility to them, to be far and away the strongest part of Bellesisles�s argument. All you really need to know is this: when the British were marching on Washington during the War of 1812, fifty thousand men were within a day�s march of the capital to stop them. Very few did, and America suffered the worst hit on a national landmark prior to 9/11. This doesn't seem to fit with the notion we always had of a pro-gun post-Revolutionary society.
Firearms advocates have cleverly avoided discussing this, perhaps deliberately, because by focusing on (we admit) legitimate questions that seem to exist regarding the probate records, they avoid the real dynamite in the book and knowingly create a false impression of what the book is all about to the general public. It's a classic, and underappreciated, right-wing technique that Sully himself has used time and time again.
Of course, the book's main flaw is that it tries too hard. If Bellesisles had undertaken the harder work of writing a more cultural history of American firearm ownership, one that looked at how guns became as mythically invested as they have in recent years, he might have done something that could have been appreciated by both sides in the gun-control debate (a debate that, as this tends to prove, Sully is well-advised to continue largely staying out of).
THAT OTHER GORE:
We sort of sound like Smarter Andrew Sullivan when we say this, but isn't there something just a little too comical in Smalltown Boy bashing Gore Vidal, a right-wing version of whom he is well on his way to becoming?
HE SAID IT:
�I'm not saying one thing and doing another, which is what hypocrisy is.�
(Link added)
posted by Sully 10/30/2002 10:27:00 AM
Monday, October 28, 2002
MORE ON THE ANTI-MILBANK MATH:
Quiddity Quack makes his first appearance as a linkee here with this definitive refutation of the "Bush�s education spending really did go up� assertion. With a chart, evev.
WILL HE READ THIS BEFORE HE INVADES IRAQ?:
We refer you to this American Prospect piece about Ahmed Chalabi, the man likeliest to run what�s left of Iraq after Saddam is toppled.
Yet another issue Smalltown Boy pretends did not exist. Link via Max Sawicky.
WOW, BILL GATES IS ... EINSTEINIAN!:
Apparently Internet Explorer has either a bug or a hidden feature that allows the user to ... see ahead in time!
That is the only explanation we have for the fact that, shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27, 2002, we were reading posts on Sully�s website dated Monday, Oct. 28, 2002, timestamped at about 1 a.m.
Forgetting to turn the clock back only accounts for one of those two hours. It seems that the Blog Queen purposely sets his time zone to Atlantic to appear to be on top of the news.
Then again, that level of dishonesty is just par for the course.
ORWELL AND IRAQ:
A mini-fisking:
He made one point in particular that resonated. On the way there, we were confronted with protestors with �No War On Iraq� posters. Hitch noticed the Orwellian resonance of this slogan. The slogan, strictly speaking, is a lie, one of many promoted by the anti-war left and right. There is no possibility of a war with �Iraq.� Half the country � inhabited by the Kurds and Shia Muslims is already protected from Saddam's murderous designs by British and American air-power.
The very same Kurds who the U.S. abandoned in 1991, and who we have inked the deal to sell out again this time, all for the use of airbases in a country that can�t even get it together to get itself admitted to the European Union (Which, of course, Sully probably considers a plus).
The remaining rump is not a country as such; it's a population terrorized by a police state run by a sadistic maniac. We are not therefore at war with the country or people of Iraq; and by equating Saddam with Iraq, these so-called �peace-protestors� are de facto parties to his vile propaganda, the notion that Iraq is Saddam and Saddam is Iraq.
OK. We�re sure that all those residents of Baghdad, when they come back from hiding to find their neighborhood looks like Church Street did that horrible afternoon, will remember that we didn�t mean to hit them, just Saddam (you know, the guy hiding in a bunker so deep we�d have to drop the nuclear equivalent of a daisy cutter to be sure of getting him once the firing starts).
And as for the peace movement not condemning Saddam, why should they have to? First, it�s well-understood that Saddam is no model of democracy; second, just because your neighbor is a child-molesting thief does not relieve you of the obligation to consider the ethical, legal and practical ramifications of bursting into his house and shotgunning him to death in front of his wife and children.
STEELED:
The Shelby Steele item is the sort of thing we usually let pass without comment, since it�s really about Shelby, not Sully. But reading his account of the debate between the black student and Ward Connerly, we as good liberals naturally found the question begged by the reading, one of the questions behind Glenn Loury�s recent return to his liberal roots from the desert of neoconservatism: why should African-Americans still have to be overcoming these struggles after all these years? The point of having a dream was to eliminate racism, not reduce it.
NOT THE BIG STORY, WE GUESS:
Gee, we thought he�d have at least something to say about Esera Tuaolo. Instead he thinks it�s more important to the history of gays in athletics that Melissa Etheridge sang the national anthem at a World Series game.
A HINT FOR THE INTERNS:
Open bracket-slash-blockquote-close bracket.
posted by Sully 10/28/2002 01:28:00 AM
