Granted, it is not breaking news that Andrew Sullivan has become an increasingly lazy blogger, but he may have hit a new milestone on the road to irrelevance:
Support for suicide bombing has plummeted in recent polls. Stanley Kurtz remains pessimistic.
How recent? A click on the first link shows that it has been declining since at least 2004 (possibly 2003, as Pew did not poll that year). This same trend appears in much of the Muslim world. Sullivan apparently missed it, as it is a trend that does not mesh well with his current opinions about the policies of the gobsmackingly vile BushCo torture regime.
As for the other half of Sullivan’s post, he does not offer an opinion on Kurtz’s pessimism, though there is ample reason for it to be found in the polling numbers from Pakistan. Sullivan would have noticed those numbers had he clicked the “Read more” link at his first link. But that extra click — and a discussion of the data there — is apparently too much effort for Sullivan these days.
It should be difficult to make a fool of oneself in a two-sentence post, but Sullivan manages it. Bravo.
He has, ahem, beclowned himself.
“Beclowned”. I’ve wanted to use that word for sooooo long. Thanks.
Suicide bombing is, like, so 2004. But at least Andrew knew that Gleen probably didn’t want to go there, there being poof.
Arghhh!!!! My mind’s eye! All it can see is that YouTube video of the Silk Pony getting the strands just right, as a songstress warbles “I feel pretty, oh so pretty….”
Coming up by Andrew Sullivan: Support For Saddam Hussein Has Plummeted!!
Later: Support For Bellbottoms Has Plummeted!!
Sullivan is a dick. Proving once again: be careful what you wish for.
Support for Liz Taylor’s Boobs Has Plummeted!
What I don’t understand is why anybody, including Karl, pays any attention to Sullivan.
In his former incarnation he was an occasionally interesting commenter. As a social liberal with a gay agenda who was also a defense sortahawk and a fiscal semi-conservative, he had insights and sometimes suggestions that were worth following up by either side of the debate.
Then, for some reason, he lost his mind over a political maneuver. (I still shake my head at the concept that anyone so apparently intelligent couldn’t see what Bush was up to with the FMA business. I know welders with high-school diplomas (and, effectively, A good Christian raisin’ and an eighth-grade education, in the words of the song) who understand it clearly and are a little bitter about it.) Having done so, he turned right around and, so I believe, expected to be honored for preaching to the choir. Unfortunately there are so many competitors for that particular pulpit that he effectively becomes just another voice in the chorus, and not the most distinctive one despite the occasional solo.
It’s the same problem the Press/”MSM” have. Conservatives have no reason to read or listen to Sullivan because they get only insults based on stereotyping that has little or no basis in reality. Liberals/leftoids have no real reason to read or listen to him because he no longer says anything new, and doesn’t have enough command of the language to produce quotable sound bites. He’s just saying what “everyone else” says, and not doing it well enough to be distinguishable from the crowd; boring, in other words.
Too bad. He used to be interesting.
Regards,
Ric
Ric:
It’s true that Andrew has become the PW version of “wack a mole” along with Eller(s) because it’s just so darn easy and low brow entertaining. I’ll admit to the base response of yucks to another muddle headed, hysterical inanity from the little columnists who can’t, anymore.
Beyond crass pleasure there is still some reason to shine the satirical spotlight on these clowns. True it will have no effect upon the minions but they both write for “mainstream” publications which brings them a not insignificant casual readership. It worth having a record exhoriating the4moronity, partsanship, lack of real seriousness and lazy sourcing that has characterized both of these maroons for several years.
Besides: Support for Saddam has plunmmeted, don’cha know…
MvGehee wrote, “Support for Liz Taylor’s Boobs Has Plummeted!”
This is a lie. A damnable lie. And a lie!
It’s her boozy hausfrau hairdos that I don’t get.
Ric –
I know! I know!
“Momma Don’t ‘llow”!
No! No! Wait!
It’s…uh….uh…uh..
Nope. I guess I don’t know.
No! No! It’s right here on the tip of my tongue!
AHA! “Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arm”
Yup! Yup! Yup! I am SO proud of breaking throught the haze of dementia!
All true enough, BJ, but my metric is no longer “worthwhile”.
The Great Experiment is over. Weakened by struggling through the Somebody Else’s Problem Field, it became mired in Bureaucracy and was easy meat for the insane. The occasional twitches are merely the death-jerks as what was a fairly strong organism gradually expires. Future historians will look back and shake their heads in wonder that anyone could have been so foolishly Pollyannaish as to embark on it in the first place. The society they live in will have distinct resemblances to the later Chinese dynasties.
So until we’re silenced on the ground of “hate speech” we might as well engage in what is, after all, a sort of extended game of Solitaire, and the proper criterion is “interesting”. Andrew Sullivan isn’t nearly outstanding enough to qualify. Greenwald is, because he has an instinctive grasp of dishonest rhetoric of the form referred to in the pejorative as “lawyering” — the ability to pick a minor issue out of an argument and blow it up into the only thing discussed, as a means of avoiding discussion of anything substantive. It can be sort of fun to pick out how he does it, although it’s sometimes a bit depressing to watch others fall for the tactic.
Rome is burning, and the flames are dying down to embers. Have a fiddle; let’s form a chamber orchestra.
Regards,
Ric
That’s so dark.
Lost Dog, my irony detector burned out long ago.
As usual with Willie, you can read it several ways.
I been to Georgia on a fast train, baby,
I wasn’t born no yesterday,
I got a good Christian raisin’
An’ an eighth-grade education
An’ you got no call to treat me this-a-way.
Regards,
Ric
Andrew just needs to go on. Now. Go. Walk out the door. Just turn around now, cause he’s not welcome anymore.
I’m with Ric, I shan’t even burn the single erg of energy to click on a link to Sully anymore. And to think, back before I went to Afghanistan in 2004, I sent him $50 to lay in his hammock and play with his beagle and his boyfriend for a month at a time…
I, for one, am gobsmacked.
Unless that’s a gay thing.
Major John, don’t beat yourself up. We all make mistakes. I used to be a liberal. I even dated a guy who went for months w/o washing his hair, because he heard the natural oils would … I dunno, do something really cool to it.
It never happened.
Maybe not gay but it does kind of sound like one might need a tissue.
lay in his hammock and play with his beagle and his boyfriend …
Is that some sort of euphemism?
Andrew S being a bit short of honest. Not possible. Actually, lazy is most likely correct. Or he is simply incapable of understanding the concepts. Regardless, y’all are poofter-fobic, shirtlifter-fobic, and in general, steve’s beeyotch.
Ric:
I can’t argue with the construct you have put forth. One of my basic character flaws is to be drawn to the absurd and to quench the fires of my desire to spotlight and ridicule said dishonesty. You are right that Andrew has degenerated into a paler characature, a writer whose lofty education provides him with scant defense against the narcissistic fulminations which center his thoughts. He is the poster child for the very thing that frustrates us all; policy pronoucements that reflect only personal pecadillos devoid of critical thinking.
And, yes, when I’m not laughing, I’m shaking my head in sorrow.
While I still hold out hope for the cause of personal liberty I remain deeply troubled by the new definitions of free speech that catagorize its meaning through the proper narrative and feeliness.
OK, now I’m depressed.
BJ – Andrew has a lofty education? A couple of graduate degrees from Harvard qualify as lofty these days?
You know how you can tell if someone has a Phd. don’t you? They’ll tell you.
You can also tell if someone has a PHD if there are bronzed kneepads on the mantle.
I think today before Jeff gets back is Guest Blogger Appreciation Day.
I appreciate you, guest bloggers. It’s a lot of work what you guys do and it’s pretty selfless how you guys have seen this blog through this interregnum thinger. If I could I would take all of you guys to Sizzler.
Why pay attention to Sullivan?
Because not everyone is where Ric is… yet. But observing the decline of people like Sullivan points them in the right direction.
Look! There’s one now! Set phasers to appreciate!
happyfeet, it’s possible, even reasonable, to have a lot of fun in the dark. Perhaps New Girl could offer pointers, if you ask nicely enough.
BJ, “freedom” was always a lost cause. Our ancestors promoted liberty, which is qualitatively different… then fell for the “fire in a crowded theater” fallacy. All that’s really happening right now is that the combination of a greater population and a smaller scope makes it more obvious that the walls are closing in.
I do look forward to an extended period of permissiveness, in which the Deciders give maximum scope (within the confines of the Narrative, of course) for questionable activities. That includes a few “safe” dissenters, and those of us who quibble over terminology and point out solecism and logical error fall into that category, so we can enjoy our perversions for quite a while yet.
For a long time now it has seemed to me that the only reasonable personal philosophy is hedonism; not the caricature “eat drink and be merry” type, but the real thing — endure the rain, enjoy the flowers. The embers are warm and comfy. Enjoy. The cold will come soon enough. And who knows, the Heir to the Heterodynes may show up after all. Keep your heppler wrench handy.
Regards,
Ric
happyfeet – Love Sizzler ever since Kadeem Hardison’s character in White Men Can’t Jump talked about it incessantly.
I think that was even before they got the self-serve yogurt. With chips and sprinkles!
“Comment by Carin on 12/29 @ 11:15 am #
lay in his hammock and play with his beagle and his boyfriend …
Is that some sort of euphemism?”
Nope, a literalism.
I think actually it’s called a “sling.”
A banana hammock and nut-sling to be precise.
happy – Glow in the dark condoms can provide you a pointer in the dark, or so I’ve heard.
More like a light sabre, daleyrocks.
Not if your S.O. calls you needle dick the bug fucker.
I’m a lights on kind of guy really. I got some disposable contacts I only wear for stuff like that. The supply looks like it will last awhile.
Has anybody else noticed that Sullivan is so irrelevant these days that ace doesn’t even bother to bitchslap him anymore? Really, it used to be part of his schtick, and now, he just doesn’t bother.
I’m with Ric too MJ, but I can put it more succinctly.
We’re fucked