Andrew Sullivan went on the Hugh Hewitt show to plug his new book, with Sully quickly comparing the interview to a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
I had always understood that NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Yet part of Sullivan’s first answer in the interview was to remark:
I don’t think that you’re necessarily always the fairest of interviewers.
So Sully thought he knew what he was in for, decided it would be worth it to plug his book, then became increasingly unhinged when he realized that someone who had read his book was going to seriously question his understanding of Constitutional law and religion—two large elements of his book. And thus he paints a PR slot for his book as the Inquisition (even while posing as a Christ-like figure in opposition to the “pharisaical” Hewitt), much as he conflates various interrogation methods as torture.
I guess he’s just an excitable boy.
Update: I should have mentioned that while Sully was doing his Imitation of Christ, he was advancing the position of Pontius Pilate.
(h/t the Corner)
Will Sully hold another fundraiser to salve his bruised ego?
Jesuit jibes!
Hewitt was gunning for him. Sullivan was way too defensive. I want a rematch debate. Let them pick a topic and go at it
Who ever wins can pick the other guy up, turn him over, and put his penis in his mouth.
He used to think Bush was our only hope;
Excitable boy, they all said.
Every seeming mistake was only rope-a-dope;
Excitable boy, they all said.
Well he’s just an excitable boy.
He thought that Saddam should be next on the list;
Excitable boy, they all said.
If you disagreed, you were a fifth columnist;
Excitable boy, they all said.
Well he’s just an excitable boy.
He finally turned against the war in Iraq;
Excitable boy, they all said.
Just ‘cause Bush wouldn’t let him have a wife with a cock;
Excitable boy, they all said.
Well he’s just an excitable boy.
I usually don’t like listening to Hewitt during election season, because he spends too much time campaigning and not enough commentating. But no one can accuse him of running an echo chamber. He’s had on Matthew Yglesias as a regular in the past, and gave Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco, a thorough but fair grilling.
But yeah, a slapfight like this must have been irritating to listen to.
Did you hear James Lileks takeoff on Sully’s hissy fit?
Freaklin’ hilarious.
Hewitt always comports himself as a gentleman, disagrees respectfully and is civlized with his guests. His coolness definitely made Sullivan look like a rookie.
tw: father69 (No kidding!) TW refuses to be silenced…
Because of the hypocrisy!
I think it would have been more interesting if Hewitt had debated him.
AS flipped out pretty much immediately but I am curious as to what is incorrect in his premise of Con Law requiring government to treat citizens the same.
Equal proteciton has a strict standard for race, religion, and national origin. A medium standard for gender. And a rational basis for everything else.
Hewitt and Sullivan both got it wrong. I am not sure what that has to do with the whole issue of gay marriage, because judicial imposition of it is not what Sullivan is arguing for. New Jersey, Vermont, and Massachusetts imposed gay marriage/civil unions under their state constitutions.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court claims to have found such a right in the state constitution. It was indeed imposed by the judiciary.
If you go back and listen, AS was claiming that the government has to treat non-citizens the same as citizens, unless there is a “compelling reason.” So the incorrect premise is that the Constitution doesn’t confer any privileges with citizenship, even though it can somehow confer responsibilities, which it cannot confer on noncitizens.
The common Con Law approach is that the Constitution is primarily a compact between the government and the governed, which guarantees rights to citizens of the US. As such, it routinely treats citizens differently from non-citizens.
AS is conflating Constitutional Rights with Human Rights, which could be presumed to apply everyone.
TW: That’s the standard(79) approach.
Moreover, on gay marriage, Sullivan’s position is, “let’s be federalists for a while.” He believes that gay marriage is fundamental matter of civil rights under the federal constitution. If it is, the Supreme Court would be required to rule in favor of it, following Loving v. Virginia, which struck down a ban on interracial marriage. So Sullivan is either ignorant of the topic on which he has staked much of his carrer, or he is being dishonest with his audience.
Nor are those options mutually exclusieve.
For whatever reason (actually many) at one time I was a very violent person. I solved most of my problems with violence. You see I am a definite darwinist and believe in species (and individuals) using their inherent strengths to the most of their abilities. My inherent strength (ability) was always the ability to absolutely kick ass. It’s what I was good at. Anyhow, as I got older, I realized that in a civilized society one had to suppress their more base desires and abilities and use more urbane and civilized modes of persuasion. However, I think with sully, I would have to take a step backwards and just deliver hell as it is meant to be. What a fucking moron. Yes, this post is being enabled by the glorious help of many Rolling Rocks.
tw: trouble
Need I say anymore…
Oh dear,
It seems Hewitt now admits he was wrong…
ThePolishNilzel is fired up. Give that man a shot of tequilla and get him roaring.
I would think there are others out there that piss you off more than Sully–like a cage match with Olbermann, Blitzer, and Kos (all at the same time just to make it fair to them).
Given the monky’s generally tenuous connection to reality, perhaps he would like to provide a link.
Just go to Hewitt’s site and search for the line:
“What I ought to have said is:”
Truthiness in action…
Having now searched HH’s blog, imagine my surprise to discover that Hewitt admits he was inexact on a point of Con Law, and not in away that makes Sullivan correct. No wonder monky didn’t want to provide a link. “Equal is not always Equal” had already noted that both were wrong on the question of the standards above—not that I expect monky to actually follow the thread.
Hewitt also links to a post about the interview titled, Andrew Sullivan is Also a Poor Theologian. I wouldn’t be shocked about that, either.
Ahhh..yes, tequila, my most favored adversary. I had/have given up tequila for the exact reason that you called it up. It was always a baaaaaad playmate for me. The other fucktards are worthy of my “earlier” days, but since sully is the subject of this post, it was his idiocy that spurred my “base” instincts. Time to crawl back into my happy place and think of fuzzy bunnies and happier times.
If he wasn’t wrong, why did he correct it, then?
Probably because he wanted to keep his day job…
OMG!OMG! Somebody made a correction!!!!
*swoon*
monky, he corrected it because—unlike Sullivan—he wants to be precise and correct.
Plus, if you could be bothered to read what anyone writes, you would have noticed that I referred to both being wrong, with HH being wrong in a way that did not make Sully right.
This should be the last time I will address this, as monky has well-known history here of ignoring the obvious, but here’s the relevant point in small enough words that they might actually be understood by this cretin:
Generally, the gov’t needs only a “rational basis” to discriminate among groups of people. The major exceptions are for racial discrimination which gets “strict scrutiny,” and gender, which gets intermediate scrutiny.
Hewitt incorrectly stated that race cases were the only cases that get strict scrutiny.
OTOH, Sullivan’s book, which was presumably the product of more deliberation than that of a radio interview, claims:
This is flatly wrong—it is virtually the opposite of any lawyer’s understanding of Constitutional law.
So, to sum up for the monky:
(1) HH was wrong, and has corrected the error;
(2) AS was wrong, and still is, but refuses to admit it;
(3) AS is far more wrong on this question than HH was;
(4) HH’s error was misspeaking in an interview, whereas AS’s worse error is printed in a book, which suggests Sullivan is being willfully blind or dishonest on this point.
And to provide a simpler analogy for the monky:
Suppose that HH and AS had an interview. Suppose HH said the Sun rises in the Southeast. Suppose AS wrote in a book that the Sun never rises. HH corrects himself to say the Sun rises in the East, while AS continues to claim the Sun never rises. Does the fact that HH was wrong and corrected himself make AS right? (hint: no.)
Just because lawyers believe something doesn’t make it true, Karl.
I fail to see the difference between:
1. Generally, the gov’t needs only a “rational basis†to discriminate among groups of people.
2. That presumption is that they will treat each citizen absolutely alike, unless it has a very compelling reason not to.
That lawyers think there’s difference in those two statements would only confirm most American’s low opinion of them…
Hmmm, I dunno Monk. I think perhaps Dems think quite highly of them. In fact, the Trial Lawyers Association is THE largest contributor this election cycle, and 69% of their funds are going to your buddies on the Left. This makes sense though, when you can’t get enough people to agree with your nutty opinions, you just take away their freedom to decide by using the tyranny of the courts, something scumbag lawyers & judges are good at. Something the libs have been doing for decades.
“True” is beside the point, MoBo, it’s settled law, neither True nor False.
The higher courts settle these questions and provide guidelines so that we don’t have MoBos wandering around trying to speak “Truth” to Law, and give the amatuer’s reading of the Constitution.
See Harry’s response.
Actually, I think it would confirm most of the PW regulars’ opinion of you as a moron who does not understand English particularly well. Specifically, an inability on your part to distinguish between the meaning of “rational” and the meaning of “compelling.”
While Wikipedia is often suspect, you could do worse than to read the entry on “strict scrutiny” for starters.
In any event, as the Supreme Court does make those distinctions, Sullivan is completely wrong. He and you can go argue with them about it.
Karl,
Sullivan’s book is aimed at normal people.
I think most mammals consider these two words mean about the same thing.
Just to comfirm we are using the same language here…
Can you think of a “compelling” reason that isn’t “rational” too?
Or are you saying lawyers assume the U.S. operates under irrational law?
No, but the law—and the language—considers that there are “rational” reasons that are not “compelling.”
Your argument is like saying that because boiling water is hot, all hot water is boiling.
I’m saying that non-lawyers would understand and most would agree with what Sullivan wrote.
For some Midwestern community college teacher to say it is not just wrong, but completely and undeniably wrong just shows how out of touch he is with “real” Americans.
and most would agree that speed limits are stupid. your point is?
He doesn’t have one. He’s upset that HH (the Midwestern community college teacher) caught AS (with his grad degrees) getting the law backward. He’s upset that I have demonstrated that he is a moron who does not understand English or logic. Thus, he is desperately trying to change the subject now to an baseless assertion of public opinion.
I doubt the public is as stupid as the monky, but even if it was, maggie’s point about the law would still hold. In a last ditch effort to educate the monky (futile, I’m sure) let’s take a Constitutional example. The Supreme Court has ruled that there is a right to abortion. Would the monky say that the Supreme Court is clearly wrong if a public opinion poll showed a majority disagreed?
Robert Bork’s book was aimed at non-lawyers also. Apparently, monky thinks that gives Bork the license to misstate Constitutional law. Or monky would think that if he was logically consistent. But I think it’s established that monky doesn’t understand logic.
The monkey is so stupid that he doesn’t even realize that if government had to show a compelling interest to discriminate among various groups of people, government would be doing virtually nothing. But that’s because he “fails to see the difference” between the words “rational” and “compelling,” much as he apparently fails to see the difference between “hot” and “boiling.”
He has re-attained Telephone Pole status.
One more thing: Before monky tries the public opinion distraction again, let’s all review the public opinion polls on legalizing gay marriage, shall we?
Looks to me like you guys are hoisting your tattered Mission Accomplished banner to signal yet another non-victory.
Sullivan stated the law in plain english…something that lawyers are loath to do. They wouldn’t have a job without obfuscation.
I take if Sullivan had written:
There is, in other words, a presumption in the way a government interacts with its own citizens. That presumption is that they will treat each citizen absolutely alike, unless it has a very rational reason not to. And it is up to the government to prove it has a good reason to discriminate rather than up to a citizen to prove she is equal under the law.
All the lawyers of the world would have nodded in agreement.
Hehe [insert favorite lawyer joke here…]
Could someone put a
sign?
monky’s sophistry is pretty strong. But that’s all it is, sophistry.
Give it a rest, kid. You’re comic relief.
With all due respect to RiverCocytus, sophistry usually refers to “a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.”
monky’s “argument” is none of those, except fallacious. His “argument” is that “rational” = “compelling.” Which is flatly wrong on more than one level, but he’s not going to move off that point because he has the IQ of a small soap dish or the maturity of a two-year-old, possibly both.
And while I understand the “don’t feed the monky” school of thought, I think he tends to embarrass others on the Left so much that they won’t participate once he starts poo-flinging. The end result is that monky becomes the “face” of the left at the blogs he trolls. Which over time helps libertarians, conservatives, classic liberals, 9/11 Democrats, etc. on the margin.
If he doesn’t get that he’s comic relief, that’s his problem. But suggesting he give it a rest only encourages him, precisely because he has the IQ of a small soap dish or the maturity of a two-year-old. He will read such a suggestion as a validation of his views, however disconnected from reality they may be. So you go a few rounds, until he’s firmed up what ever fantasy position he’s going to take, exposing his idiocy for those who may be stopping by for the first time, then move on to the next discussion.