but to bury him.
Glenn Reynolds has had enough:
Various people in and out of the blogosphere have wondered exactly when, how, and why Andrew lost it. But lost it he has.
I’m not as kind as Glenn, so for me it was when he started linking Greenwald(s) approvingly. Please feel free to note when it was you’d come to the conclusion that it had been lost by him.
Oh well, if Reynolds has had enough, then that’s enough.
BTW, lost what? His virginity? Or are you referring to the microchip he had removed which prevailed upon him to fellate every Bush endrun around the law?
BTW;
Here’s another link to Maguire and Reynolds.
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/
What does Reynolds actually say about torture, Semanticleo?
St. Andrew had lost it before I became aware of him.
No, semanticleo, his mind. You should be able to relate.
Ah, I see that you can. Splendid.
When he said that gas wasn’t expensive enough.
“What does Reynolds actually say about torture, Semanticleo?”
The same gibberish the so-called defenders of the Constitution use to salsify their academic bretheren.(maguire’s blood runs in Reynolds arteries even after separation at birth)
‘Water boarding is not torture’
Let the squid gene-pool declare us free of venality.
Even thinking about torture should be a hate-crime. We should learn from our enemies, not salsify them. They have much to teach us, and Andrew should be applauded for recognizing that. Any Constitution that needs defending is not worth the paper it’s printed on.
Will Ace let you borrow the Andrew derangement graphic?
Let’s shitcan Harry Potter readings in favor of beheadings to make all things equal.
Semanticleo–
It ought to be easy enough to Google Reynolds about this, Sematicleo. Chapter. Verse.
This statement reflects a profoundly stunted conceptualization of social justice. If Harry Potter has taught us anything it’s that to fight evil, one must never mention its name.
I had a brief e-mail exchange with Sullivan a few years ago that led me to conclude that his cheese had slipped off its cracker. At the time, I was a fairly devoted fan, but the exchange made me take a step or two back and eventually abandon his blog entirely. Nothing since has persuaded me to return.
“Boot notes that quite a few people are playing fast-and-loose with definitions on torture, and I think that’s right. There’s true torture—involving, as Boot says, “fingernails pulled, electric shocks applied, sharp objects put where they don’t belong”—and then there’s other stuff. Complaints about U.S. forces basically involve “other stuff.””
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/027472.php
Not sure what your point is, Collins.
I assume you are aware Instatepid does not commit to anything but the most glaringly obvious moralisms. (I hate waste in government…I love my wife)
Does he identify ‘other stuff’ by clearly stating it? He rarely does. But ‘other stuff’ clearly shows he approves ‘water-boarding’.
Reynolds also conveniently overlooks damagingly loud music and sadistic air conditioning. It’s past time his agenda was exposed.
Y’know, semanticleo, it’s ‘way past time you changed your nick.
You could start with the word Reynolds unaccountably left out. “Sanctimoneo” is a neat little back-formation that fits like a glove on somebody who has uniformly, consistently, and vocally supported and approved of torture, and lionized torturers, so long as the torturers were willing to say nasty things about the Evil Bush Administration and their victims were insufficiently vehement in doing so; and, since Andrew possesses the minimal courage to avoid using a pseudonymn, it’s freely available to you. There is such a thing as “truth in advertising.”
Regards,
Ric
“I assume you are aware Instatepid does not commit to anything but the most glaringly obvious moralisms.”
Yep, glaringly obvious moralisms like gay marriage and drug legalization:
“But though I think Kerry is probably beyond the point of credibly reassuring me on the war, I invite him to move left and join me in open support for gay marriage, drug legalization, and abortion rights without any of that “personally opposed but still in favor” weaseling.”
He also said the same thing in this Guardian article.
“I certainly don’t fit in with the religious right. I support gay marriage, drug legalisation and abortion rights. I am in favour of stem-cell research, and against prayer in school.”
What a weasel.
How do we know that this “semanticleo” isn’t an Andrew Sullivan sock puppet? The views being expressed by both appear to reflect very substantive levels of dementia.
I assume you are aware that captured al Qaeda youth do not commit to anything but the most glaringly obvious moralisms. (I hate America… I love dead infidels…)
Do they identify ‘other stuff’ by clearly stating it? They rarely do. Not unless ‘water-boarded’ by Constitution-trampling fascists. But ‘other stuff’ clearly shows they approve of Democrats. Hearts and minds, people, and that’s a point on which Andrew is unrelenting, and that’s why Reynolds is so eager to silence him.
I don’t think water boarding is torture, as I’ve made clear here. It has been developed to simulate torture—the fear of a death by suffocation is traumatic—but I’ve met and spoken with SEALS who have been through it, and who swear by it as a means of extracting information quickly and efficiently, with little risk of death.
Emotional scarring? Certainly. But then, you don’t fight jihad and get captured by those you are trying to kill and get away scot free, right?
At any rate, there have been plenty of discussions here on torture. In fact, I think the main ones were called “On Torture,” and touched on the importance of defining the term rather than using the term like Kelo used the Takings Clause and just allowing to encompass anything that might be objectionable to some—then claiming that you stand bravely “against torture,” while people like me are “torture apologists.”
Spell it out for us, Sanctimoneo. Are you against loud music? The use of women or Jewish interrogators? The threat of US guns loaded with Israeli bullets? The threat of US guns loaded with bullets dipped in pork fat? Harry Potter readings? Red ink purported to be menstrual blood? Humiliation by way of lacy panties?
What is torture? You claim that Reynolds takes the easy way out and only commits to obvious moralisms.
You mean like, uh, “torture is bad”? How are you any different from what you claim Reynolds to be?
It is EASY to say you’re against torture. Hell, watch:
“I, Jeff Goldstein, primo neocon, am RESOLUTELY AGAINST TORTURE.”
Now, how much weight do you give that statement until you know what I believe to be torture? What parameters are you using to define it?
If the parameters are “anything that causes emotional distress or discomfort,” then that’s a pretty weak definition of torture. “The View” would qualify, as a matter of fact—as well as just about every song by The Backstreet Boys.
So you threw down the gauntlet, sparky. Show us your polished, steely point.
I knew Sullivan had lost his mind when he endorsed Kerry for President. No matter how disappointing Bush has been on numerous fronts, there is nothing in Kerry’s record to suggest he’d be any better from a conservative/libertarian/classical liberal perspective. There is a great deal that says he’d be far worse. The only justification for supporting Kerry was that he’d be less hostile to gay marriage. That Sullivan would ignore Kerry’s obvious drawbacks just to improve the odds for gay marriage told me plainly that I would no longer need to pay him any attention. His behavior since has only confirmed my opinion. He is teh suxx0r.
I hope calling him that isn’t a hate crime.
Semantics. To suggest that logic can resolve this dilemma only underscores that it is reasoned, logical entreaty, not torture, that best informs a humane interrogation policy.
To me it was when he described bicoastal lefties like, erm, his own future self as a “fifth column”. I’m king of glad that he’s their embarrassment now instead of ours.
Oh. And go ahead and use the Belgravia Dispatch definition.
I’ve dealt with that. It is completely subjective (who are we to say what will caused prolonged mental pain or suffering: by that definition, Clint Hurdle has been torturing every baseball fan in Colorado non-stop for years), and all Greg does is again express outrage that anyone can even consider coercive treatment of enemy combatants a legitimate war-time tactic.
Me, I think his entire argument—and Sullivan’s entire last two-years of posting—to be an attempt to appeal to the lefties as one of the “sensible conservatives.”
Sorry, but no sale. He’s free to call those of us who wish to debate what it is, exactly, that constitutes torture—specifically, concretely, and not by pointing to language that can make reruns of “Touched By an Angel” into a heinous moral crime that destroys the “soul” of a country—“frothing right blogospheric goose-steppers eager to describe anything short of the rack as non-torture,” but in turn, I’m no longer going to get defensive.
Instead, I’m just going to write people like him off as “preening opportunists seizing on the easiest of all outrages, and turning it into some sort of self-righteous clarion call that separates them from the ‘frothing’ right wingers who would rather win a war against barbaric opponents than lose and then applaud ourselves for not having sullied ourselves with any of that messy war-type stuff.”
Again, the easy way out is to execute on the spot any captured al Qaeda agent as an out of uniform enemy combatant/spy, as is allowed by the laws of war.
But my suspicion is, this is not the solution people like Sullivan and Gregory are advocating for.
I did notice, however, I was removed from his blogroll, replaced by such luminaries as Balloon Juice, Juan Cole, and Glenn Greenwald(s).
So, frankly, I give fuck all what he thinks, as he’s just a male version of Ilyka Damen—someone who senses the political winds turning and so has begun moving left by way of substituting emotional appeals and OUTRAGE for a willingness to address the most difficult of moral and ethical questions that we face as a result of the nature of the enemy we face.
Bravo for finding that soft spot in the zone, Greg.
Here “lost it” is a shorthand for allowing rootless, unprincipled commentary based solely on being “against” someone – bilefilled rantings – rather than actually advocating for ideas, principles, ethics, etc.
In this sense, Sullivan “lost it” many years ago.
Djerejian on Zbigniew Brzezinski…
Which almost satisfies his Council on Foreign Relations monthly fellatio quota.
In my case it would have been when he soiled himself and started demanding that Rumsfeld be cashiered over Abu Ghraib. I think the suddenness and magnitude of that self-reversal was probably inevitable, and indicates that his politics were never rational to begin with.
Clearly torture gets way to close to Andrew’s buttons to allow him to remain rational. I think he flipped when he realized that abu grahib was not different that his favorite Saturday night party in Provincetown.
NTTAWWT.
Plus he snores.
Back to the substance of the issue: There are circumstances in which torture is morally alright, or even mandatory, and these circumstances are not limited to the ticking time-bomb scenarios in which it is posited that we have metaphysical certainty that a detainee has pertinent information. E.g., 100 percent certainty that a detainee knows who threw a rock at a soldiers head would not justify torture, but 40% certainty that a detainee knows the location of a soon-to-be-exploded nuclear device would justify torture, efficatious torture with a good chance of success.
This is not a close call morally, and it’s not difficult to figure out intellectually, and I guaranty you that if the responsibility fell upon his shoulders, Excitable Andy himself would direct the water-boarding session.
That’s why all of Sullivan’s preening is repulsive, and I think that’s why Sullivan repulses Glenn Reynolds, and so many others. Sullivan’s preening – that whole attitude or stance toward moral issues – invites us the look inward, and to judge the morality of our actions according to its effect upon our souls. But that approach has it backwards. We judge an action by it’s consequences, or probable consequences in the world, and if the action is alright by that standard, then our souls will take care of themselves.
The contrary approach, which is immoral as well as esthetically disgusting, is Sullivan’s inward-looking morality of vanity and narcissism and hysterical accusations that Reynolds just doesn’t care enough; does not have a soul as pure as Andrew Sullivan.
Alright. I’ll bite. It’s war. And since the enemy has been so kind to define the rules, I think we should oblige them and fight by their rules. If that means torture, OK. because if it saves just one american servicepersons life………..etc. Hell. Any innocents life. I won’t lose any sleep over it.
Hmm, never was a Sullivan fan. I read his ‘Daily dish’ in the Washington Times once or twice, thought it was okay, then I heard about his blog, and how he is a few hens short of a coop. That’s how complex the story is for me.
Let the record reflect that when Jeff asked leo to give his own definition of torture, he promptly ran away. Apparently, semantics are too much for leo.
As for when Sully lost it, the answer is simple: When W came out for the federal marriage amendment. Asking when it was reflected in his writing is just looking for the symptoms of his having lost it.
Coincidentally, I had considered a guest-post this weekend cataloging just how badly Sully has lost it—falling for hoaxes, 9/11 truthers, Ron Paul internet spam, etc. But it was just too hard to work up the energy for it. That’s what a sad, pathetic cartoon Sully has become.
Of course you’re correct, Karl.
And of course, to anyone who pays attention Bush’s heart wasn’t in it. He made, what, three speeches on the subject, then let it lie. Some of my neighbors were almost as indignant about that as Excitable Andy was, though for the opposite reasons.
As I pointed out at the time, to Sullivan via email, those are the actions of a politician who doesn’t care about something or is mildly opposed to it, but feels he must cater to his supporters. Such political triangulation will still be with us when the subject is methods for surviving the heat-death of the Universe, and on almost any other subject Andrew, who is not what you could properly call “stupid”, not only agreed but wrote several posts complimenting various politicos on successfully executing the maneuvers. To put it bluntly, he was thinking with his dick. That doesn’t lead to valid conclusions regardless of which aperture the said penis is aimed at.
I honestly believe that the hysteria with which he approaches most subjects these days derives in large part from his knowing that he’s in the wrong but unwilling to admit it and back up. Whatever the cause, I don’t find him plausible, let alone persuasive, on any subject any more.
Regards,
Ric
“Let the record reflect that when Jeff asked leo to give his own definition of torture, he promptly ran away.”
How’s that surge working?
My discussion was with Collins, the author of this post. I don’t know where to begin addressing
Goldsteins shotgun rant, so I left it alone. Everything being equal, my discussions with G have been less than interesting than those with Collins.
BTW; where is he? Not a peep since……
What does Reynolds actually say about torture, Semanticleo?
Posted by Dan Collins | permalink
on 05/20 at 01:35 PM
and. again at……Semanticleo–
It ought to be easy enough to Google Reynolds about this, Sematicleo. Chapter. Verse.
Posted by Dan Collins | permalink
on 05/20 at 02:07 PM
What time is it now? Oh Yeah…..
Haven’t been perusing the comments here as often as I usually do and it cheers me a bit to see that we still have at least one resident idgit—yeah, I’m looking at you semanticleo—to ste off the wit and wisdom of the rest of the commenters. The more things change, the more the idgits return. Like the buzzards to Hinckley.
Me, I stopped reading Sullivan for good in early 2003 and haven’t missed him a bit. He’d pretty much stopped making sense by then anyway. Now he’s just shrill and hysterical.
“I can’t refute the argument, so I’ll ignore it.”
C’mon, define torture. Is loud music torture? Fake menstrual blood? Draping someone in an Israeli flag?
You don’t understand. We’re playing by your rules, temporarily, and if you don’t care for it, take it up with the committee.
The facts are these: You made a set of unsupported assertions calumning Glen Reynolds. “Collins” (his name is either “Dan” or “Mr. Collins”; from you, I imagine he’d prefer the latter) called you a liar, a charge I now repeat. You lie, individually and seriatim.
You are now obliged to prove otherwise. It is your responsibility, as the accuser, to come up with examples of Glen Reynolds’s vileness and evil, and our privilege, as the defenders, to point out in painful detail when they are irrelevant, out of context, or simple ad hominem, which is of course in most cases. It is the method we have observed you to use on a number of occasions, here and at Maguire’s, and is entirely suitable for the purpose.
Put up or shut up, you lying fuck.
Regards,
Ric
Allow me to translate: “I am a complete fucking retard, but I do know my limits.”
Exactly. I am not sure why we really aren’t doing this. I realize that they think that they can get valuable information from these pieces of shit, and maybe sometimes they do. I guess the administration and the military appropriately dismiss Andy and the above mentioned retard, semanticleo, and figure that any information gathered is worth the headaches.
Might I remind you that he didn’t just endores Waffles. He claimed that Kerry was the conservative choice in the 2004 election. And he did it after months of hemming and hawing about how he was undecided, which everybody and their Aunt Fanny knew was a boldfaced lie.
“You made a set of unsupported assertions calumning Glen Reynolds……..
It is your responsibility, as the accuser, to come up with examples of Glen Reynolds’s vileness and evil,”
Dear UnHinged One’
WTFAY?
Vileness, Evil? Must be mirror image BDS
You visit Maguire’s site?
Must be a lurker. You’re not a regular.
GFYS
Classy, Leo. Very, very classy.
Does anyone know if long-term use of emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate might precipitate some form of dementia?
Just wondering.
Well, let’s see.
Disagrees with the Chosen One, therefore insane: CHECK
Obscure reference to confuse the issue: CHECK
Attempt to deflect, by lying again:CHECK
CON-GRAT-U-LA-TIONS! congratulates the congratulatory congratulator! You have managed a MOONBAT TRIFECTA with EXTRA LIE, for 3,261 Leftoid Points, redeemable for ego-stroking at any Kos Diary! Would you like to play again?
We’re waait-ing…
Regards,
Ric
I got bored waiting for Semanticleo to make sense long ago.
Geezer,
From the NIH:
And
Nothing in there about dementia. Maybe all the results aren’t in yet.
Regards,
Ric
Excitable Andi lost me years ago when he got his panties in a wad over Bush saying he opposed gay marriages.
Did he honestly think that Bush, who has always been a social conservative, was going to support gay marriage?
That was when I stopped taking Andi seriously.
This is who she is. This is what she does.
How’s changing the subject working, semanticleo?
And another reason I don’t take him seriously is when he started doing the “Sullivan Three-Step”, to wit:
1. Taking a position on some subject
2. Suddenly switching to the opposite position a week later
3a. Vehemently condemning anyone who advocates the position he took in Step 1.
3b. Vigorous denial that he ever held the view he advocated in Step 1.
4. Throwing a hissy fit if anyone points out the blatant intellectual dishonesty of Steps 3a-b.
OK. I’m confused.
Salsify? Some kind of daisy root, moderately edible.
Is it worth trying to engage semanticleo in debate? Not really, even when he is ostensibly sober, which doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Two intelligent, rational people have invited him to define his terms- he can’t, so he descends to juvenile abuse.
I have strong views on torture so I suppose it behoves me at least to give my definition:
Torture, which I regard as unacceptable, is the officially sanctioned infliction of physical pain on a prisoner.
Battlefield interrogation extending to the threat of summary execution if information is not forthcoming is in my opinion not torture, not is the subsequent execution of the threat.
There is no debate. He ran away.
If Jeff G is with me, who will stand against me?!?
Cecil Turner dropped this ABC News article on torture on me – apparently the CIA has used its full menu of approved techniques on roughly 12 terrorists. That is more than one in a million, but pretty rare.
And the menu is hair-raising – the open hand face slap, the attention-gaining shirt grab, the pink belly (OK, they call it the open hand belly slap, but I remember 4th grade), and a few more dramatic techniques (standing, sleep deprivation) culminating in waterboarding. Sorry, no wedgies or swirlies.
This medieval torture exhibit is a lot scarier and does emphasize the value of defining one’s terms for the sake of a rational discussion. Presupposing people are seeking a rational discussion, of course.
You know, I don’t mind a debate over torture, and I think bringing instances of it to light is a necessary part of that debate. What I object to here, most vociferously, is the framing.
If you don’t believe that torture of prisoners occurred routinely under the Administration of every President the United States has ever had, most definitely that of Saint Bill, you are probably also a great comfort to Nigerian barristers and a firm believer in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. If you are aware of that, but still contend that “torture” is a unique and despicable feature of the Bush Administration, you aren’t arguing against torture at all; you are simply grasping a stick to bash Bush with, and must consider it singularly unfortunate that he isn’t coercing interns into fellating him—pretty girls sell lots more newspapers than gory torture victims, and if you had a Monica to parade you’d never have bothered to mention torture.
Either way your views are negligible. Whether naif or political operative, you have nothing to say and no moral standing to say anything. The only thing you can do is what so many people like semanticleo are doing: muddying the waters and preventing honest debate rather than promoting it.
Semanticleo is easy to run off; just challenge its snarky comments and baseless allegations and don’t let it change the subject, and when it can’t substantiate its charges it’ll disappear. It’s only a Snark. From the volume of its posts I would guess semi-rant to be either idle rich or a Federal bureaucrat, somebody with no real duties who can monitor the computer 24/7, trolling for things to make snippy comments about. I’m aware that I also disappear in the middle occasionally, but I have to work for a living.
As now. G’night, all.
Regards,
Ric
Basically, the LAPD makes the CIA look like a bunch of pussies. I think those techniques are actually approved by Andy Griffith in at least one episode of Mayberry RFD.
I think Ralph Peters kills the torture argument completely:
Why Iraq’s So Hard: Numbers, Rules & Well-Meaning Fools by Ralph Peters (Lt. Col., U.S.A., Ret.):
Getting back to the actual topic at hand–St. Andrew of the Blessed Heart-Ache–The Atlantic Monthly must be swimming in cash, what with paying both for Sully’s salary and his gold-plated bandwidth.
semanticleo is gobsmackingly stupid.
TW: that’s my reaction92!
I stopped reading Sullivan when homosexual marriage became monothematic. I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the war was still important.
Andrew had turned into Molly Ivans. You just knew the next column, and the one after that could be summarized “Bush sucks.”
I’m easily bored.
Boy, am I ever late to this party – but that’s never stopped me yet.
I think the best expositor of What Is Wrong With Sullivan is, and will continue to be, Mickey Kaus. Kaus has his finger on the core problem, which is the “any weapon to hand” tendency of Sullivan’s argumentation – the willingness to assume a position to argue at any given moment, without consideration for its congruity with previous positions.
No permalink, so excuse the copying from Kausfiles:
I wasn’t an avid reader of Sullivan, but my take was that he lost it over Gay Marriage.
No one talks seriously about Sullivan’s ideas anymore, just his temperament. He’s kind of like Jimmy Carter that way.
I am embarassed to say that there was a point in time where I read Sully regularly, and agreed with him often. Since his implosion over gay marriage, and by extension, torture and the war, he is no different than the Greenwald’s of the world.
At the same time, I am proud to have never agreed with sementicleo, who finds great comfort in fellating frameone and O-dub over at that cesspool. His/her/its next coherent point will be the first.
The only real problem with Sullivan is that he won’t admit that he is a liberal.
He wants to claim to be a “true conservative” because, like all liberals, he believes that it gives his “arguments” some kind of authority. He fails to understand that it is the internal logic of an argument that either makes or breaks the argument.
The reason we get so upset about Sullivan is that he a) claims to be a conservative and b) is used by the media as a conservative to bash conservatism. If this were not the case, he would simply be another lefty blogger who spouted nonesense based on emotion and without any logical constistancy. Instead, he is constantly shoved in our faces as a “conservative” dissenter – even thought that is a huge lie.
However, we should know from experience that liberals don’t deal in rational argument. Instead, they come to conservative sites and make claims of being “lifelong conservatives” who have simply awakened to realize that everything about conservatism is wrong, and expect that to suffice as an argument. Somehow, they believe that mobyism will actually persuade us. I believe this is b/c on the left, they ARE persuaded by such things as status – i.e., they accept whatever claims are made by those who are victims, or more ethnic, etc. Thus, they are conditioned to believe a message based entirely upon the messenger – rather than the message (or argument).
I’m always amazed that these people believe that a conservative will actually read a comment like “I’m a life long rock hard conservative, but Bush is evil and hates the constitution” and suddenly agree, simply b/c some other “life-long conservative” said it. It is pure projection. Because they accept most arguments based entirely on the status of the arguer (i.e., race, class, sex, etc.), they believe conservatives do so as well.
Take Semanticleo in the comments above. He is against “torture.” Others decide to go ahead, take him/her seriously, and offer to logically argue with Leo, pointing out that the argument is meaningless if one does not first define what is meant by “torture.”
Predictably, Semanticleo refuses to play that game. He/she has been conditioned to know that “torture” is bad, that conservatives/republicans are evil and for “torture” and that is enough. Rational thought or arguments do not matter to him /her, and he sees no reason to engage in same.
Indeed, I have attempted this same debate with lefties for the past several years regarding torture. I have yet to have a single one of them be willing to agree to define torture so that we can actually discuss the matter rationally.
Rob Crawford hints at the problem Sully and a lot of the posers have. It’s very easy to be against torture and claim the moral high ground, but much more difficult to say what is permitted under the Geneva Conventions’ frilly language. law. The prohibition on coersion, for just one absurd example, facially rules out any kind of tough questioning – not that illusory threats and yelling have ever been considered ‘coersion’ under the law, but hey, we’re lookin’ for cheap grace here, not for actual salvation. There are a whole lot of other paradoxes here, like the prohibition on trying EPW in ciivilian courts – but Sully and the liberal 2/3ds of the legal world seem to think it is required. Then there’s the problem of mandatory repatriation of EPWs, such as captured AQ “EPWs”, whose home nations generally do not want them back. What do you want to try to do – send them to Switzerland? The posers’ response is always the same – ‘it’s not my job to figure out what to do.’ Like the gods of the past they are happy to hurl thunderbolts and interfere in men’s affairs, but unlike those pagan idols they don’t see fit to prescribe any actual rules about what we *ought* to do.
In short, they’re useless.
As I didn’t start reading Andrew until about a year ago, he pretty much lost me from the start.
What was clear from the first two readings was what I will call the “hissy fit” method of writing style. (Waiting for the accusation of homophobia in 3 … 2 … 1 …) Andrew, for the most part, has stopped bothering to make logical, supported arguments; instead he pronounces Frothing Insinuationsâ„¢ with the righteous zeal of that cartoonish preacher from “Inherit the Wind.” It ends up reading like an extended room clearing hissy fit resulting in the coffee table upended and the Shar Pei cowering under the sofa.
Other than the histrionics, there’s no there there. Gay marraige may be the rosetta stone but there are a dozen other topics that get the same foot stamping treatment followed by the oh, so insulted defensive misogynist defense.
The Andrew Sullivan Formula; Lack of position consistancy, hissy fit type prose, gross victimization howls when challenged or criticized. He’s read by left wingers who get a near sexual shiver when a self confessed “conservative” waxes harpy poetic about Bush, Republicans and the war.
Great Banana has it nailed above:
Well said!
Honestly it was exactly the moment he hit publish on the post supporting John Kerry over Bush. The rabid, bile-filled hate he spewed toward a man he had defended so recently with rabid, bile-filled hate really drove the point home.
I mean, that’s just Al Gore style crazy.
Quite an evocative tableau, BJ, complete with vexing Frothing Insinuationsâ„¢.
Substitute Shih Tsu for Shar Pei, and you’ve got Scott Donlan of Best in Show.
“Substitute Shih Tsu for Shar Pei, and you’ve got Scott Donlan of Best in Show.
Posted by TheGeezer | permalink
on 05/21 at 10:47 AM”
Cover either if them with Pledgeâ„¢, and, voila, no more dust bunnies.
Andrew has a beagle. That he evidently beats mercilessly under the influence of synthetic hormones. I will pray for him. And the beagle.
We judge an action by its consequences, or probable consequences in the world,
Partly. We also judge an action by its motivation. If you waterboard someone because you are a sadist and enjoy inflicting pain, you’re wrong. If you waterboard someone because you value innocent life and you have good reason to believe that waterboarding will help you protect it, then you’re right.
And I’ll say it again, Would you undergo waterboarding to save another human life? If the jihadis caught you and another person  any person, even Sullivan  and the jihadis said that they’d let both of you go home alive if only they could waterboard you, otherwise you go home dead, would you agree to it? Would you even hesitate?
It is your responsibility, as the accuser, to come up with examples of Glen Reynolds’s vileness and evil,
Oh, that’s easy. Reynolds indulges in puppy smoothies.
Anderson Cooper often has him on 360 to present the conservative viewpoint.
The best, most fair discussions are when Anderson has Andrew and David Gergin on together.
The only way you could get more fair is to include Kevin Phillips on the panel.
TW=menage a trois
When the war started I was a daily Sullivan reader. I found him amusing, and occasionally willing to speak verboten thoughts, and to publish emails that went against him. I, too, began to tire of him and his endless Gay Marriage Blogathon. I was ready to buy a fucking tote bag if he would just shut up about it. His meltdown over Bush and the FMA was a bit of a turning point, as was his months of predictable and tedious waffling on endorsing Kerry.
Then I read a parody of him on Ace of Spades. Haven’t been back since.
Reading through the comments bashing Andrew its interesting how many of them describe his defence of gay marriage as being a point at which they decided he was no longer worth reading. And of course his support of Kerry, well that I can understand as pissing off loyal Bushies, or the 28%’ers.
The outright defence of torture displayed here, I feel is a serious departure from liberal democracy and towards authoritarianism, perhaps Andrews recent post of the origins of “enhanced interrogation” or “Verschärfte Vernehmung” might illustrate why. If it the last post of his you ever read, that’s fine with me.
You torture-mongers are a big part of the reason the country is going to hell. It’s a good thing you idiots who support Bush and these dead-end, un-American policies won’t be in charge in 18 months. Reading all this, I’m pretty astounded at what utterly worthless pieces of shit the majority of you are.
You support torture against all evidence of reason. And you’re so cowardly that you hide behind pathetic rationales. You’re even so lost that you mock those who oppose torture.
What the fuck are you even doing in America?