Andrew Sullivan: Hysterical Ninny

If there's anything in the blogosphere more fun than reading attacks on and parodies of Andrew Sullivan, then I don't know about it. Like most conservatives, I used to be a fan, although I always felt slightly nauseous whenever he'd mention "the boyfriend" (sorry, I don't hate homos; just think they're gross).

Naturally, my antipathy stems from around the time his blog began to resemble a Jack Torrance treatment of gay marriage. The dude's incessant, hysterical whining actually destroyed any sympathy I'd ever had for his side of the issue--I had been in favor of civil unions, provided they not be orientation or even gender specific. I didn't quite hate him (I guess I still don't hate him), but I'd only click-on once a week, wear out my mousewheel scrolling for anything non-gay marriage related, and generally feel my respect for him diminish with each visit.

Then the President came out for the FMA (or something like that, who gives a rat's ass, really) and surly Sully became unbearable. I mean, I can understand being a single-issue guy and while I think that's a bit silly, it's at least f***ing honest. But Sullivan had to jump on the opposite side of every issue. All of a sudden, the President was a war criminal; the war criminals were sacrosanct; and his mantra became "smearing fake menstrual blood = torture." Oh, the horror!

But anyway, around the time that Dan Rather shoveled the Bush TANG memos into everyone's living room, and St. Andrew prayed for their legitimacy, I'd had about enough. I fired off an e-mail to him regarding his convenient credulity and a couple of other issues:

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 23:23:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: [DrZin]
Subject: Re: Your Gut
To: andrewmsullivan@aol.com

"My gut tells me [the TANG memos are] probably genuine . . . "

Was it your gut that told you that your obsession with the word "marriage" was more important than preserving and protecting the more foundational institutions that allow you to comtemplate the very idea of gay marriage to begin with? That switching your support to a candidate that refuses to take a stand on either side and in fact intentionally misses a senate vote to preserve that ambiguity, was some brand of principled wisdom?

That the President's history of "smear campaigns," or rather thinly-supported allegations thereof, should be the target of scrutiny for your hit-piece as though such were unique and unilateral to the Bush campaign? As though the Kerry camp has taken principled stances against the MoversOn and the Fahrenhypers with all of their reckless if unoriginal Nazi-based accusations?

Did your gut tell you that Ann Coulter's off-handed and transparently facetious remark about enjoying and watching more television is a comprehensive critique on her entire person?

Maybe your gut is trying to tell you what a great many of us began to realize several months ago: you're growing increasingly full of shit.

Surprisingly, I got an answer back from him within a few hours (props for that). It consisted of quoting the last line of my e-mail above, and then, apropos nothing: "That's what Jonah Goldberg says too, but he'd say anything to praise Bush ." (quoted from memory)

O . K . I thought. I'd never really considered Goldberg a particular White House suck-up, but if Sully's got a problem with him, that's fine. Next time, though, how about addressing what I F***ING WROTE, AND NOT BOTHERING ME WITH YOUR PRISSY, HIGH SCHOOL GIRL, CELEBRITY SLAP-FIGHTS?!?!

Then, a week or two later, I read this:

Jonah Goldberg's column today strikes me as excellent - honest, candid, and largely persuasive. It reminds me why he's easily the best conservative writer of his generation - because he's immune to the kind of ideological cocoon that can prevent others from seeing things clearly.

So, Jonah Goldberg is the "best conservative writer of his generation," "immune to a cocoon" of ideology (nice metaphor, Sully; let that Harvard education shine through), who will "say anything to praise Bush." Isn't it great when someone expresses himself so unambiguously? No wonder the little weasel switched to Kerry.

That's when I knew. I mean, I'd always suspected, but at that point I knew: Andrew Sullivan is an opportunistic windbag, passionate only about that which impinges on his gay lifestyle and agenda or allows him his exhibitionistic, recreational bathos. Even he knows it, in his gut, that he is completely and utterly full of shit.

UPDATE: Ace of Spades on St. Sully's latest hissy fit.