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.

McCarthy, Coulter, and Conservative Faggotry

Was McCarthy perfect? Of course not. Was he right? Of course. Was he 1000 times more morally upright than the communists and anti-anti-communists? Absolutely.

The reason that McCarthy’s legacy is what it is today is that otherwise well-meaning, good conservatives abandoned him to the smear campaign of the communist sympathizers. Pure faggotry, in my opinion. McCarthy was right, there was a real crisis, and if any lives were “ruined,” it was the result of simple-minded or treacherous scheming to prevent a righteous purge of Soviet spies in the U.S. government.

A little balls goes a long way (or would, if conservatives would ever display them)and I respect the f*** out of Ann Coulter for what she’s trying to do. Her very point, now illustrated brilliantly by the mass-cowering on the right, is that there’s no way that the Left can have an honest debate, so they appoint legions of sacrosanct tribunes with “absolute moral authority” in the hopes that conservative civility will prove a barrier to any kind of challenge.

Veteran amputees, Vietnam “heroes,” mothers of war dead, widows of terror victims, black “victims of racism” are all enlisted to dish it out and not take it . . . it’s a pretty clear and effective strategy.

The stakes are too damned high for these people to get a pass and there can be no doubt that the crucial battle is not for Iraq, but for the will of the American people. Thank you Ann Coulter for not conceding; it's too bad you weren't around to take on the anti-anti-commies.

Adapted from previous post on Tim Blair

Zarqawi and Nicholas Berg's Dad: Both Gone

Nick Berg's dad's reaction to Zarqawi's pastoral purchase makes me feel all the more sorry for the guy:

Nicholas Berg's father, a pacifist who is running for Delaware's U.S. House seat on the Green Party ticket, said al-Zarqawi's death is likely to foster anti-American resentment among al-Qaida members who feel they have nothing left to lose.

The dude is so far gone, that he thinks the way to resolve this conflict is to try to get our favorability ratings up within the Islamic fascist demographic.

Berg's dad is a complete nutjob, but God bless him.

Seriously, imagine his suffering. I'd say 10 times and 50 times, respectively, what the Jersey Girls and Mother Sheehan have endured. Let me qualify that a little bit:

Camera-shy Cindy lost a son, but he fell in battle, fighting for the United States of America, on a dangerous mission for which he volunteered. Of course it's tragic, but as far as I'm concerned, if you absolutely have to lose a son, that's the f***ing way to go. I'm proud of him, so surely his own damned mother must be, at least a little. That's got to mitigate the grief some.

Those Jersey broads' husbands died anonymously and the details of their passing are unknown. It's quite likely, therefore easy to imagine, that they went fairly quickly and painlessly and with their dignity intact.

But Berg's dad . . . wow.

Bent over before a video camera, his son's head was jubilantly carved off with a knife. All the while the savages--the sickest most evil savages on Earth--shout out praise to their god, believing that this butchery in some way pleases him. Then, the savages take the images and see that they're digitally reproduced millions of times and delivered before horrified, celebratory, amused, jeering, pitying, inspired, or shocked eyes all over the world. And as it stands, basically, the humiliating ritual slaughter of his son is to be witnessed millions of times by millions of people for the rest of time.

I know this would drive me insane (although I doubt that I'd seek solace in pacifism). Regardless, considering his suffering, I believe he's entitled to far greater sympathy than the women. I've never felt terribly affronted by the dumb things he's said because I honestly don't believe he's actually out to exploit his son's murder, unlike those 5 despicable media vulturettes. As far as that goes, I'm with Ann Coulter.

So, Nick Berg's dad: dumb, perhaps; misguided, certainly. But forgiven, by me at least.

Taranto Demonizes Pro-Law Opponents

The Wall Street Journal's incomprehensible pro-illegal immigration demagoguery continues. In his two most recent editions of "Best of the Web," Opinion Journal editor, James Taranto hits a variety of snarky notes and is clearly following the White House strategy, i.e. a campaign to marginalize opponents of the President's plan (which is, I believe, leaving stacks of blank "citizenship cards" on 7-11 counters across the Southwest), including the editors of conservative master-journal, National Review and supertalented, hawkish hotty, Michelle Malkin.

With menstrual zeal, Taranto lashes effeminately out at what he refers to as "the nativist right" complete with a race-baiting attack on Malkin, "who celebrates America's wartime excesses" as he claims, by having "actually written a book defending Franklin D. Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans." He even links to a page on her site that makes a damned good argument, that even if not fully persuasive,* should at least preclude the pretentious indignation that Taranto affects to support his cowardly and well, weenie attack. I mean he sounds like effing Al Franken or something.

Don't get me wrong; I generally really enjoy Taranto and love the Journal. I haven't missed a "Best of the Web" in probably 5 years. But when it comes to the subject of illegal immigration, there is a truly bizarre logical disconnect on the part of the Journal and her editors. I don't know if it's just a raw pro-business bent, or some slavish devotion to the Bush White House. Certainly the former is preferable, but either way, it's incredibly wrong-headed. Taranto doesn't even offer the slightest hint of his preferred solution to the situation, although I imagine it won't be a whole lot different than whatever our misguided Commander-in-Chief comes up with.

I pray that my party and it's representatives return to American Reaganite conservatism sometime very, very soon. The world is scary enough without a suicidal subversion of our laws, sovereignty, and national borders.

*I personally have considered the internment of not just Japanese, but of the Germans and Italians that made up nearly half of internees, to be unfortunate, but totally justifiable, and at the very least, far, far from the historical atrocity it's been made out to be.

Alright, the Doctor's Been Out for Awhile

Strangely, or not, my first post back begins with a rail against President Bush, whom I generally like, but of whose shenanigans I am growing tired.

The fact that he surrenders the debate on immigration by referring to people, whose very first act upon entering our nation is a crime against our national sovereignty, as "undocumented" is as egregious as any misdeed he's commited since ascending to the presidency. I am growing absolutely nauseated by our party's representatives continual usage of such malicious euphemisms. What's next? Bank robbers as "unregistered customers" making "coercive, unauthorized withdrawals?"

The President and the Republican leadership's relentless equivocation in the debate and marginalizing of the opposition, i.e. their own base, by employing such canards as "America is a nation of immigrants" and "there are some who argue that we should deport all 12 million" is just so incredibly infuriating that I am truly starting to hope for a Republican drubbing this November. Pragmatically, I believe that would be a disaster, but screw 'em; let them learn a few G-ddamned lessons about representative leadership and there just might be a chance for some guys to come in and renew the Reagan Revolution; hopefully they'll bring their testicles along with them.

That the President has caused me to share feeling with seditious fruitcakes like Kos and MM , namely doubts about his sincerity and character, is very disturbing. Mr. President, of course you know that America is not a nation of illegal immigrants. But you seem to be doing your best to make it so.

The Doctor is Zin . . .