They’ve lost Andrew Sullivan

It’s a poor choice of words, but Sully is a drama queen. He has played this game before — there were some feints towards Dean when he was running strong last year. He’s setting himself up for 6 months of public anguish about who to endorse in November, but then will “relucantly” return to the Dubya fold, citing some combination of Kaus and Hitch as having convinced him.

Ignore him. He and Kaus are furiously scanning the web right now for a nugget from Kerry’s distant past or a recent soundbite that will force them to reluctantly conclude that he is unfit to be commander in chief.

Do not feed the beast.

Ted Barlowe wrote:

I should point out. Nonetheless, when this Administration has lost Sully, they’ve done very badly indeed.

So who ever believed that Sullivan was a solid Bush supporter or that his “support” should be seen as some sort of barometer of political support? As P O’Neil correctly pointed out, Sullivan was on the Dean bandwagon for a while (actually endorsing a Dean-Clark ticket) and was pretty much in the Clinton camp during the 1990’s. Frankly I expect him to “reluctantly” endorse Kerry over Bush under some justification of the panacea of “divided government” or the theory that a Kerry administration would not significantly deviate from the Bush administration on foreign policy and is therefore “safe.”

This is the arrogant person’s “apology.” Nuanced and finely reasoned to give himself maximum benefit of the doubt, without admitting that the whole concept of Iraq War II was plainly and heinously wrong — criminally wrong — on multiple accounts. Bush tried to bomb them into democracy based on a number of transparent falsehoods while simultaneously coddling Israel and making frequent references to his born-again Christianity. Bush’s fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, combined with Carl Rove’s finely tuned understanding of political manipulations, have brought our country to its lowest point in my lifetime. This crisis calls for outrage, not a nuanced evaluation of the strong and weak points of one’s pre-war position.

Were Sullivan serious about his misgivings about Bush he’d follow Howard Stern’s lead and throw his weight behind Kerry. Anything less is an empty gesture.

Well, maybe he’s just being an opportunist again, but I don’t think he’s the only one to have come to that very same conclusion.

bq. Were Sullivan serious about his misgivings about Bush he’d follow Howard Stern’s lead..

Howard Stern? A Freudian slip, no? Or am I missing something?

Harry–Here’s Stern’s page of anti-Bush links, and a couple of Salon stories (yan, tan) apparently about how Stern has been going after Bush heavily and blames this (rather than indecency) for Clear Channel’s decision to drop his show.
(I say “apparently” because I am too lazy to do the day pass right now.)

Didn’t the administration “lose” Sullivan over gay marriage already?

A “drama queen” assessment seems a bit harsh, but Mr. Sullivan hasn’t exactly been Bush All The Way, and his reactions seem more emotional than rational. (Which is fine, and human, and understandable, but which counts against such reactions being a weathervane.)

This rejoicing sounds an awful lot like wishful thinking to my ears.

So now big Saddam-hater Andrew Sullivan has finally signed on to the Daniel Davies point-of-view. Far too late, of course. If the opportunity ever comes your way again, Andrew, pay close attention to the wisdom of JSM right away.

Anyone who noticed the way he got bored with Afghanistan without finishing the job and wandered off to attack Iraq already knew Bush would screw up on Iraq. And anyone who didn’t notice was never qualified to comment.

Avedon, I have to disagree with you. While I knew that Bush was incompetent, what I didn’t know was that the neocons were incompetent (except at bureaucratic infighting). Since the neocons regarded Afghanistan as a sideshow, and Iraq as the main event, I thought they would do whatever it took in Iraq to succeed. Since Iraq was a totally optional war, unlike Afghanistan, the risks to their position were so great that they would do whatever it took to succeed. What I didn’t grasp at the time, but is painfully clear now, is that they are a bunch of bookish intellectuals who knew nothing about how the world really works, and let themselves be taken in by a conman.

Sully is just pissed that the army hosted a naked-man pile-up and he didn’t get invited.

schwa: maybe if you weren’t that prone to sweeping generalisations, you’d have realised there’s all sorts of reasons why people are being “smug” towards Sullivan. Reasons to be found more in his style than his shifting political positions. And it’s not the fact he shifts them. It’s how.

It’s good to change ideas and be open and reconsider your opinions. It doesn’t make such a good impression when you do it just cos you’re stuck in a corner and want to save face.

I don’t have a problem in appreciating the kind of conclusion he draws there. I’ve heard it from other people too. I think it’s only normal for many who were convinced, may be still convinced, of the larger plan, but not of the ways it’s been implemented. OK. Fair enough.

But is this Sullivan the same guy who treated everyone who expressed the slightest doubt on the war plans as an anti-American potential terrorist-supporter idiot with no clue? is he? The guy for whom no one could possibily be simultaneously sane and unwilling to support Bush in his mighty war on terror? A simple “oops, I was wrong” and voilà, he never was that pretentious to consider his opinion the one and only that made absolute sense, nah. A simple “oh yes, there was an argument that actually made sense (I just never bothered with it til now that I’m forced to by those pictures on the front pages everywhere)” – and he’s back with something more to write on, from a morally clean position.

Impressive. Reminds me of Rumsfeld really. Give the man a carpet and he’ll sweep anything under it.

For those who opposed the war, the feebleness of the current command and arrogance of war-mongers is something to laugh at, but also for reflection as well. Those who have been proved right by events also have a lot of learning to do.

Opponents of war were unable to convincingly make their case because the general public were bullied into a fear that avoidance of war would lead to another attack like 9/11 because of WMD. The average voter went along with this on the basis of “better be safe than sorry”, despite the lack of evidence. This is a failure of argument.

For the failure of policy, in future when foreign policy decisions are discussed and made, is there a formal PROCEDURE-based analysis that could be followed to scientifically find out and then evaluate the options available? And be auditable!
Would the current debacle be avoided in the future? Is there a way to avoid being blackmailed in the future into incorrect foreign policy decisions? A process that the average voter would be happy with?

To put 100% of the blame on the current situation on foolish leadership is to bring into question the current institutional structure of the government. We cannot guarantee that fools will not be elected again. Constitutionally, acts of war are primarily a congressional matter, though the president is a short-term emergency leader. Given that the Iraq situation has been bubbling under for many years, perhaps the President should have deferred to Congress. Is this a failure of the institution?

Andrew Sullivan is a very capable and eloquent blogger who — unlike the partisans I see on this comment thread — is willing to at least acknowledge and discuss the contradictions roiling about in his mind. I don’t agree with him, as I’ve written elsewhere about the failures of the so-called Anti-This-War-Now argument. But I at least respect the fact that Sullivan, an important pro-war intellectual, is willing to turn against Bush as soon as ideals and practicalities require it.

Most of the criticisms of Sullivan I’ve read on this comment thread fall into one of two categories: caricature or cherry-picking. Defacing someone’s writing takes a bit more than that.

But I at least respect the fact that Sullivan, an important pro-war intellectual, is willing to turn against Bush as soon as ideals and practicalities require it.

rajeev, that’s not why people don’t trust him.

Shifting your approval based on considered reasoning on precise issues and facts on which you may have doubts would indeed be the ideal situation of any voter.

But Sullivan is neither any voter, nor “an important intellectual”. He’s a paid PR man.

And he didn’t just change his position based on facts and issues and ideals. He went from total disregard and trivialization and misrepresentation of any position other than 100% faith in Bush on the war issue, to back-pedalling just because the shit hits the fan.

Now that those photos are everywhere, he admits he “dismissed as facile Bush-bashing” the *core* argument of those who _didn’t have 100% faith in Bush on the war issue_!

Maybe you think he should be patted on the back for that. Ok. Opinions, tastes, etc. I just happen to think, “the fucking nerve”.

Schwa wrote:

I must congratulate some of the commenters on this thread. They’ve achieved what I never thought possible and put me on Andrew Sullivan’s side. If this juvenile smugness is representative of the quality of anti-war argument before the invasion (and it is) then it’s no wonder we didn’t convince anybody.

Well that and contradictory positions such as:

If we attack Iraq they will use chemical and biological weapons on our troops (but now we’re told that everyone knew that there never were any WMDs in Iraq despite the fact that pretty much every major intelligence service in the World and both parties agreed that he did have them).

If we attack Iraq, the Arab street will rise up against us (but now we’re told by the “anti-war” Left that there was “absolutely no connection” between Saddam Hussein and terrorism).

It’s all about oil for the United States (but we’re supposed to follow the more altruistic leadership of the United Nations, France, Germany, and Russia).

If we attack, we will kill thousands of noncombatants (who were dying by the tens of thousands already due to the previous regime and the UN sanctions).

It was Bush 41’s fault for not finishing the job in 1991 (so naturally we must oppose Bush 43 for finishing it in 2003).

We cannot be “unilateral” and “go it alone” (even though we had about as large of a coalition as we could have every expected to have given the geopolitical relationships of other governments to that region and the available troops).

It isn’t just that those who opposed the Iraqi phase in the war were juvenile in their behavior (and remain so judging by the comments on this forum), it’s more that they were and remain less intellectually honest in their arguments than those who favored going in. The arguments in favor of liberation (concerns over unaccounted for WMD’s, the previous regimes sponsorship and harboring of terrorism, changing the paradigm in the region, humanitarian concerns, etc.) each stood or not on their own merits whereas the arguments against liberation often contradicted each other (even though many who opposed the war have quickly shifted their arguments against as previous arguments have been discredited). Despite the cries of “moving the goalposts” as we have changed tactics (e.g. troop levels) in response to the changing situation, the public believes (correctly) that the overall strategy (remove Saddam, give the Iraqi people a chance at self-government, find out what was going on for the last decade with WMD’s, put pressure on neighboring regimes to reform, etc.) and objectives are the same because that is what is driven by the reasons for liberation. Those who opposed the liberation of Iraq, lost the argument because they failed to make a coherent case for a more plausible alternative.

So we’re ‘juvenile’ in our argumentation against war. Yet you are ‘adults’ in your argumentation endorsing war. Until recently i thought that only bullies and children resorted to violence when they ran out of arguments?

Thorley Winston forgets, if he ever learned, the multitude of lessons history has taught us beginning oh about the time of Victor Hansen’s War about the dangers of hubris as a motivating force in international relations. Those lesson’s aren’t intellectually honest, I guess. For many of us who thought the war was a collosal mistake from the beginning, it all starts there. Thorley, just about every one of your “serious” arguments is based on hubris, which you must now acknowledge.

There’s a bit of a tone of triumphalism among the antiwar crowd, in which I am firmly encamped, which I find depressing. The political forces that accomplished this magnificent disaster remain firmly entrenched in the hearts and minds of the people, not to mention all three branches of government, and I don’t see much of a chance of that changing, beyond a possible razor thin Kerry victory which, at best, leads to paralysis.

The political forces that accomplished this magnificent disaster remain firmly entrenched in the hearts and minds of the people

Metoo.

Of the causes of the neocons success promotion of the war in irak, everything remains, apart maybe the shock of immediate after 9/11.

Big media is apparently unmoved by the fact the u.s. people believe the plane were full of irakis. And only remotely related to the drum-beating of the immediate pre-war (but hey! look at how high the heads roll with the jayson blair thing!)

Politician voted it, all of them, or so. No stone throwing, no boat shaking. Let’s talk vietnam instead.

Neocons see the Shapeable Masses growling a bit. Entomologically predictable anyways. Enter dicrete mode for a little while. Conservative think tanks funds still flowing? Check.

Nowhere, apart from the slightly repulsive “oh how i was wrong” remorse filled individuals, one ounce of self reflection. Guess “how did we come to that” will begin to be a relevant question in twenty years, when it’s safe for everyone, and without any consequences whatsoever.

Till then, it’s urgent to do nothing. And make everything ready for the Next Big Fuckup.

Grmbl. I shouldn’t get all red in the face like that. Not even my president for chrissakes.

Robb Hamilton wrote:

Someone in the Bush administration was clever enough to seize on the “official” definition of WMD — which includes chemical weapons that Saddam was likely to posses but that didn’t threaten America — and to assemble America’s military response as though WMD referred to a credible nuclear threat. Either Thorley hasn’t figured this out yet or isn’t as intellectually honest as he’d like us to believe.

Or more than likely I actually paid attention to the debate which how I know that when the POTUS spoke about WMD’s he was speaking about the chemical and biological weapons as well as nuclear. But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at the link that Robb Hamilton was kind enough to provide:

From the POTUS’ October 8, 2002 speech
http://tinyurl.com/yqfr8

In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq’s military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and is capable of killing millions.

We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, and VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than forty villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least 20,000 people, more than six times the number of people who died in the attacks of September 11.
. . .. .
Yet Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep these weapons, despite international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the civilized world. Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles — far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations — in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work.
. . .
And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems are not required for a chemical or biological attack — all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it.

These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We have learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb making, poisons, and deadly gases.
And we know that after September 11, Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.

It seems pretty clear from this that the POTUS was arguing about a perceived danger of Iraq still having chemical and biological weapons (which the inspectors agreed were unaccounted for) and possibly using them to attack Americans in the region or being able to slip them into the United States either with an agent or through a proxy. Whether the inspectors were correct or not in their assessment of Iraq’s capabilities, the fact remains that Bush when talking about WMD’s was clearly talking about the risks of chemical and biological weapons as well as nuclear.

As far intellectual honesty goes Robbo, if you are going to be so dishonest as try and mislead people into thinking that Bush was not talking about the threat of chemical and biological weapons as well as nuclear when he spoke about WMDs, you should as least not be so stupid as to provide a source which contradicts the thesis of your argument.

Pepi, again:

You are correct Sullivan shouldn’t have dismissed the incompetency argument so trivially. However, over the past year he has brought the incompetency issue up to his audience more than any other conservative reporter. For this reason I call most of the criticisms of his work cherry-picking; anyone who regularly read his site, who experienced his vacillations from issue to issue, would readily acknowledge this.

And where do you get off calling him a paid PR man? Have you read his site? He is by far the most reluctant Bush supporter I’ve ever read. If you’re looking for paid PR men, turn on conservative radio, and if you’re looking to deface a writer without reading his words, please preface your comments with that admission.

“Rajeev, you ask, where do I get off calling Sullivan a paid PR man. Well let me ask you in turn: doesn’t Sullivan a) get paid and b) write for the Washington Times? I rest my case…”

Is everyone who gets paid to write for a newspaper a paid PR man, or only people you don’t like who write for newspapers you don’t like?

What is Sullivan saying that is any different from what Kerry says? Bush F’d it up. The cause was just, but Bush didn’t have what it takes to stear the ship properly. Sullivan had no more faith in Bush’s ability than Kerry himself. I’m not sure if this is an argument for a Kerry president or not. I’ll probably vote for him, but just barely.

rajeev: well, I guess Andrew Sullivan has been such an expert at sneaking in and out of any possible position at the most convenient of times that he might have been both sycophantic, and not sycophantic, depending on the date or passage quoted.

But he was explicitely urging for support for Bush because – despite his gay marriage stance, Christian right freak friends, poor delivery of speeches, poor management of international relations, poor management of taxes, and anything else you may find in the andrewsullivan.com archive – he thought Bush was the one and only to guarantee toughness against the “Islamofascists”.

All those despite’s were dismissed by that kind of absolute faith that, in the war on terror, after 9/11, this was the right man, the right administration. Fair enough! That’s ok! that’s a legitimate position as any.

But point is, Sullivan did not think there were any other legitimate positions at all.

He is now coming up with a one-line apology to the very criticism of the Bush policy on terrorism that he so grossly dismissed, and not just that, but also painted with large brushes as being anti-american, pro-islamofascist, a threat to the western civilisation, and so on…

Yourself, rajeev, did acknowledge he dismissed “so trivially” a rather big argument. I happen to think he also dismissed his own acknowledgement of that very trivially. You can’t spend four years and hundreds of paragraphs deriding anyone who criticises Bush _on anti-terrorism_ and then just, oops, sorry, there were actually solid reasons for perplexity there. That’s not “changing your mind”. That’s sweeping under the rug a rather bad case of sycophancy on your part. Yes, sycophancy. What else is it, when you write things like this:

…the loathed president Bush performed quite well in the aftermath, won a war and saw his ratings jump. Patriotism – the display of which nauseates large parts of the left-wing intelligentsia – proliferated from suburb to inner city. Military budgets went up – and presidential speeches became rallying cries again. And all this happened just when the left was licking its chops at the prospect of eviscerating a man they regarded as an illegitimate, unelected, moronic puppet of evil corporate interests.

Here’s the “opposition to Bush = American-haters” pearl:

Some left-wingers went under-cover; others blurted out what they truly felt – that America deserved to get bloodied – only to find public derision and dismay so intense they retreated to their bunkers. (Yes, Ms. Sontag, that includes you.) And then a happy few decided – what the hell? – that with little to lose, they might as well go even further in their opposition and not only call Bush illegitimate, but the entire war on terror a convenient excuse to ratchet up defense spending, rape the environment, and give Donald Rumsfeld the political version of a Viagra.

He spent YEARS writing this crap in the most rhetorical language, ugly even by speech-writing standards.

Now one-line of half-assed apology should be enough to what, pretend he never wrote any of that?

And since he wrote this:

Before the war, it was inexcusable but not that damning for the mainstream left merely to ignore the rabid, immoral anti-American rhetoric of some of their allies. But during a war, ignoring it is no longer an option. In fact, the mainstream left has a current obligation to declare its renunciation of what amounts to a grotesque moral inversion, to disavow the sentiments that were cheered at Columbia University.

Shouldn’t he be asking the right to overtly disown the statements of Mr “true American patriot” Rush Limbaugh, and assume, in the absence of a public denounciation, that those ideas Limbaugh expressed on torture are, like he says, what the whole right and the President himself thinks too but can’t say in public?

Pepi, I think we can reach some agreement on this one. When you end up thinking someone is both a sycophant and not a sycophant it means you’re barking up the wrong tree. Sullivan’s problem is not that he worships Bush — far from it, as my examples showed. His problem is that he conflates the radical left with the soft left, and in doing so trivializes the valid arguments of the latter. This is why the whole incompetency argument got overshadowed beneath a debate between the right and the radical left over liberation or fascism. Your snippets above show this well.

I hold that one of the most important traits that a political writer must have is the ability to properly categorize those who dissent from him/her. Sullivan has failed in this regard in favor of weighty rhetoric. For that reason I understand why you’re upset at him. But that doesn’t make him a Bush sycophant per se.

dear rajeev, you write:

When you end up thinking someone is both a sycophant and not a sycophant it means you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Er, no, I was being sarcastic about him being both things at the same time. I was referring to his ability to adapt his sycophancy to whatever direction the current pulse of his audience seems to be pointing at. See above quoted passages from latest posts.

Sullivan’s problem is not that he worships Bush

No, indeed.

His problem is that he’s a despicable and hysterical propagandist. There you go. Does that make it simpler?

I hold that one of the most important traits that a political writer must have is the ability to properly categorize those who dissent from him/her.

Really? I think trying to categorize anyone is the last thing one needs to do, ever. Especially people who disagree. Especially on politics.

Sullivan has failed in this regard in favor of weighty rhetoric.

And insane pleas to the media to join in his craving to watch an Al Qaeda video where a poor man is killed. It should be broadcast on the evening news. So that even his family can see it. Because until they and we have all seen it uncut, in full, over and over, we just do not know how bad Al Qaeda really is. Or how relatively irrelevant Abu Ghraib is. In the grand scheme of things. Armageddon. Bring it on. Enough with double standards. Iraqis are terrorists and beheaders too. It must be seen. So that we can get into the warped sick minds of Al Qaeda, and feel the full extent of their insanity. It surely seems to work for some…

For that reason I understand why you’re upset at him.

I’m not the one who sounds upset, judging from Andrew’s latest contributions to his weblog pages.

But that doesn’t make him a Bush sycophant per se.

You’re right. Sycophant is too elegant a word.

OK, so maybe I’m not through defending him. I just checked out his site and found this:

THE RIGHT-WING UNHINGED: Tim Noah collects a few of the more nutty far right attempts to explain away, ignore or just duck the issue of Abu Ghraib. No surprise that the religious right is well represented. But none goes as low as National Review’s John Derbyshire.

Clearly he’s not trying to make Abu Ghraib “irrelevent” — as you say — if he’s devoting space to criticizing the right’s attempt to trivialize it. He often does lambast the right, which is one reason I appreciate his thinking.

Well, I think the difference is right there in what you said: Sullivan is outraged by both the prison torture and the the Nick Berg execution, and wants both to be graphically displayed. Nutty right-wingers agree with him on the Nick Berg issue, but want to downplay, trivialize, and rationalize American torture. Sullivan wants even coverage of both sickening issues; nutty right-wingers do not.

I don’t see any hypocrisy in Sullivan’s position. Just because he agrees with nutty right-wingers — on such issues as al Qaeda and the so-called “liberal media” — doesn’t mean he’s a hypocrite when he criticizes those same right-wingers for ignoring the faults of the US.

Here’s about another (could they ever stop) instance of Sullivan’s pathetic hypocrisy:

http://www.alicublog.blogspot.com/2004_05_09_alicublog_archive.html#108446077542392707

Sully is indeed concerned with the Berg family. Not with the fact he might be offending them and their son’s memory by clamouring for the video to be shown. Respect of personal and family dignity is of course to be dismissed when there’s higher goals such as the war on terror (or a book to sell). He is disappointed that the Berg family is _angry at the US government_ for detaining Nick for two weeks when he was about to leave Iraq last March, preventing him from coming home then releasing him without any protection into the hands of who knows.

Yeah. How dare they expect accountability from a government when these terrorists are so wild?

It’s so amazing, that after spending years making the charge that all Bush opponents equate the US with terrorists, Sullivan and like-minded people would do just that. For a higher cause, of course.