Sully Addendum

Robbie beat me with his link to the Taranto piece "Sullivan vs. Sullivan."  I urge anyone, especially those who think I am making up or imagining the basis for my critique of Andrew Sullivan (or merely flakking for the President), to read it.

When President Bush announced his (again, idiotic) support for the FMA, Sullivan explicitly talked about how he had supported the President ... in the War on Terror.  (Non sequitur says what?)

Yet now Sullivan flatly denies that the FMA has anything to with his total inability to find a single redeeming quality in George W. Bush – a flawed man by all means, but not the cad of Sullivan's fevered imagination.

Taranto's post lends further credence to the connection between Sullivan's break on the Iraq War and President Bush's support of the FMA.  At the least, Sullivan's previous repeated criticism from the right of the President's leadership in the war belies his insistence that he has been consistent voice from the start.

One may honorably oppose the Iraq war or U.S. prosecution of it, and one is even obviously free to change their views on the war if they don't like Bush's stance on gays.  But it is the disingenuousness of the denials that irks the most.  [HT also to GPW]

Comments

[Jack Malebranche]

I've been watching Sullivan evolve for several years. And I don't really care about torture; there is no such thing as 'moral' war. There is only successful and unsuccessful war in the final analysis. I would say that the very idea that this was a moral war in the first place was the factor that doomed it. I'd rather see a President wonder "What Would Caesar Do?," than "WWJD," if he's spending my tax dollars. Winning wars with minimal damages requires ruthlessness. Behead 100 of theirs for every one of ours, and see where the chips fall.

But what I do enjoy about Sullivan is that I find him really sincere. I really think he grappled with all of this, and I think the fact that he's done a 360 in a few years, at his age and level of experience, shows that he is really, truly thinking independently and actively. (That's so rare!)

Let's be frank: Bush was never a homo-friendly candidate. It was obvious that he would pander to relgious extremists from the get-go. Sullivan supported him anyway. I remember reading his blog before FMA and thinking he was a complete masochist, because he was acting as an apologist for a man who was clearly working agaist him on so many fronts. It's easy to compare opinions over a range of dates and say he's a one-issue guy, but I read along as he worked his way through all of the issues (not just the FMA, but the daily reports from Iraq, etc.) and he seemed to have a slow, tortured (in a Catholic way) change of heart. If anything, he seems more 'let down' and 'disillusioned' than anything. He's not a programmed liberal, that's for sure.

For the record - I don't know Sullivan, and he's never answered or posted one of the emails (some of them nasty) I've sent him over the years, but I just think he, well, tries a lot harder than most.

[Bob Dodge]

I read each of the "old" Andrew Sullivan posts on the Iraq war that supposedly show his inconsistency. The most striking thing about them is not that they pre-date Bush's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, but that they pre-date Abu Ghraib.

Is it really so unreasonable to think that the news of widespread, officially sanctioned torture of prisoners -- first at Abu Ghraib and then throughout the theatre of operations -- would influence Sullivan's opinion on how Bush is conducting the war?

[Malcontent]

He a vociferous proponent of tribunals and something of a torture apologist before the FMA and Abu Ghraib, so his shrill indignation now rings just a bit hollow.

[Bob Dodge]

Here's what I don't get about most of the Sullivan criticism, including yours: The subtext always seems to be, "who's team is he really playing for?" He's never enough of a Bush loyalist for the right wing, and always too moralistic for the gay orthodoxy. Just because he's not wearing an obvious team jersey, the easiest, most facile attack against him is that he must be insincere.

As a longtime reader of Sullivan's, I just don't buy it. More to the point, his sincerity or lack of it is just not that interesting or relevant. I met him once but I don't really know the guy, so the quality of his soul is no more transparent to me than yours is. And on the whole, I'd rather just read his posts and reflect on whether his ideas have anything worthwhile to offer.

For your part, if you find Sullivan's writing on torture so bothersome, why not respond to the merits?

[Downtown Lad]

So I guess 55% of America is gay, since Bush had 90% support after 9/11 and that has now plummeted to 35% . . .

Let's face it, if 55% of Americans have changed their opinion about Bush - how come the only explanation you can come up with for Sullivan changing his viewpoint is because of the FMA.

The stats don't back it up.

[Malcontent]

Responding to every single one of Sullivan's rants "on the merits" isn't exactly feasible here, but I happen to think his almost pornographic obsession with the torture story is bizarre and more than a little transparent. That is my opinion; you may disagree.

I'm against torture (and I don't consider pissing on a Koran to be such), but I'm also against terrorism, and Sullivan used to write with much more indignation and verve about the latter.

If we're going to go down the road of "teams" (it still baffles me that people think I am some mindless megaphone for White House talking points), then I am of a similar mind with Joe Lieberman on terrorism, so what "team" does that put me on? I couldn't care less what "team" Sullivan is on, but I do think he has lost his sense of perspective -- a perspective I once admired.

DL: I'm not talking about 90 percent of Americans, I am talking about (non-citizen) Andrew Sullivan.