Has Andrew Sullivan gotten even weirder than usual?

Andrew Sullivan always has pet fixations at any given time, and they are often at odds with each other. His cognitive dissonance is taken by some as honesty, and by others as a personality disorder.

I have, however, never seen him this far gone.

Here are Andrew's current obsessions:

1) Effusive support of Barack Obama as the savior of humanity

2) Oddball adoration of Ron Paul (amid discussions of whether Paul is a white supremacist or not)

3) Endless rehashing of Sullivan's fascination with the idea that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites

4) Un-nuanced Tom Delay style Hillary hatred. (Andrew really hates women, an accusation he refutes by pointing out that Margret Thatcher is his hero. Like I said... Andrew really hates women.)

Seriously folks... there are plenty of excellent reasons to hate Hillary, but that doesn't make Andrew Sullivan someone to be admired around here. The fact that he is off on another of his bi-annual "low black IQ" jags should be fair warning to all that the enemy of ones' enemy is not always ones' friend.

Added on Edit: I have never been able to figure out whether Sullivan intentionally balances issues to be edgy or offensive. His latest racial IQ jag began after he endorsed Obama, so it may be part of some passive-aggressive intellectual perversity. Nothing in this post should be read as a criticism of Obama supporters (except Sullivan, of course.) This is not a guilt-by-association thing. This is a "Please don't post this guys pro-Obama writings without recognizing that he's not someone one wants to necessarily associate with their candidate" thing. Many positive things sre written about Senator Obama by sane people.

Although, perhaps that's just a few years away...:shrug:

he's quite good at making his point (he's good at making his point if he's wrong). He just doesn't really get that he's as much to blame for Iraq as any of the other hacks (he knows it, hints at it, but then tries to make himself as a hero for the anti-war, anti-torture crowd).

Hmmmm...


I'd think he'd like JE more than BO, but then again....

:evilgrin:

:hide:

His theory is that he's the only REAL conservative, and anyone he likes must be some sort of conservative.

He's a big-time Democrat hater, so anyone he perceives as a partisan Dem (like JE) he hates.

The big thing to remember about Sullivan is that he craves approval from the National Review people.


You are right that he's a good writer. He is fun to read when he agrees with you. I really hate the guy, but I still read him, when I feel up to it, because he argues well.

Maybe I missed something, I don't know.

he was one of the biggest promoters of the war on terror, and invading Iraq. (He was he one that said right after 9/11 that he expected liberals to aid al queda)

Then, when it became obvious it was a nightmare, he did a 180 while continuing to consider most people who opposed the war to be traitors of some sort. You know the drill: I was right to be wrong. Everyone that was right was right only because they hate America. All smart people were wrong.

I used to send him bunchs of evidence before the war that there weren't going to be any WMD, so I was one of the people dumb enough to be right... because I hate America, I guess. Like Scott Ritter, etc..

Shows ya how much I know. :shrug:

When he's one thr right side of an issue I find him an excellent advocate.

Most commentators have some kind of long-term idealogical consistency, so you know where they're coming from. Sully doesn't.

I used to want to throw a brick through the TV watching him on Bill Maher act like GWB was the Great Liberator.

camille paglia in drag.

:shrug:

he is irrelevant.

Reads him because he feels like he's trying to detox from the koolaide.
I think he's searching for relevance, and seeing what of his old ideation
can make the journey of transformation with him.

I think the answer is his analysis, when he gets a bit more regular oxygenation.
I think that he may be flirting with an admission that the old paradigm ain't workin so
good no mo.

But it's an ugly journey.

He hasn't been on the "black people are stupid" sauce for a year or so. Then he says reasonable people should vote for Clinton. Then he decides he hates Clinton worse than anything, so he decides to embrace Obama. Then he goes through all these conniptions to come up with how Obama is the true conservative, or whatever Sullivan's scene is.

Then, after lavishly endorsing a black man for president he gets back into his racial IQ obsession.

Does he think endorsing Obama gives him cover to get back into the genetic theorizing?

I don't think Sullivan is a big-time racist. I think he has issues that he's not comfortable with. I'm sure Sullivan thinks endorsing Obama makes him a better person, and he wants to be a better person. Then Dr. Jekyll pops out with the race IQ stuff (which he's been off-and-on with since 1994) and you see the person he's trying to make better.

It's fascinating, but like a car crash.

a bright person reach a place where they can neither predict or control
that contrary other inside them. You get the feeling that what seems like contortion from the outside
is their identity de-compartmentalizing their self with an 8lb sledge.

The bright don't always come from enlightened surroundings, and a real inner battle can occur.
I went through it with Vietnam, and the books of Tom Dooley, M.D. and CIA asset.
And having drank the coolaide, I settled back to watch the war from Strategic Hamlets to Tet Offensive on TV.
I had been watching the body counts. Two of my older siblings' friends were there.

And I realized it finally, with a shudder of horror, that I had been actively supporting
an inhumane, paranoid world view, but I resolved to think for myself that day. For the most part, I think
I may have suceeded. Sometimes to my woe.

was the last I've seen of him. It was atrocious pushy ,loud and rude. I took all Gen Clark had to not slap him in the mouth, I'll bet. The Hillary bashing was over the top , "Dick Cheney in a pants suit". No wonder the Gen. defended Hillary. That's what Democrats do when one of our own is attacked by a con.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghh!!!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggghh~!

My cartoon theater of the mind went immediately into stick figure mode
and *still* exploded like a wahabbist chastity belt. It had several recent
close calls with the whole Giuliani candicacy, so it was tinder dry.

Smoke is pouring out my ears, and little stick figures are leaping out.

"The Horror."

as "Dick Cheney in a assless, crotchless, leather chaps"

while Dubya shows apreciation for Andrew's new patent leather cum zipper mask that exposes his buzz-cut.
Yeah, I can see it.

Now heading to the sink to shoot drano into my eyes.

The mental landscape of the log cabin, ToS, company boys just makes me freak a bit.
I have to believe the ever greater fear of humiliation (like going for third in russian roulette, a cause of giddy horror) and the exhillaration of the forbidden are taking their toll on the closet right. The whole 'wide stance' thing made me kinda sad.

Gay white conservatives have so consistently squickd the Republick base.
I think we owe it to them in 09 to have a pachyderm coming out amnesty day.
A day where they can lay out all their page turning and candy striping and no Dem will speak ill of them.
And if we won't, maybe they won't tolerate their own party dissing them.

I mean, no, they can't admit to outing Valerie Plame but if they have a Dick Cheney fixation, and need to get it off their chest, well, in the name of world peace,
I'd tune in.

:hi:

Because I've actually seen Sullivan write that he's not entirely "sold" on Obama but that he's a better choice as America's
face to the world (especially to the Middle East) than IWR/Kyl-Lieberman voting Hillary. On that point, I'd have to agree.
From what I can gather, Sullivan's position on the Democratic primary candidate outcome is much more anti-Hillary than
pro-Obama. In that respect, he may well reflect the feelings of many socially moderate conservatives.

As for the rest, I haven't read enough to know although I enjoy his blog occasionally since he went off the Bush party line
Kool-Aide.

for the atlantic...do a google search. it was pretty sickening to me, because he (and others) view obsma as a "magical negro." for example, he claims his face alone will change the dynamic in the middle east, a point you seem to agree with him on. that view is naive, at best, and perhaps something else, at worst.
personally, i think sullivan's support of obama is twisted and bizarre, much like his fascination with the genetic inferiority of other black people, especially those who aren't half white.

it was the greatest. I counted three different times it was posted here.

and, yes, Andrew Sullivan had placed excerpts from "the Bell Curve" in The New Republic when he was the editor in the 90's.

it was insane, but also very telling. the strangest part of the article was his reaction to hearing obama speak about tax policy. sullivan apparently had an epiphany about his racism when he realized a black man was speaking with authority about something really, really serious :eyes: i don't see how anyone can take this buffoon seriously.

At least the ones who were honest about it - sort of like being a Jewish Nazi, IMHO. Why would anyone voluntarily associate with the sort of people who hate you just for existing? He has to have a really weird brain to wrap himself in those sorts of contradictions. Everything he's done since then just confirms my opinion that this dude has a real problem, and it's not his sexual orientation.

Occasionally he gets it right, but even a stopped clock is accurate twice a day.

He's just really weird guy -- and almost always wrong about everything!

Nothing is more telling of America's low journalistic benchmark, when it gives so much credence to a failed brit. A Tory bareback rider, no less. Margaret Thatcher, indeed.

to get some insight (?) into the rational conservative mindset - though, I have to agree, lately he doesn't seem so rational. His embrace of Obama just doesn't make sense when you've been following him... and his hatred of Hillary is so retro-Republican. It seems like a "you can take the cat out of the alley, but you can't take the alley out of the cat" sort of thing.

I don't know what to think.

one who, in a sane world, would be an obscure asshole. his fascination with obama makes me want to hurl. and yeah, he's a racist jerk to boot, which does make one question his slavish devotion to obama. sullivan needs come serious couch time, imho.

He's basically the enemy. He was George W. Bush's lapdog for awhile.

I still remember how obsessed he was with the Bell Curve and how he pushed the notion that African Americans were naturally inferior to whites. He and his fellow liars Glass and Kelly kept pushing that shit in THE NEW REPUBLICAN for years.

it's as simple as that.

Lonely, alcoholic and trying not to kill one another when one proposes a new audacious claim to "stardom" that the other's electic tastes will not tolerate.

To say they are "a bit odd" is like saying the Mississippi is a stream.

And yet both of them once were rife with talent. I wonder what happened?

he's another fuckin conservative tapeworm.