Back in the olden days before I started blogging I used to read Andrew Sullivan’s blog every day. Once I even emailed him a picture for his “view from your window” series.
I stopped reading Sully a while ago when I got overwhelmed by his rhetoric. Simple as that.
His writing has become more bizarre with time, particularly when it comes to his shameful and embarrasing attacks on Sarah Palin’s children.
Sullivan seems to wrap himself around a meme and can’t seem to let go, something Victor Davis Hanson also noticed,
About every three weeks Andrew Sullivan posts something about what I wrote, apparently because he finds it illiberal—the latest my predictions (before the Obama apocalyptic ultimatums, the Solis tax problems, etc) of a near Obama meltdown. Odd—as I once wrote, my only connection with this bizarre person is a debate once in which quite animatedly he alleged that I had supported torture, before apologizing a few days later when he discovered I had written TMS columns taking the direct opposite stance. So I am absolutely baffled how and why someone like this can continue to be taken seriously: for weeks he peddled vicious, absolutely false rumors that Sarah Palin did not deliver her recent child. On the eve of Iraq, (he now seems to suggest that he was brainwashed by, yes, those sneaky neo-cons), he blathered on with blood and guts rhetoric, mixed with fawning references to Bush, and embraced apocalyptic threats, including the advocacy of using nuclear weapons against Saddam should the anthrax attacks be connected to him. He seems not merely to support any incumbent President, but to deify them, and can go from encomia about the rightwing Bush to praise of leftwing Obama without thought of contradiction.
Sullivan’s latest now is that The GOP Has Declared War On Obama because
This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.
The evidence of this war is that Judd Gregg withdrew – never mind how much praise Gregg lavished on Obama during yesterday’s press conference.
To the casual observer Gregg withdrew because of two main reasons:
1. The pork-laden “stimulus” bill is against his principles and Gregg believes it to be harmful.
2. The Obama administration’s move to place the Census Bureau away from the Secretary of Commerce and under the White House.
As I have posted before, the Democrats locked the Republicans out of the discussions on the bill. The bill was then released first to K Street and to lobbyists, allowing no time for the Republicans to be able to read it before it’s voted on. Sullivan either doesn’t realize this, or prefers to ignore it, stating that the Republican’s very serious objection to a bill whose true cost will be close to $3.27 trillion is due to nothing other than “total political war.”
As a blogger, one tends to learn a few things about the “business” of blogging. No matter what, a blog lives and dies by its traffic. Over the four years I’ve been blogging I have seen people savage others simply because it brings them traffic to their blog.
The Atlantic has Sully because Sully’s bringing them traffic. Just on Memeorandum alone you can find that his “total political war” got him links from nine blogs (ten, if you include mine), all of which are at the very least in the top-9,000 (out of 5 million or so) Technorati blogs.
Unfortunately by doing so The Atlantic, like bloggers who engage into flaming other blogs to generate traffic, damages its credibility.
The only thing Sullivan understands less than reality is what to do with his wedding tackle.
Excellent post.
Conservative bloggers have had a de-linking campaign against Sullivan, but I’ll link to him now and then when his extreme psychosis merits an authoritative smackdown.
Keep up the fight Fausta!
Your disgust is palpable.
I don’t understand why so many conservative bloggers still link to Sullivan and thus reward his reckless arguments. Why not ignore his rants and link to his better work. But that’s not likely to happen.
Ad-driven media is all about attracting traffic to your site. Conventional TV does it with sensational coverage of plane crashes, missing children and other frightening but rare events. Bloggers such as Sullivan do it by starting fights, or by making extreme statements on controversial subjects and thereby becoming the focus of attention as partisans argue with each other all over the Internet. Sullivan is a jerk but he certainly knows his business.
I thought about whether to link to the post or not. Since it’s they only time I’ve linked to him in years and I used most of the text of his post, he can have whatever meager traffic this post gets him but only this time, Jonathan.
Jeremayakovka, sadly, you’re right. I used to think very highly of him but the Palin kids’ thing is inexcusable.
Sorry, Fausta. I didn’t intend my comment as criticism of your linking to Sullivan in your thoughtful post. I’m just puzzled that so many intelligent bloggers continue to play along with Sullivan’s trolling. It’s the same thing that annoys me about watching O’Reilly on TV. By going out of our way to criticize outrageous attention-seekers we give them the exposure they want.
“The Atlantic…damages its credibility?” Sort of raises the question as to just when The Atlantic still had some? The current publisher, John Fox Sullivan, is the same man who is also the head of the Commonwealth Fund which has received millions of dollars in earmarks at the behest of Rep Rangel. Who just coincidentally was paid by one of the publishing companies Sullivan controls to write an unreadable autobiography that went immediately to the remainder aisles if not to some of the congressman’s put upon relatives at Christmas.