― mookieproof, Monday, 9 May 2011 06:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
― Jonathan Taylor-Swift (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 9 May 2011 06:19 (2 years ago) Permalink
monday: "THIS IS THE TRUTH AND YOU ARE WRONG AND TERRIBLE IF YOU DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE IT"tuesday: "you are not a serious person if you don't see it this way"wednesday: "there might be some flaws here"thursday: "i never said it was perfect"friday: "this thing is full of holes"
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 9 May 2011 06:20 (2 years ago) Permalink
saturday: "look how honest and open-minded i am about admitting the holes in this theory"
― mookieproof, Monday, 9 May 2011 06:31 (2 years ago) Permalink
sunday: "hey beardo, let's smoke up"
― mookieproof, Monday, 9 May 2011 06:32 (2 years ago) Permalink
― buzza, Monday, 9 May 2011 06:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
i like him, tho i haven't read him in a while.
everyone always brings up his crazy post-9/11 spasm of calling liberals a 'fifth column' or whatever, but considering he's apologized for it like 4,000 times (the first time a few days after it happened) it seems a bit unfair to hold it against him now when there's about a million other pundits and bloggers who say that shit and worse every day. he's about as much of a 'conservative' as garry wills (and in pretty much the same, largely non-political way).
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 9 May 2011 07:36 (2 years ago) Permalink
i'll take garry wills though!
i did not read him during the wisconsin thing -- i can't keep up unless i am amazingly bored at work -- but i understand he is not a union man
― mookieproof, Monday, 9 May 2011 07:43 (2 years ago) Permalink
I'm completely mystified by the weight given to the opinions of this kook.
― Matt Armstrong, Monday, 9 May 2011 07:50 (2 years ago) Permalink
this guy's famous because he had/has an unusual-for-the-media personality (gay! religious! hawkish! libertariany!) and was online writing about politics at exactly the moment lots of people were starting to go online to read about it, and had something Big to Hold Forth About besides (the blog really started to roll, lol, right after 9/11). so he got super lucky. but i think he's totally fun just as a guy to have around; he has so many passionate, ill-considered convictions about so many semicontradictory things it is hard not to like him. i don't read him regularly at all though.
― difficult listening hour, Monday, 9 May 2011 10:08 (2 years ago) Permalink
don't think he's just lucky - he's very hard-working & traditionally well-connected (old media pro, oxford (pres of the union), harvard).
― portrait of velleity (woof), Monday, 9 May 2011 10:28 (2 years ago) Permalink
just an absurd person, only on the internet
― ice cr?m, Monday, 9 May 2011 10:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
i mean i know he was big pre internet but only wired could he really let his freak flag fly, he seems genuinely insane and uncool to me
― ice cr?m, Monday, 9 May 2011 10:34 (2 years ago) Permalink
like his whole thing of trying to shoehorn contemporary american politics into traditional conservative thought 'sir you are not living up to the ideals laid down by mr locke!' - how out of it do you have to be
― ice cr?m, Monday, 9 May 2011 10:38 (2 years ago) Permalink
The Monday-to-Friday timeline posted above sums up his almost manic twists and turns well, but I started reading him in 2008, and I still do. My initial interest was his enthusiastic support for Obama, and that's still pretty much in place. (He tries hard to appear impartial, and it's sometimes funny when he makes a great show of scolding Obama for something.) Even for someone like me who finds Palin fascinating, his obsession with her can be wearing.
― clemenza, Monday, 9 May 2011 12:43 (2 years ago) Permalink
Juan Cole's tirade a few weeks ago was the best recent attack yet so irrelevant, you know? This is Andrew Sullivan.
I wrote a long thing about my history reading him.
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 May 2011 12:52 (2 years ago) Permalink
He's all id, basically, for better or worse, which is why his willingness to apologize is refreshing. He do needs to stop posting so often – his weekend updates on birds, Episcopalian literature, and genome breakthroughs look like obvious circulation boosting.
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 May 2011 12:53 (2 years ago) Permalink
his links are often golden, like the one he just put up, "the finland phenomenon: inside the world's most surprising school system"
― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, 9 May 2011 12:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
a big portion of the stuff posted under his name nowadays is not actually by him
― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Monday, 9 May 2011 13:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
this is my all time fave sully quote:
"There are so many good reasons on both sides, so many different possible outcomes, that my only sure conclusion is that I'm glad I don't have to make a decision," - James Downie, on the Libya intervention.Wise words. But a blogger has to take a position, even if not make a decision.
Wise words. But a blogger has to take a position, even if not make a decision.
― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Monday, 9 May 2011 13:04 (2 years ago) Permalink
A BLOGGER HAS TO TAKE A POSITION
a new position!let's go fishin' in the river of life
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 May 2011 13:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
(From Alfred's piece linked to above) Longtime readers will have noticed that the bloom is DEFINITELY off the rose when it comes to Obama
I wouldn't go that far. His support of Obama isn't as unwavering as it was in 2008, agreed--that'd pretty much be impossible once someone starts governing--but he's still very supportive most of the time. He was tough on him over DADT, but eventually decided that Obama's handling of the matter made sense. He's been tough on some of Obama's budgetary and deficit dodges, but that comes and goes. When he has what he feels is cause to praise Obama--like with Bin Laden, or the Giffords speech--he still gushes. And I always get the feeling that he's looking to do that as often as possible.
― clemenza, Monday, 9 May 2011 14:40 (2 years ago) Permalink
But a blogger has to take a position, even if not make a decision, for an idea to reach fruition, and to see what condition, our condition is in, can I get a 'praise god.'
― da croupier, Monday, 9 May 2011 15:06 (2 years ago) Permalink
lol
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 9 May 2011 15:28 (2 years ago) Permalink
I read Sully every day. I think his actual value (aggregate of links presented well and at a particular intelligence level) is underrated. I barely care about his opinions (he's pretty much wrong about everything tho admirable re legalization + sometimes torture) but he links to so many ppl that I wouldn't have the time to ferret out myself from such a broad range of opinions and thought that he's very useful to get links to much of the interesting stuff that shows up on the internet.
― Mordy, Monday, 9 May 2011 15:43 (2 years ago) Permalink
most recent example of Monday-Friday thing is Paul Ryan plan serious/adult on Monday dismissed by the end of the week. Also the birther-Palin thing is totally insane and no longer endearing.
yeah in that curatorial respect he's def served as a role model for me even if he's overkill sometimes
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 9 May 2011 15:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
i'd say the major dichotomy for sully is that he reads broadly but w/ no depth
― Mordy, Monday, 9 May 2011 15:45 (2 years ago) Permalink
He can be an incisive, shrewd reader of texts when he wants, though, but yielding to the impulse to blog every twelve minutes surely can't help his reading habits.
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 May 2011 15:48 (2 years ago) Permalink
I'm not convinced he's a great reader of texts. I can name a number of texts he totally misread (most recently his reading of Rush Limbaugh as praising Obama was pretty awful) but you could always say they are due to his lack of focus. I can't think of anything he has "shrewdly" read tho, at least off the top of my head.
― Mordy, Monday, 9 May 2011 16:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
Not to mention his poseur alert sometimes functions as a "I didn't understand this" alert
― Mordy, Monday, 9 May 2011 16:10 (2 years ago) Permalink
have you read Virtually Normal? His essay on friendship, using Moliere's as a base, is lovely.
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 May 2011 16:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
Yeah, his interpretation of Limbaugh's monologue after Bin Laden's death was unbelievably off the mark. As soon as I started reading it--just words on a page, no audio--I thought, "Is he sure this is meant to be taken literally?" Limbaugh's sarcasm was as sledgehammer-obvious as ever.
― clemenza, Monday, 9 May 2011 16:19 (2 years ago) Permalink
yeah no doubt he's tone deaf, i attribute it to being british
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Monday, 9 May 2011 16:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
((its joeks, its joeks))
Virtually Normal blew 18 yr old me away.
His blog was kind of interesting when he was actually going through his falling out of love with Bush conservatism identity crisis I guess. That long term shift underscoring all the short term reversals is kinda rare for such a big name, or rarely admitted to at least.
― Tim F, Monday, 9 May 2011 18:22 (2 years ago) Permalink
he's the jim davis of bloggers!!
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 9 May 2011 19:32 (2 years ago) Permalink
So what's his US Acres?
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 9 May 2011 19:32 (2 years ago) Permalink
ok, but no way this is true. when his interns take over all their bylines get slapped over his posts and he has disappeared during big events (one recently tho I don't remember the event) bc he's sick or whatever which would be impossible if someone else was writing his posts.
― Mordy, Monday, 9 May 2011 20:20 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://www.mediaite.com/online/sullivan-responds-to-ghostblogger-controversy-with-frontal-cortex-defense/
― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Monday, 9 May 2011 21:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
under-bloggers
― buzza, Monday, 9 May 2011 22:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
well apparently i'm wrong. so the only thing that changes when he goes on vacation is that the underbloggers get to put their bylines up?
― Mordy, Monday, 9 May 2011 23:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
Yep, and sometimes it's not his minions but other bloggers (e.g. Ross Douthat).
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 9 May 2011 23:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
As the Palin corpse shows signs of life, Sullivan's been pretty funny the past week trying to mask his glee and temper his five posts a day with deep concern about what a bad thing her candidacy would be for the country. He ought to be honest: anyone one who wants Obama to win in 2012 is praying she jumps in, for the political chaos and for the freak-show entertainment value. Especially Sullivan, whose obsession with her is boundless.
And as much as I loathe her, he ought to award himself one of his own Moore awards for conflating this upcoming documentary of hers with Triumph of the Will.
― clemenza, Saturday, 28 May 2011 17:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
if he gets any more crazy for her theres gonna be a rabbit boiling in her kitchen
― so come right back, we have count dracula and we have adam rich (Hunt3r), Saturday, 28 May 2011 17:32 (1 year ago) Permalink
there's something a bit ironic about a guy whose political hero is reagan being so profoundly unsettled by the rise of a glib, ignorant demagogue, no?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 28 May 2011 17:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
oh c'mon: Reagan gave the impression that he had at least thumbed through a book. And he could write plain English.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 28 May 2011 18:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
I've stated my complete indifference towards Reagan before, but I agree that there was an intellect there (and politically, a formidable intellect)--and next to Palin, he practically came across like a Rhodes scholar.
― clemenza, Saturday, 28 May 2011 18:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
I didn't get a chance to look at Sullivan yesterday, but I caught up this morning and count nine Palin posts--one of which links to a guy who pleads with the media to ignore her. (I guess I now become part of that chain: me expressing my disdain by posting on a guy who expresses his disdain by linking to a guy who expresses his disdain by...paying attention to Palin.)
― clemenza, Wednesday, 1 June 2011 12:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
haha damn dude
― goole, Wednesday, 3 October 2012 18:52 (7 months ago) Permalink
Jesus. I'm in a public place reading that, kind of not noticing the giant picture everyone around me can see...
― Norah Jones Protest Vote (Eazy), Wednesday, 3 October 2012 19:14 (7 months ago) Permalink
But a question: If someone is that out of touch with reality, why are they given jobs as analysts in television or the newspapers? If a dentist drilled into your forehead rather than your tooth, he'd be accountable. Those paid handsomely to examine the American social and political landscape can miss by the same mile and blithely carry on as if nothing had happened.
Agreed (he's specifically talking about George Will). But didn't Sullivan himself flat-out declare that Obama was finished after the first debate?
― clemenza, Thursday, 8 November 2012 22:52 (6 months ago) Permalink
lol @ this dude of all people saying this
― iatee, Thursday, 8 November 2012 22:54 (6 months ago) Permalink
Write to him and tell him that! He'd happily publish it as a Dissent of the Day. xp
― WilliamC, Thursday, 8 November 2012 22:54 (6 months ago) Permalink
I might, though I'm pretty sure he'd say the same thing he always says: he's a blogger, not an analyst, and his job is to write down his immediate reactions unfiltered. That's his umbrella explanation for everything.
― clemenza, Thursday, 8 November 2012 22:59 (6 months ago) Permalink
Andrew Sullivan is the unfrozen caveman lawyer of bloggers
― Lamborghini mercy, yo sledge she's so percy (m bison), Friday, 9 November 2012 00:00 (6 months ago) Permalink
this fucking guy
But he just got RE-ELECTED. It's a classic time for magnanimity - and yet he began the critical negotiations by poking the defeated GOP in the eye. This is not the new politics. It's the old partisanship. I hope it works. I fear it won't.
re Obama's new belligerence.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 18:27 (5 months ago) Permalink
I just heard David Brooks on NPR saying something similar: deep down GOP realizes Obama has a mandate to raise taxes on the rich, but they need some time to get their head around it, so Obama needs to be gentle with them.
― o. nate, Friday, 30 November 2012 22:03 (5 months ago) Permalink
"I can't believe he's acting like the president he said he was going to be!"
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 November 2012 22:04 (5 months ago) Permalink
It's a classic time for magnanimity
It was tried in the past with the very same people and they responded, let's say, poorly. Why repeat a failed experiment?
― Aimless, Friday, 30 November 2012 22:10 (5 months ago) Permalink
my idea of magnanimity: everyone making over 100 G gets their fucking taxes raised back to 1980 levels
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Friday, 30 November 2012 22:28 (5 months ago) Permalink
― before and after broscience (goole), Sunday, 2 December 2012 02:51 (5 months ago) Permalink
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 2 December 2012 02:53 (5 months ago) Permalink
so I went to Mass in Chelsea tonight, and exchanged the ritual Sign of Peace (ie, a handshake) with a bearded, squat congregant -- guesswho?
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 December 2012 03:28 (4 months ago) Permalink
...Santa?
― Todd Terragh - "It's the Harps" (m bison), Monday, 24 December 2012 15:49 (4 months ago) Permalink
think more British and "tortured"
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 December 2012 19:39 (4 months ago) Permalink
Shoulda told him about this place.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 24 December 2012 19:42 (4 months ago) Permalink
Anyway, going independent/pay model, 19.99 a year.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 January 2013 17:56 (4 months ago) Permalink
― iatee, Wednesday, 2 January 2013 18:04 (4 months ago) Permalink
sofa's reallly not working for me, but maybe its just a big dog bed
― Hunt3r, Wednesday, 2 January 2013 18:08 (4 months ago) Permalink
You get a free sofa if you sign up?
― clemenza, Wednesday, 2 January 2013 18:09 (4 months ago) Permalink
Free used beagle sofa.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 January 2013 18:10 (4 months ago) Permalink
Beagle not included.
Anyway, already making bank:
Basically, we've gotten a third of a million dollars in 24 hours, with close to 12,000 paid subscribers (at last count). On average, readers paid almost $8 more than we asked for....If our goal was an annual income of somewhere around $900K (we erred on the safe side), we have gotten a third of the way there in 24 hours, which is why we're all somewhat gob-smacked.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 January 2013 19:59 (4 months ago) Permalink
I guess if I peace him in church again, slipping him a $20 is... something I won't do.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 3 January 2013 20:02 (4 months ago) Permalink
I'm not sure that would be any worse than the collection plate...
― Canaille help you (Michael White), Thursday, 3 January 2013 20:12 (4 months ago) Permalink
Twenty bag might be appreciated by him though
― Canaille help you (Michael White), Thursday, 3 January 2013 20:13 (4 months ago) Permalink
At the Movies with Morbz and Sully
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 January 2013 20:18 (4 months ago) Permalink
oh I don't give cash to Cardinal Dolan.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 3 January 2013 20:23 (4 months ago) Permalink
Hallelujah
― Canaille help you (Michael White), Thursday, 3 January 2013 20:25 (4 months ago) Permalink
Responding to a critique of Girls:
So few qualities in the men? Have you seen Adam with his shirt off? Have you never fantasized about fucking a carpenter with sawdust under his fingernails just after he fixed your creaking door? (#SullyTMI: I pulled that one off in real life in 1989).
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 19:23 (3 months ago) Permalink
if i fucked a carpenter
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Tuesday, 22 January 2013 19:24 (3 months ago) Permalink
fucking a carpenter
this is some weird catholic shit, right?
― Mordy, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 19:28 (3 months ago) Permalink
Sawdust under fingernails sounds really uncomfortable.
― If it were up to you we'd all be eating tea and strumpets. (WilliamC), Tuesday, 22 January 2013 19:30 (3 months ago) Permalink
"See, when I meant 'no glove no love'..."
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 19:34 (3 months ago) Permalink
I see he's in a major retrospective/info dump mood today
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/03/22/flies-collecting-on-a-wound/
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 22 March 2013 18:35 (1 month ago) Permalink
In the summer of 2000, when I foolishly found myself wanting Al Gore to lose (Excelsior!), it was not a strong emotion. In the campaign, Gore was the advocate for a larger defense budget and Bush was all about being a “humble” nation. I figured there wasn’t much difference between them (and I still think Gore would have launched the Iraq War as well).
pretty sure sully becomes a rabid anti-war activist from day one in this alternate universe.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 22 March 2013 18:51 (1 month ago) Permalink
I started reading him regularly in 2002. Was he a pill or what. My memory is of he running a play by play of the troops reaching Baghdad while he called out pussies, wimps,.and traitors
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 22 March 2013 19:20 (1 month ago) Permalink
lol @ Gore invading Iraq
― his girlfriend was all 'ugh and he wears a solar backpack' (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 22 March 2013 19:34 (1 month ago) Permalink
yeah, that's just stupid. i can imagine gore doing some clinton-style bombings but the iraq war happened because cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz, et al got into power, not because it was some kind of inevitable black hole that any president would've been sucked into. pretty much any president who wasn't as stupid and arrogant as W would've held off on an actual invasion.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 22 March 2013 19:39 (1 month ago) Permalink
Saddam never tried to kill Gore's daddy
― his girlfriend was all 'ugh and he wears a solar backpack' (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 22 March 2013 19:40 (1 month ago) Permalink
I'm sure someone can find remarks on ILX in which I said Gore, going by what I knew of him as the hawk in the Clinton White House, might have invaded Iraq. To call for war when necessary doesn't mean an endorsement of all wars, of course.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 22 March 2013 20:05 (1 month ago) Permalink
i think we def would have been at war in afghanistan had gore been president, beyond that it's hard to play carnac
― goole, Friday, 22 March 2013 20:07 (1 month ago) Permalink
i mean, assuming 9/11 still happened
we might be at war in pakistan or iran instead! or the gulf!
― goole, Friday, 22 March 2013 20:08 (1 month ago) Permalink
yeah Afghanistan was a foregone conclusion after 9/11. Iraq, not so much
― his girlfriend was all 'ugh and he wears a solar backpack' (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 22 March 2013 20:09 (1 month ago) Permalink
of course, had we been under a gore admin from 01 to 09 we probably would not be under an obama admin now. assuming the economy stayed on a similar track (no reason to think it wouldn't) we might be under a GWB44 at the moment
― goole, Friday, 22 March 2013 20:11 (1 month ago) Permalink
confounding variable is that the right would have done everything possible to destroy a president gore from 9/12 onward. if the 02 midterms went similarly, maybe they would succeed in impeaching him. a president lieberman! we might be in iraq no matter what...
― goole, Friday, 22 March 2013 20:14 (1 month ago) Permalink
Lieberman woulda gone for Iran imho
― his girlfriend was all 'ugh and he wears a solar backpack' (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 22 March 2013 20:24 (1 month ago) Permalink
who knows? butterfly effect, man. We'd probably be speaking American English, but with clicks instead of consonants. and frozen yogurt would've come back strong by now.
― No, not sinister (Austerity Ponies), Monday, 25 March 2013 20:22 (1 month ago) Permalink