Stupid Shit Andrew Sullivan Says, Ctd.

What infuriates Andrew Sullivan most about Alec Baldwin?

It's the double standard!

...there is a glaring double standard here. It seems to me that this double standard cannot stand any more. And this raging, violent bigot cannot be defended any longer.

Yes, Mr. Sullivan really, really, bitterly detests those goddamn double standards:

...
What a bunch of hypocrites and phonies on that propaganda network [MSNBC]. They’re almost as bad as GLAAD, which has finally – finally – criticized the bigot. But, of course, they haven’t called on MSNBC to fire him...

There will be no consequences. With liberal homophobes, there never are. If you’re a conservative and are caught yelling these slurs at random people, you’d be fired pronto or buried in an avalanche of gay protest. If you’re a self-entitled liberal, you’re fine. What, I wonder, will MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Thomas Roberts and Jonathan Capehart say about this? Nothing, I’ll bet you.

Which is why, when it's Alec Baldwin yelling something stupid over his shoulder (and thereby single-handedly destroying New York's hard-earned reputation as a G-rated, family-friendly Disneyland-on-the-Hudson), Mr. Sullivan absolutely revels in his firing:

I just believe that explicitly homophobic slurs directed at actual human beings as a way to degrade them doesn’t have a “but-he’s-a-liberal” exception. It’s ugly and would not be tolerated if directed against any other minority group. MSNBC did the right thing.

And yet...

And yet...

And yet...when it's Andrew Sullivan's friend Niall Ferguson writing something much more deliberately and premeditatedly destructive, well, hey, let's not get crazy here (emphasis added to attract the eye):

Niall defends his article and, on the CBO Obamacare numbers, claims that I don't "understand the issue that well." He says that none of the critics have addressed the substance of the piece - and that it's all a liberal lynch mob. That's insane. He's right that calls for him to be fired are egregious and over-the-top. But the criticism we've run on the Dish is entirely devoted to data.

Likewise, when the stupid thing Alec Baldwin yelled over his shoulder at a paparazzi stalking his wife and child might also have been anti-gay, obviously all mitigating factors are irrelevant, any attempts at an apology are a ruse and his character witnesses are a joke:

...my post was motivated above all by a sense that Baldwin’s public support of gay equality is somehow reflexively used by him and other liberals to excuse this classic homophobic behavior. It wasn’t him so much as his liberal enablers that got my goat as I wrote at the time.

...

Subsequently dragging his gay hairdresser out in front of the paparazzi he supposedly disdains doesn’t help either. Nor does making cringe-inducing jokes about his love for another man in public.

And yet...

And yet...

And yet...when a deliberately and premeditatedly destructive thing Andrew Sullivan's friend Niall Ferguson says is viciously anti-gay, obviously all mitigating factors should weigh heavily in his favor, his apologies are sincere and Mr. Sullivan is only too happy to personally stand in as a character witness:

I am obviously an interested party to this. I’ve known Niall as a friend since we studied history together at Oxford. This has not deterred me from criticizing his public arguments on the merits, so I’m not a suck-up. But I have known the man closely for many years – even read Corinthians at his recent wedding – and have never seen or heard or felt an iota of homophobia from him. He has supported me in all aspects of my life – and embraced my husband and my marriage. He said a horribly offensive thing – yes, it profoundly offended me – but he has responded swiftly with an unqualified apology. He cannot unsay something ugly. But he has done everything short of that. I am biased, but that closes the matter for me.

What is there left to add...

...but this by Mr. Andrew Sullivan?

...there is a glaring double standard here. It seems to me that this double standard cannot stand any more. And this raging, violent bigot cannot be defended any longer.

For the record, having spent the last six years building a career out of borrowing the entire Liberal critique of the Right, filing off the serial numbers and re-marketing it all as "Real Conservatism", Alec Baldwin remains virtually the only Liberal Mr. Sullivan ever writes about.

And now, back to the great American pastime...