Mr. Sullivan has shrewdly chosen to jump on my "Jesus Spoon-Playing Christ, who keeps putting these assholes on teevee?" bandwagon, so good on him for that. His particular target: Senator John McCain:
A simple question: why does anyone still take [McCain] even faintly seriously? Why does David Gregory defer to him? Why does CNN have him on to discuss foreign affairs when he as demonstrated catastrophic judgment time and time again? McCain was on the Sunday morning shows 24 times in 2013 – far more than countless other Washington figures with far better records. The year before, he was invited on 21 times.
One of the many, many difference between Mr. Sullivan and myself is that, as a genuine, America-hating, cut-and-running Liberal Fifth Columnist, I spent the Bush Years like most Liberals spent the Bush Years: completely exiled from decent company and shunned and mocked by my own country's media. Nobody wanted to hear what a Liberal had to say. About anything. Ever. Which, come to think of it, was also pretty much the case during the Clinton Administration. And the Bush I Administration. And the Reagan Administration.
Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand, cheerfully dwelt among the monsters.
Vice President Cheney's legacyFormer Vice President Dick Cheney opened up to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about his battle with heart disease. It started a new conversation about his legacy. Andrew Sullivan, who once considered himself a friend and supporter of Vice President Cheney explains why he now calls him a "man who made some of the worst decisions in American history."
He supped with them. Palled around with them. And helped them do their very dirty work.
“The son of one of Rumsfeld’s closest friends was a friend of mine,” Sullivan says. “We met in a gay bar. That’s how I came to have dinner with Rummy and stay at his house in Taos. He liked to rag me about the blog: ‘You’ve done this for years and made no money. When will you make money?’ And we fought about gays in the military. But when it came to war in Iraq, I was more bellicose than he was.”
Another very big difference between between Mr. Sullivan and the pariah Liberals he use to excoriate for fun and profit (and now mostly just pretends never existed at all) is that, while Liberals were (and are, and, presumably, will always remain) firmly parked in Beltway media Coventry, from his ringside seat as Conservatism's very own gay Vladimir Pozner, Mr. Sullivan was able to amass a very impressive media CV:
Sullivan started his blog, "The Daily Dish," in 2000. His articles have appeared in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Esquire. He is a regular guest on "The Chris Matthews Show," "Charlie Rose," "Anderson Cooper 360°," "Meet The Press," "Face the Nation," Nightline," "NPR's Fresh Air" and "Larry King Live."
So my simple question for Mr. Sullivan is this: if you sincerely want to know why David Gregory, CNN, et al continue to fete and fawn over thoroughly discredited failures like John McCain...why on Earth aren't you on the phone with your colleagues right now, asking them that very question?
Calling and asking them over and over again until you either get an answer or a flat refusal?
After which you could -- who knows! -- post what they had to say (or did not say) on your blog?
You know -- journalism.
9 comments:
I cant recall anything recently that has infuriated me more, than the having to watch John fucking McCain and Lindsy fucking Graham stomp their feet and attack this President in the midst of an international crisis of this magnitude.
Much like the word "liberal", the right has managed to abuse and mangle another word over the last decade to the point that it has lost all meaning. That word is "traitorous".
John fucking McCain, calling this President's foreign policy "feckless" and deriding him for having lost this country "respect" on the world stage, and Lindsey fucking Graham, saying that he "rolls his eyes" whenever this President speaks on Putin's abuses should be the description in the dictionary quotes under the word "traitor".
I would literally spit on either one of these two men if were ever to meet them.
....and yes, Andy's hypocrisy apparently knows no bounds.
Sorry for ignoring the subject of the actual post.
P.S. you are rolling!
Sullivan hasn't had a change of heart, he is just defending his current hero.
Obama is an Ike style conservative in just about every meaning. Outside of his failure for the grand bargain, his presidency has been rather good and rather along the lines of what Sullivan and most people (in that circle) wanted. Even more though, Obama has ushered in a new era of gay rights with the financial backing and political pressure of the 1% and the organizations like the HRC they bankroll... you know people and organizations in Sullivan's circle.
Were these characters not personally attacking Sullivan's shining hero on a White Horse, or if Obama was on the same side as them on this issue, Sullivan wouldn't have shit to say.
I wouldn't be at all surprised that once tax and entitlement reform happen (if the stupid fucking Republicans would just say yes for love of god) Sullivan declares himself an Obama Democrat. Riding high on how Obama came along and enacted the prudent conservative principles that everyone agreed needed to be done but the Republicans simply lacked the balls to enact for fear of enraging the crazies.
You should also note Sullivan also feels free to attack the same people who he stood by now that hey are attacking a pope who is OK with gay people.
Make no mistake about it, Sullivan is simply defending his pro gay true conservative leaders... there's nothing there beyond it.
What gets me is all the faux radicals and their squealing that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld hypocrisy about Iraq disqualifies Obama/Kerry from objecting to Russia's movements in the Crimea.
Illegal invasions are illegal invasions, right?
"Obama is an Ike style conservative in just about every meaning. Outside of his failure for the grand bargain, his presidency has been rather good and rather along the lines of what Sullivan and most people (in that circle) wanted"
Moron? Yes...
Failure for the grand bargain? Failure to enact a chess piece he never intended to enact?
God you people hurt my head.
Go hang with the Mad Rack and congratulate yourself on defeating something that never existed..
@ anon 6:10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/06/john-mccain-poll_n_4914175.html
Like "Anonymous" I am tempted to go OT on this post at the outset, and not focus on Sully's hypocrisy and fame as a bold gay "conservative." But I will say that the lead photo is priceless: surely Modo pressing her exposed boob into the chest of a man having no interest in it is a metaphor for how things just aren't as they appear in the ranks of our courtier press. No?
Maybe one of the reasons John Effing McCain, a contemptible old fool if ever there was one, is so popular on the Sunday Mouse Circus, is because his utter failure as a politician and policy maker is so well matched by Dancin' Dave's utter failure as a journalist. How did the old "Soviet Man" joke go back in the USSR: "You pretend to pay us and we'll pretend to work?"
It's the same here on the Mouse Circus circuit. The appearance of policy-making and informed political commentary is far more important than the reality that it's all bullshit. Only an idiot sees the Mouse Circus as a place where real policy is discussed, in the same way that only an ignoramus would see the Sully-Modo photo as a real couple striking a sexy pose.
I, too, wonder how Sen. Walnuts became such a fixture on the talking chucklehead shows. I'm guessing it's a combination of factors: (1) Lazy producers who can't for the life of them think of anyone else to call about some development; (b) Sen. Walnut's craven eagerness to be on the teevee machine, such that he never ever says no; (iii) the lovely familiarity of Sen. Walnuts to the likes of Disco Dave and The Clinton Guy Shocked by Blowjobs - Sen. Walnuts is a known commodity who will show up dependably, and fill time even if it's with patent nonsense.
Any one of these three factors is enough for some folks to get invited on the shows; all three in one package makes Sen. Walnuts simply irresistible.
The reason McCain is on so much is because once you're in, you stay in. (Of course this applies to conservatives only. Democrats that are forced on the media by their high rank are kicked aside instantly.)
McCain found a way to be worshipped by the media in the 2000 primary. That was all it took. He will be permitted to ride that wave until he dies or stops wanting it.
There really isn't any deep mystery around power structures and all that here. It's just that the bookings are made by very tiny men with very tiny brains. If you were worshipped by the media at any time (see Gingrich), you keep that spot for life simply because rethinking that spot takes an ounce of thought.
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