THE WEEK Magazine features yours truly vs. an exceptionally insipid (I know, I know) Andrew Sullivan
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Beauchamp | Inanity | Liberals | TNR — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Charles Krauthammer, Howard Kurtz, and I (among others) were quoted in THE WEEK Magazine's "Scandal of the Week" segment this last issue. The topic? Beauchamp.
Of course, Andrew Sullivan was quoted right there with TNR's still-dug-in editorial staff, making the absurd statement (as only he can do) that, rather than refuting the Beauchamp fairy tales, the "right wing echo chamber" should "acknowledge the undeniable cases of torture and abuse by U.S. soldiers" like "the Marine massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha."
Never mind that the charges -- trumped up and inflated by instigators like Sully himself -- have been dropped left and right against the Haditha Marines. And never mind that none of those issues is the point here. As is Sully's wont, the facts are far less important than his need to dig in against the hated military and the despised "right wing."
The argument here is as inane and insipid as a Republican responding to insults of Alberto Gonzalez with the refrain, "why don't you acknowledge that Janet Reno was a man?" The lack of intellect required to make such a rebuttal is beyond juvenile, and must make one wonder why it was that any ever considered Sullivan the least bit intellectual in the past. Ever.
Of course, when you don't allow comments on your own site, you can sound as stupid as you like and be perfectly insulated within your very own one-man echo chamber. How is it in there, Sully?
Sully?
Never mind.
Adrew Sullivan can be counted on to perennially be the "Conservative" that disagrees with anything even vaguely conservative.
This quote though
Both sides are dug in on this one, said Phillip Carter in Slate.com. It’s striking how hawks and doves alike have instinctively seized on Beauchamp’s dispatches to validate “their own preconceived ideas about this war.” In this game of competing ideological agendas, the truth is beside the point. So, in fact, are the troops, whose stories are relegated to “a kind of Rorschach test that reveals more about how we view the war than its reality on the ground.”
No mention that Beauchamp recanted. No mention that his claims were found to be fabrications. Just a false equivalence between the right and the left. Reality its all just a matter of your politics.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
If Peter Pace would just come out in favor of getting rid of DADT and military Chaplins performing same-sex mariage all of the problems in Andrew's narrow, petty little wrld would be magically solved.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
When aiming at the fish in the barrel that is Andrew Sullivan these days, it's worth remembering that at one time he was persuasive. If it is important to you to ponder how such a talented thinker could become such a self-embarassment, consider this possibility. Andrew was once credible because his ideas were based on honest and objective evaluation of the evidence. In contrast, his current views, which drive him to savage attacks against his former thought-mates, are based purely on emotion. He used to rail against Saddam and his Western enablers, because he had proof of the former's treachery and the latter's perfidy. But now, he rails against Bush's torture and deception, not based on facts, as there are none, but based on his hatred of Bush. Is that because Bush betrayed Andrew? Certainly not on the war, as it is Bush who has stayed consistent, while Andrew has been all over the place. A good guess, and, as Stengel said, "you could look it up," is that the hatred stemmed from Bush's reaction to court rulings that declared state laws favoring hetorosexual marriage unconstitutional. When Bush declared his opposition to Andrew's marriage to his boyfriend, he became Andrew's mortal enemy.
Whatever your position on gay marriage, it should not form the foundation for all of your judgments on the conduct of a war.
Sully was never an original thinker. But he was once such a talented writer that he made up for it. No longer.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
although I do not like the title ... it is kind of redundant.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
for a year or 2 after 9/11. His conservative readers didn't go off the rails; he did. The gay marriage issue absolutely destroyed his brain cells.
As for the Beauchamp saga, everything the left is saying is SOOOOO Rathergate. Does anyone on the left even recognize such a concept as truth anymore, nevermind its importance? Push your narrative. When it falls apart hideously so that the simplest person can understand what happened, whine and use already discredited attacks from previous sagas. They cannot be making inroads with this kind of intellectually flaccid strategy, yet they persist. Whose echo chamber is it again?
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
for using the phrase "intellectually flaccid".
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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.
it's been so long since I took him seriously that I'd forgotten.
His initial meltdowns were newsworthy because he had been a supporter of the Iraq war. After the gay marriage issue became his priority, he turned into a one trick pony.
Andrew's current meltdowns are as newsworthy as summertime weather forecasts predicting it'll be hot in Texas, that the Dems have proposed more spending programs or that the Texas Rangers have blown another season.
Yawn...zzzzz.
Of course, when you don't allow comments on your own site, you can sound as stupid as you like
Be careful. There is a difference between "allowing comments" and only allowing those who agree with you to comment.
:>)
n/t