Does Andrew Sullivan Read Gay Patriot?*
Four days after I said that Andrew Sullivan’s twisting of the Vice President’s acceptance of his openly gay daughter into a vision of Karl Rove and his minions launching attack ads against a Democratic candidate favorably disposed to a gay child showed how eager Andrew was to “to use any news, even that favorable (on gay issues) to the President (or Vice President), to attack the president and his advisors,” he seems to have shifted his tone. In his latest column for London’s Sunday Times, the level-headed Andrew whose columns (& posts) I once enjoyed, emerges once again.
In this piece, he notes both Mary’s good relationship with her father and the Vice President’s stance on the FMA: “by all accounts, extremely close. For good measure Mary ran her father’s re-election campaign; and he was allowed to distance himself from the constitutional amendment in the campaign.” Andrew also acknowledges the president’s “personal tolerance” for gay people, even providing an anecdote to prove his point.
Perhaps my sharp criticism helped remind Andrew how far he had strayed from his rational roots. His column indicates that I was wrong to suggest that “since 02/24/04, Andrew seems only able to see the dark side of this Administration.” For in it, he, as we have long done, recognizes the president’s mixed record on gay issues. A clear departure from his initial post — and his recent rhetoric.
While I take issue with some of Andrew’s points in his latest column, I appreciate his tone and his acknowledgment that the president is not the anti-gay demon of left-wing imagination. Now if only Andrew would adopt the same level-headed tone in his blog, I might start reading it regularly once again.
Kudos, Andrew. Good column.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
* I had considered re-titling this post “One Cheer for Andrew Sullivan” so that the title would be similar to the post I am currently writing I just finished.
UPDATE: Over at Lifelike Pundits, Aaron takes issue with Andrew’s latest Time column, observing that Andrew “wants to talk about ‘his truth’ as defined by his feelings and politics.” Read the whole thing to see that Andrew has not entirely returned to his rational roots.
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Who is Andrew Sullivan?
Comment by Fred Epper — May 9, 2006 @ 6:10 pm - May 9, 2006
The oscillation between “good Andrew” (who can think and write beautifully) and “bad Andrew” (who can’t think, and is only an hysterical emotionalist desperate to please his new Gay Left friends) is, for me, the irritating thing about him as a columnist.
Lately, when I see a “good Andrew” column, I seriously wonder if it isn’t just a ploy to get us (his old audience that he alienated after 2/24/04) tuned in for the next attack of “bad Andrew”. Because he will always oscillate to “bad Andrew”, as sure as the sun rises.
Comment by Calarato — May 9, 2006 @ 8:35 pm - May 9, 2006
President Bush is not an “anti-gay demon”, but permitting his campaign to use us as a vicious wedge issue in the last election does not reflect well on his character, regardless of his personal opinions about gay people.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 9, 2006 @ 9:59 pm - May 9, 2006
Maybe the problem isn’t Andrew, it’s people who can only see one side to any issue. You know, the kind of people that might say things like “bad Andrew” or “good Andrew”.
__________________________
As GPW has pointed out, there have been many times that this blog has criticized the President and the GOP.
However, if you go back and look at Andrew’s columns, I don’t think he disagreed with many more things than GPW, etc. have disagreed on. He does however repeat his criticisms. There is more of a tendency to let it drop here I think. But if you look at just the things that both the GP’s and Andrew disagree with the GOP on, with the exception of the President’s water-boarding hobby, they pretty much share the same disagreements. You could quibble about taxes I suppose, but they still both agree that taxes are a generally a bad idea.
But Andrew as now become a “MoonBat”, while GP and GPW & Co. are still considered loyal conservatives. What gives?
And totally unrelated, but what happened to Coloradopatriot? We disagreed sharply about some things, but I did appreciate what he had to say and contribute.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 9, 2006 @ 10:21 pm - May 9, 2006
Gryph, as I’ve said before it has been Andrew’s tone primarily, but also his attitude on “torture” (where you and I disagree) and Secretary Rumsfeld (whom I support). This column totally amazed me that I had to totally rewrite a followup post I had as it shows that Andrew can acknowledge the president’s qualities without being snarky as he has too often been when writing about the Commander-in-Chief and his closest aides.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — May 9, 2006 @ 10:48 pm - May 9, 2006
Sorry, Dan, but ubless there was a relationship between you and Andrew Sullivan of which we are not aware, I can’t imagine a person of his national repute even visiting such a lightly-read blog as GayPatriot, let alone be significantly influenced by it.
Comment by Trace Phelps — May 9, 2006 @ 11:07 pm - May 9, 2006
Saucer of milk for Trace, please! Meow!
Bush and the Reps are very wrong on gay issues and they deserve any blowback they get for it. A shame that Socialists are the only other option at this time.
I miss the enjoyment I got from reading Andrew. Its hard to see ever going back.
Comment by VinceTN — May 9, 2006 @ 11:30 pm - May 9, 2006
#4 – Gryph – When it comes to people such as yourself and Andrew who choose to falsely and immorally slander the United States on various issues: well, at least on those issues (or ugly false charges), there is indeed only one side and sugar it ain’t yours.
Comment by Calarato — May 9, 2006 @ 11:32 pm - May 9, 2006
As I predicted: for a new appearance of “bad Andrew”, we sure didn’t have to wait long.
Beneath the educated verbiage, he is basically just slagging conservative, political Christians for being conservative, political Christians. Using the book’s cheaper tricks, of course: strawmen, quotes out of context, stones thrown from within glass houses, false comparisons of American Christians to Islamists (the type of animals who could do things like this), and the like.
His overall point seems to be that conservative, political Christians are necessarily thick, hateful people – oh, NOT like Andrew Sullivan – right? No irony there, right?
What a brrrrrrrrrrave “dissenter” we have in Andrew. (Yes – he actually tries to play that card too.)
Andrew, I know you aren’t reading this, but if by some miracle you ever are: You should be deeply ashamed. On pure intellectual grounds, to start with.
Comment by Calarato — May 10, 2006 @ 12:26 am - May 10, 2006
P.S. Not to belabor this – but Dan, I only just caught your Update on the same column I discuss in #9 -
Dan, Andrew is never going to “return to his rational roots”. He will simply continue writing the occasional not-so-bad column. I don’t think that the maintenance of your own intellectual honesty would necessarily require you to praise him, each time he does.
Comment by Calarato — May 10, 2006 @ 12:42 am - May 10, 2006
GrampaGryph writes: “…President Bush is not an “anti-gay demon”, but permitting his campaign to use us as a vicious wedge issue in the last election does not reflect well on his character….”
You’re right about the anti-gay demon part, wrong about the balance tho.
It’s more of the tired and discredited opinions presented as fact. For the record, Gryph, “values” was #4 in the list of items of import to voters in the last national election –far behind the WOT and Iraq, terrorism as a threat to national security, and the economy. In fact, “values” tied with unemployment in the 4th spot of important issues to voters leaving the polls. If you would quit listening to the MSM experts like Dan Rather and getting your news from the DemocratUnderground, you’d know that the argument of “gays-as-wedge-issue” simply wasn’t the case; in fact, “values” translates to far more than “gay issues” to voters –but that doesn’t fit your world view in the GayLeft BDS reality. Please see Gallup’s insightful follow-up to the erroneous MSM mantra at
http://mediamatters.org/items/200412200001
or a more charged & detailed perspective here
http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html
You can argue that “gays” via the FMA were used as a wedge issue by the winning Bush-Cheney campaign, but it simply isn’t true anymore than 1) the Downing Street Memo is a smoking gun on Bush duplicity or that 2) McCain lost the 2000 primary because of the “black baby” rumors alledgedly spread by Rove or 3) that Democrats are pro-gay.
Less than 4% of voters exiting the polls on Election Day 2004 self-identified as gay or bisexual… so let’s also nail the GayLeft notion that our community has clout at the polls while we’re at it, eh?
I think the “gays-as-defining-wedge-issue” in the 2004 election has now mounted the pedestal and gained urban myth/legend status.
Facts always get in the way of opinions for those who prefer to ignore the facts.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — May 10, 2006 @ 10:09 am - May 10, 2006
Final point, “values” as an item of import to voters in national elections continues to spin downward… in ’96 it captured 40% of the voters as THE issue in the nat’l election… in 2000 it captured 34% of the voters as the THE issue… by 2004, it was far far behind even the economy as an important issue.
Gays as a wedge issue, my ass.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — May 10, 2006 @ 10:14 am - May 10, 2006
Also, isn’t it interesting how the phrase “wedge issue” is always what the other side is doing? When your (or Gryph’s) favored side does it, it’s “distinguishing ourselves from the Republicans”.
Generations of Democrats have viciously tried to use class warfare / envy of the successful as a wedge issue. Abortion as a wedge issue. Vietnam as a wedge issue. The current Iraq war as a wedge issue. You see my point.
At the end of the day, it’s a dopey, empty phrase, intended to PREVENT thought from occurring in the minds of listeners. Like, you know, the phrase “Christianist”.
Comment by Calarato — May 10, 2006 @ 10:34 am - May 10, 2006
Calarato, well said. Ditto
Comment by Michigan-Matt — May 10, 2006 @ 10:38 am - May 10, 2006
Aaron has no claim to “rational roots” either, his evaluation and dismissal of Andrew is based primarily on theological differences, not logical arguments. Basically a “because the Bible says so” point of view. Or more accurately what he thinks the Bible says.
________
Andrew probably does read the blog occasionally, he has linked to it in the past. In fact, he often comments here under the names “Caralato” and “Michigan-Matt “.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 10, 2006 @ 11:08 am - May 10, 2006
Gramps, check those meds –fast. Your grip on that little space of reality has slipped. LOL
Comment by Michigan-Matt — May 10, 2006 @ 11:46 am - May 10, 2006
Andrew’s problem is written throughout the article without ever being clearly stated. He sees any position that does not support gay marriage as a desire to “strip all legal protections from gay couples.” While I can understand his passion for the issue, this characterization is grossly inaccurate, distorted and prejudicial to any rational discussion. One may as well say the proposed FMA seeks to strip all legal protections from brothers and sisters, as they, too, are generally prohibited from marriage to each other. He also seems to accepts the Left’s caricature of Republicans on a whole as racist, homophobic bigots. He makes no effort to explain why a belief that foreigners should not be able to illegally enter the United States with impunity, that businesses should not employ those who entered the U.S. under false or fraudulant premises and that the government should take appropriate actions to enforce the laws they enacted is inherently anti-immigrant or anti-Hispanic, but instead offers it as a given that both he and his reader know as a fact.
I, too, at one time read Andrew as a well reasoned voice with a perspective different from my own, but now simply find the filters he places on his own perception to be too distracting.
Comment by submandave — May 10, 2006 @ 4:55 pm - May 10, 2006
I have to agree with the first part of comment #2. Before I stopped reading him a couple years ago, that was exactly what it was like. Whiplash.
#6, I suspect you’re wrong. I bet he reads this blog because he cares about the gay community a lot and he cares about writing a lot and these guys know how to write. That’s one of the reasons we are mad at him, it’s not like some dingbat went over to the other side, he’s a talented writer who seems to have gone batty
Like #7, I miss his voice.
But as GPW says in #5, how could he turn on Rummy?
We should expect Andrew to be emotional. As the saying goes, our strengths are our weaknesses, and that’s his. That’s what drew me to him, I found his blog several years ago after hearing him on the radio. He was arguing for gay marriage and instead of just debating the points he spoke eloquently of the emotions involved. He pressed his opponent to consider the personal issue — “How would you FEEL if you couldn’t marry the person you loved?” That’s a valid contribution sometimes. Many times. And a blog is a great place for it.
But our emotions can sometimes get the better of our reason and that’s what it looked like to me when I stopped reading Andrew. I just couldn’t take it.
I admire Secretary Rumsfeld greatly, and I appreciate the Bush Doctrine, and I do not see how someone who argued so eloquently for the war can swing into rage against the very arguments and principles he had so recently been supporting. Instead of using what he knew about Secretary Rumsfeld to check his instincts on the true role of US torture in the current military conflict, Andrew allowed himself to discount everything he knew about the man and his previous actions. I don’t pretend to know why. I doubt that it has to do with winning new friends. But who knows.
All I know is that he stopped making sense. If I can’t respect him as a thinker, I can’t much enjoy him as a writer.
I didn’t realize he was still writing good columns, I have moved on to other writers now. No one else I read has linked to him lately.
Comment by Sarah Rolph — May 10, 2006 @ 6:10 pm - May 10, 2006
Read the book “Cobra II” and see if you can maintain your respect for Rumsfield. Sorry, but his critics are a lot more than just “a few dead-enders” as he likes to say.
Comment by Patrick (Gryph) — May 10, 2006 @ 8:58 pm - May 10, 2006
Submandave, you spell out some of the points with which I take issue in Andrew’s column.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — May 10, 2006 @ 10:01 pm - May 10, 2006
Sarah, before you –or any other thoughtful, informed American– pick up “Cobra 2″ as Gryph suggests, take a second out and check out the british liberals’ “STOPTHEWAR.COM” or the American version “ANTIWAR.COM” or al Jazeera’s take on the build-up to the Iraq invasion because all three are perfectly insync with Cobra 2.
It is, in short, a collection of observations by disgruntled generals and liberal journalists who don’t think Rumsfeld’s efforts to reform the Pentagon, the services, the budgeting/purchasing process, deployment of troops and assets or base closures were good policy.
These are people with a very dull ax to grind and they’ve chosen to do it on the grindstone of the Iraq liberation effort by the coalition of willing nations.
They take aim at Rumsfeld and his alleged repudiation of Gen Colin Powell’s “doctrine” that one need to build up or amass an overwhelming force of arms before beginning military operations. At one point, they even call upon Cap Weinberger’s ghost to help the authors trumpet the “Powell Doctrine” as some sacrosanct (sorry Gryph for using a religious term) doctrine of immutable persausive force in military planning.
We’ve had lots of famous generals who were unwilling to enter a fight without a near-guarantee of success the Civil War’s Gen McClellan is notable). The so called “Powell Doctrine” is nothing new nor are a small group of grumbling retired generals critical of the SecDef in ANY Administration.
So, before you pick up that copy of Cobra 2, understand that it’s written by people who have a dull ax to grind and are using the Iraq liberation effort to do it… you can get a similar analysis by spending 5 minutes on al Jazeera. That’s the real crime of Cobra 2.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — May 11, 2006 @ 9:11 am - May 11, 2006