I honestly had no idea. Thank you – I guess.

I’m sorry I can’t reciprocate and to me, you are the bit player who often overplays his hand or tramples on the people I admire.

If you wish to know my motivation for coming back to this blog: It has to do with the people I admire genuinely and enjoy reading and learning from: Bruce, Dan, Nick, John, NDT, Matt, Synova, Vera, sometimes RWP or Eric , etc.

But that’s exactly what you aren’t doing, Gryph.

Really – Your lack of self-awareness is amazing. What you are doing is: Going to someone’s house (Bruce’s and Dan’s), loudly announcing how utterly, irredeemably low you think they are (see #27)… and returning to their hospitality again and again and again.

Necrophile or pathetic liar, Gryph – which is it?

(note both are parasites; I think Matt in #32 has your number there)

But Gryph, you have long been one of the worst. So, unless you want to make an admission of hypocrisy here, a reasonable reader gets to rule that out as the true or actual source of your objections.

Caralato, you still seem to be under the misguided impression that you are not a “troll”.

I however, revel in the classification. In fact, I think we are under-appreciated as a species.

It’s always much more interesting to hang out at a place where you disagree with other people than to go someplace and be a sheep in an echo chamber blog where they only thing you ever hear is agreement. Otherwise things get real boring quickly. (And the number of “hits” drops off as well).

And after all, if I wasn’t around, you would have one less thing to be outraged at in your life. Which seems to be a big motivation for you to come back to this blog as well. At least I’m honest enough to admit it.

Now, … Go haunt a house!

…blogress Jeralyn Merritt sees [the mutilated soldiers] as a reminder of America’s sins…Andrew Sullivan similarly laments “the cycle of depravity and defeat.”

America ought to hold itself to a high moral standard, of course, but blaming the other side’s depraved acts on our own (real and imagined) moral imperfections is a dangerous form of vanity.

And, may I (Calarato) add: Of racism. (‘Those brown people can’t possibly have any moral responsibility for their own actions’ type thinking.)

In the blame-Bush or blame-Us reaction of Sullivan and others to the mutilated soldiers, then, we see: Bush Derangement Syndrome, “blame America first” syndrome, liberal moral equivalence, liberal vanity and liberal racism – all rolled into one.

That reminds me of something. Anyone else see the ridiculous self-contradiction in describing anyone as “shallow, monstrous, weak, and petty”? Which those adjectives, by its nature, would exclude at least one – and possibly all – of the others?

Hint: it’s similar to when BDS sufferers simultaneously ascribe to Bush the lowest IQ of any President we’ve ever had, and genius-level powers of making intricate, snap calculations on behalf of evil.

The Bible says, “By their fruits ye shall know them”. In this case, we can recognize BDS sufferers by the self-contradictions of their raving (or the self-contradictory raving of others they choose to defend).

#34 – “Don’t like what Andrew says? Fine.”

Then what would you have to complain about here, Gryph?

“But for this blog to criticize the way he says things is ridiculous…”

But Gryph, you have long been one of the worst. So, unless you want to make an admission of hypocrisy here, a reasonable reader gets to rule that out as the true or actual source of your objections.

What are we then left with? Let’s face it: You don’t like the content of what this blog authors and (some) commentors say. E.g., their daring to point out Empress Andrianna’s lack of clothes. If people here said things the same way, except they were things you liked, not only would you have no objection – you’d be thrilled.

Again, Gryph: If you truly have such a low opinion of this blog’s hosts / authors and commentors as you have given in #27, why the fuck would you ever visit? Something’s off. Either you’re strangely masochistic / necrophilic… or you fear / suspect the authors and commentors are right, and your dumb insults are a desperate measure to try to boost yourself in your own eyes.

That would probably be adequate reparations for the seriously BDS types like Gryph, Ian S, lester, raj, CowBoyBob, Mr Moderate and others.

Since he came down with a serious case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, however, rarely worth the time to hop over there.

Too bad. Maybe one day Andrew will recover….

And if we assume for a moment that Dr. Josef Goebbels’ description of Adolf Hitler is entirely accurate, it would then be pretty hard to quibble with people describing Hitler as a child-loving benevolent leader.

Suskind and Sullivan have the same grip on reality as did Goebbels.

And I never engage in the kind of vitriol he does. And the only time in this post when iI became as vitriolic as he was when I used his own language.

#27 – For someone who supposedly has such excellent reasons to look down on this blog and spit upon it, Gryph, you sure spend an awful LOT of time hanging around.

I don’t look down on this blog, I just think that its utterly silly for its authors and commentors to go around accusing anyone of “Declaring War on Civil Discourse” when thats pretty much an everyday occurrence here.

Don’t like what Andrew says? Fine. But for this blog to criticize the way he says things is ridiculous. If Hillary Clinton was the target of Andrew’s barbs instead of Bush, there would be little outrage from this corner of the blogosphere.

Dan, I’m not sure where you got the idea that I object to your language. I jsut found it ironic that a post by you taking issue with Andrew’s civil discourse or lack thereof yields such vitriol – i.e. UNcivil discourse – from commenters on the right.

Assume for a moment that Susskind’s description of the events portrayed is entirely accurate. I think it is then pretty hard to quibble with Andrew’s description of Bush as a “shallow, monstrous, weak, and petty man.” How else COULD you describe such a President?

Imagine his world: you write and write away at a blog no one visits, work to wrap yourself in the flag by “defending” gay soldiers who don’t have the spine nor character to stand up and be honest, you have to constantly remind people that –despite what you write and the positions you take– that you’re really NOT against the troops or the mission, and then have to deal with the whole debilitating Bush Derangement Syndrome thing.

It’d be tough. I would wish that conundrum on no one. But to do all that and still keep the meds balanced, it’s sheer miracles raining down every day for GrampaGryph.

Gramps: I thought Dan did a good job of nailing down the very point that Andie deserves to have in focus: Sullivan’s penchant for avoiding facts in a story when it doesn’t fit his preconception. Sort of the very thing you and others here wrongly attribute to the Dark Lord Cheney or his puppet, Geo Bush.

The double standard is YOUR standard; it’s pathetic how low the BushHatred character defect takes you into the gutter. The only echo chamber is your voice bouncing off the gutter’s side and traveling down the sewer grates.

That’s why horrific stuff “over there” isn’t important unless it’s useful in a domestic argument.

They’re freaking isolationists.

How else to explain the deliberate blind eye turned to horror in favor of attacking, yet again, some pet impropriety?

Darfur is only important as a stick to castigate the administration for inaction. Amnesty is only an outrage when it can be used as a tool… packing up and going home, the ultimate Amnesty? All for it. Horribly tortured and mutilated and *then* decapitated soldiers… just a hammer to hammer the message “we’re just like them.”

Is the rest of the world even *real* to you?

I have never said serious criticism of the president is uncivil discourse. Both Bruce and I have offered some ourselves. It’s the language that Andrew uses to which I object. And since you object to my language, it seems you object to Andrew’s as well. Thus, you help me make my point. Thanks.

Andrew, like many before him, has (according to this blog), moved into the ranks of \”Them\”. So let loose the rhetorical Dogs of War I suppose. After all, you need to get \”Them\” don\’t you?

I can see the hordes of GP readers and commenter\’s marching up the hillside with torches and Elmer Fudd chanting \”Kill the Wabbit\” now. Or maybe the poor beagle. Whatever. Good ole mob mentality. Gonna burn Andrew at the stake? In the name of St. Bush the Almighty?

Its too bad the standards for \”civil discourse\” that apparently Andrew has violated don\’t apply to this blog.