I have hesitated to discuss Andrew Sullivan’s recent interview with Hugh Hewitt for two reasons, first, that everyone on the blogosphere (particularly its right side) seems well aware of it and second, given my past admiration for the writer/blogger, I find it somewhat embarrassing. Andrew, who has proven himself, an agile debater with anti-gay social conservatives was defensive and combative with Hugh, a social conservative who is certainly not anti-gay.
Last week, on Larry King, Andrew looked good, confident and quick on his feet. If he had had time, he certainly would have trounced the social conservatives he was up against, but the segment was far too short for a serious debate. Yet, given more time on Hugh’s program, he seemed to do anything but showcase his debating skills. It was as if he couldn’t believe that anyone would criticize him — or even ask him tough questions — because he shouldn’t have to face such questioning.
Yeah, Hugh asked tough questions, but I’ve seen Andrew handle tougher — from truly mean-spirited individuals. Hugh may have his faults, being he is clearly not mean-spirited.
Hardly the Andrew Sullivan I had seen (and admired) on many a television program — and in person. I recommend you check out Hugh’s post on the encounter with references to other bloggers as well as his own thoughts. His co-blogger, Dean Barnett offers his two cents here.
I have long said that my problem with Andrew’s shift to the left over the past 2 years, 8 months and 3 days is not so much his ideas as his tone. This interview provides a perfect example of what I mean. Hugh asks him if he’s a Christian and instead of responding yes or no, shoots back “What kind of question is that?” Hardly the confident tone of the man who nine years ago on Nightline made the woman whose group was behind the ex-gay ads look like a blithering idiot.
The Andrew on that show — whom I briefly glimpsed last week on Larry King — is not to be found in the transcript of Hugh’s interview earlier this week. And for this one-time reader of Andrew’s blog, that absence is truly sad.
Great post, providing lots of room for thought.
Speaking of thoughts, the one I just read below just scares the bejeezus out of me. Where do the Dim-o-crats get this stuff?
Thursday, October 26, 2006
“How High the Wave? Don’t Just Think 1994; Think 1974, 1958, 1982
By Stuart Rothenberg
With only a couple of weeks until Election Day, we know there will be a Democratic wave on Nov. 7. And we can be fairly certain that by historical standards it will be high – possibly very high. But we still don’t know how many Republicans once considered safe will be swept out of office.
The national political environment currently is worse than it was in 1994, when the Democrats lost 52 House seats, eight Senate seats and 10 governorships, and when Republicans won GOP control of the House for the first time in decades.
You heard me right: It’s worse this year than it was in 1994, when voters were dissatisfied with the first two years of the Bill Clinton presidency.”
YIKES!!! That Rothenberg is a Dem, right? How does he get away with saying this stuff?
#1 – Hey, Kewpie is back! Still trying to either pretend, or perhaps (poorly) satirize, being a Republican.
#0 – Re: the “Are you a Christian?”… Dean Barnett points out that Andrew later gave his readers a false story about it.
It was Hugh’s 6th question, in a series of polite opening softballs. Andrew later claimed to his blog readers, with emphasis, that it Hugh’s “first question!” Showing how horrible Hugh was, blah blah blah.
I do not know if Andrew has corrected the error.
My favorite moments where when Andrew quite seriously (and with little or no evidence of Hugh’s beliefs) told Hugh things like, “You remind me exactly of the Pharisees and scribes in the Gospels.” Ummm…. Guess Who that would make Andrew?
As many have pointed out, the James Lileks parody of Andrew is not to be missed.
Hughie asked questions with the intent to paint Sullivan in a corner.
Anybody who has watched LA Law would recognize the debate tactics Hughie tried to use…
What happened?
Sullivan successfully defended himself to keep out of that rhetorical corner.
And then of course Hughie wilted under the heat when Sullivan asked him tough questions.
I for one, would love to see a debate between the two where Hughie can’t turn up his own mic, cut to a break, and not pontificate (filibuster to use his own words).
In an environment where a moderator wouldn’t allow Hughie to side-steps his own mental fallacies, Sullivan would verbally thrash him.
“Are you a Christian?” is hardly painting anyone in a corner, keogh.
It’s a softball question, for anybody who either knows they are, or knows they aren’t. Which is 98% of the world.
What Hugh did was (1) read Andrew’s book closely – a great compliment to Andrew; and (2) try to ask Andrew some interesting questions he had.
But hey – you want to try to defend Andrew after his disgraceful, laughable inability to handle that? Knock yourself out 😉
Hewitt was, in the tone and manner of his questions, insinuating that Andrew was not Christian and that he is not a Catholic either. In other words, it was personal attack on his faith. Andrew was perfectly right to be defensive, he was being attacked on basis of his faith. It was interdenominational religious bigotry. Obviously to Hewitt’s line of thinking, Andrews Christianity and Catholicism is not of the right sort. It isn’t the “real” Christianity or Catholicism.
If say, it was Nancy Pelosi who was grilling Andrew, demanding, “Are you a Christian”?, “Are you a Catholic”? you would be claiming that she was trying to discriminate against him on basis of his religion. And you would be right.
Hewitt was pathetic and offensive. Andrew should have smacked him down harder.
Considering St. Andrew of the Hissy-Fit’s book is predominantly about religion, and considering that in his book, St. Andrew of the Hissy-fit bashes anyone who takes their religion seriously as a ‘Christianist,’ then asking him his religion in the context of an interview about his book is a completely fair question.
I don’t think Sullington is a Christian, or if he is, he is in name only. It’s long been apparent that he puts his hedonism, his circuit parties, above his supposed faith. In fact, he seems to believe that the purpose of the Roman Catholic Church should be to bless anything he wants to do, and not pass judgment on anything anyone does. If that’s what he wants, he should become an Episcopal. There are religions that permit you to do whatever you want, but Roman Catholicism is not one of them.
#5 – Oh, please! Hugh was not insinuating squat. He was asking.
Gryph – it’s called an “interview”… y’know?
Note the utter defensiveness of Andrew’s VERY FIRST (and second) responses. And how readily Hugh gives him the point, only to be met with further hostility! LOL 🙂
Lileks captured it brilliantly – it’s hard to believe Lileks was doing an improv, on the same Hewitt show Andrew was on. (No benefit of transcript!)
As for your Nancy Pelosi comment – ???????????????????? No, actually, I wouldn’t think she was trying to discriminate.
#3
– Ha
he can defend himself much better. I wouldn’t even try.
But I won’t have you rightists to even try to spin this as “he couldn’t handle it” It was an outside curveball that was intended to set up a knuckleball.
Sullivan saw it, knew the follow up pitch and so he knocked it out of the ballpark.
Like any good debater would…
#3 & #8 = 401k, why are you debating yourself?
Oh, that’s right…sockpuppet rules of engagement.
Glad to see you’re not plagiarizing any more talking points.
Regards,
Peter H.
And no his book is about how Rightists have become ideologues.
And he thinks that conservative ideologues have a hard time maintaining their conservatism while being 100% adherent to their ideology.
Its a rather tame argument yet it has inflamed the Right and the Christianists.
Most likely, this seething right wing anger directed at Sullivan is because, as the axiom says:
The truth hurts.
I hear the interview but had to go back and read the transcript because I was laughing so hard at Hewitt’s backwards logic that I missed most of the questions he was asking. Yes, Sullivan was testy and more than a little stand-offish but who could really blame him? Hewitt’s line of questions was an obvious ploy to get Sullivan tripped up and make a mistake and Andrew was right in calling this tactic pathetic. Although I have no proof to back this up, I have the suspicion that Hewitt didn’t read the book…his questions made it seem like someone else had skimmed it and pointed out a few (very few) passages that were ripe for attack…the Casey excerpt being a prime example of this.
Good one peter.
Hil-arious.
What I find hilarious is Sullivan’s claim that Hewitt “hijacked” his own interview.
Sully is turning into the Michael Jackson of the blogosphere. He becomes more insulated and out-of-touch all the time, and his behavior is increasingly bizarre. But none of the people around him will tell him because he’s too useful to them. And any outside criticism is written off as ‘them’ being out to get him.
He’s already got the oxygen mask thing covered. Pretty soon, he’ll be getting plastic surgery and wearing a surgical mask in public.
Other than the Beagles and the (still unmarried) boyfriend, who is left?
#15: I mean like the people at Time magazine and the Puffington Host. As long as they can parade him around as “someone who used to support Bush, but has come over to our side and now recognizes that Bush is worse than Hitler,” they’re going to keep enabling him in his Moonbattery.
Can they be sued by his next-of-kin, just as John Belushi’s girlfriend was?
To me, anyone who uses the term “Christianist” has lost their credibility and are not worthy of debate. Kudos to Hewitt for attempting the impossible.
Regards,
Peter H.
#18 – Agree. Sullivan’s invention / spread of “Christianist” is a campaign, and I think a quite conscious one, to equate ordinary Christians with Islamists. He knows he can’t really get away with trying to equate Bush to Hitler – but he’ll try to equate Bush to Osama bin Ladin.
All because Bush “only” supports gay civil unions (when States want them), not marriage in full name!
P.S. Another of my favorite parts was when Hugh tried to pin Andrew down on the meaning / definition of the word “Christianist”.
Andrew squirmed and distracted as much as he could, but did finally apply “abuse” and “evil” to the fact that Karl Rove’s turnout machine targets some voters based on their Christian faith. Without missing a beat, Hugh brought up Tammany Hall, which had once famously done the same for Democrats. Andrew: flummoxed. Seconds passed, before he could even form a grammatical sentence 🙂
One might also have brought up People for the American Way and the Democrat 527s of today, which also knowingly target people on the basis of their religious faith… where their religious faith simply happens to be a Left alternative to Christianity, such as atheism, New Age, Wicca, Big Government / political liberalism as such, etc.
Whether you like the term “Christianist” or not, there does need to be a word that describes the particular strand of religious political activism that exists.
For example, to call the Right Wing religion-based Arlington Group “Christian” isn’t exactly true, as it does not represent Christianity formally. You also cannot call them “Christian Evangelicals” either because that also is not accurate. There are many Evangelicals on the Left. And they certainly are not Ecumenical in nature, they really are not representative of much of Christianty in America. Their system of beliefs tends to generally align itself with Dominionism, but thats not quite right either.
————————
I know of course, that no one here would stoop to ever reading Andrew’s blog, but the Gary Wills article he links to is very interesting, I had no idea that Bush’s government was so religion-based.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19590
Gryph, come on. Don’t you Christian-fearers already have an array of about 90 words for the Religious Right?
Starting with Religious Right, Religious Reich, religionists, Christo-nazis, Dominionists, etc., blah blah blah.
And, what pejorative would you coin for the Left’s equivalent religious activism? (Again – used to be Fr. Coughlin, Daley Machine, Tammany Hall, etc. – but today is the Left’s targeting of voters based on their faith in atheism, alternatives to Christianity, etc.)
Andrew Sullivans needs professional help.
Is he always this paranoid, rude, IMMATURE, and obessed with
the poor arab terrorists so called torture ?
Has this out of touch DC beltway socialist
even seen how gay people get hung in Iran ?
As for the election , Barrons is right on, no massive changes.
I am working on the Negron campaign to keep Foley seat for the Pubs just to spite CNN , ABC, and the rest of Media-crats! Enjoy Scottsdale, its a great time of year in AZ.
I am working on the Negron campaign to keep Foley seat for the Pubs just to spite CNN , ABC, and the rest of Media-crats!
Punch Foley for Joe!
First, was this post written by a Jew? What kind of Jew? Reform, conservative, orthodox? Second, why should it matter? Since when do “conservatives” judge arguments based on the attributes of the person laying out the arguments? Sounds like some serious identity politics, early 90s style, to me! Finally, why wouldn’t Hewitt answer when Sullivan returned the question? If it is important to know the religious status and beliefs of the author, is it not important to know the religious beliefs and status of the interviewer?
#2. “Ummm…. Guess Who that would make Andrew?” Ummmmm…..one of the people that are oppressed by the legalistic Pharisees. You know, the people with whom Jesus spent his time. And life.
#6. You know very little about Roman Catholicism–its history, theology (systematic, moral or Christological) or doctrine. Very, very little.
#15. Who’s left? Well, apprently some people that follow the details of his life. (See #14, too.)
#18. That’s funny, because I’ll bet that you use the term Islamist or Islamofascist and take that term quite seriously, as well as the people that use them. For the record, neither are helpful; but both capture something of the reality.
#19. No, it is not an attempt to ‘equate’. Sullivan, being a true Catholic, often reasons by analogies and metaphors. He has never said they are the same thing. He has made it clear, as have quite a few thinking folks for decades now, that the politicization of religion and the sanctification of a certain type of politics is alarming. The process is the same; the content differs.
#20. LOL!! Left alternatives to Christianity?!?!?! Christians aren’t all on the Right. Thanks for perfectly illustrating Sullivan’s point.
#23. Who would Jesus torture? Seriously.
Seriously.
It doesn’t have to be pejorative word, but they do need to be recognized as a group. And I don’t think they are representative of the majority of Christians in this country. They probably are not represnetative of rank and file of whats called the Religious Right either. For example, you will find a real split in views on the subject of whether to accept Civil Unions for gay people. The Arlington Group is against them but I suspect a majority of their rank and file followers are fine with the idea. Dominionism BTW, is not always a pejorative, it is a bona fide branch of Christian Evangelical theology. But it is not descriptive of the the Religious Right as a whole.
Of course it depends on who is saying the word. To you “Liberal” is a pejorative. In fact its an abomonation. So I don’t think you are in too much of position to get your panties in a wad over what such an influencal group among the leadership of the GOP is called. And I wonder sometimes if you turn a blind eye to just how much they do control.
Whether you agree with Andrew Sullivan or not, I think its real interesting just how apeshit Hewitt and others are losing it over his book. I think Sullivan is just pointing out the obvious: that the people calling themseveles “Conservative”, are not.
You should read that article by Gary Wills. One thing that really clicked as that after reading it, it becomes real obvious how the budget and the size of government got so far out of hand. The people that were put into positions of authority, whatever you want to call them, believe that government is the solution to everything as a tool to enforce morality.
Gryph – you blockquote a question from me about THE LEFT which you then flatly don’t address – instead, just repeating your same points about the Right. Makes no sense to me.
Nor do you represent me accurately about “liberal”. I usually (though not perfectly) qualify it as Left-liberal, i.e., crypto-Socialist enemy of actual liberty, when I am using it pejoratively. I use “liberal” favorably in other contexts.
As for the Hewitt-Sullivan – I’m getting the impression you didn’t listen to it, because it was Andrew who went “apeshit” (your word) from the word go.
Hugh was there to discuss Andrew’s book, giving him an hour and a half of publicity and a fair chance to defend the book’s dubious premises. Andrew steadfastly avoided talking about the book (his own book), and was audibly furious at being questioned. QED.
As for whether Bush is a real conservative or not – I have said many times that I think he is not.
Just not for Sullivan’s reasons. Sullivan has these bullshit, made-up “torture” and “Christianist” memes he is committed to spreading – like we’ve seen you do on GP before.
(hit Send early – finishing the thought)…. So it’s been fun, and informative, to see Sullivan have such a hard time answering easy questions from Hewitt. It tells me that much more about Sullivan’s deep confusion. Likewise with seeing Sullivan’s defenders (here) having a hard time, grappling with Sullivan’s obviously-deficient performance.
No, I did not hear it, I did read the full transcript. I thought it was clear that Hewitt was trying to prove that Andrew is not a Christian. Or to cast doubt on the claim.
And Hewitt has made a fool of himself on the Constitution issue. Andrew has posted the whole section he was objecting to. Its not even about the Constitution in the first place.
OK, well all I can say is (1) I did listen to most of it – the beginning and the end, and parts of the middle – in addition to reading the whole transcript; and (2) Andrew has once again been significantly misleading his readers about the nature of the exchanges.
It appears Andrew wants to apply the same tactics in the post-debate as he did in the book-interview-that-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-a-debate: subject-changing, distortion, responding to what he wishes Hugh said instead of what Hugh said, etc.
Oh, my… Gryph the Liberal is once again deciding who has a right to call themselves “Conservative”.
And immediately he follows into a mention of Gary Wills… can Kevin Phillips, Michael Lind, and David Brock be far behind?
Th only ones going apeshit over the book are Sullivan and his supporters. Hewitt made sullivan appear as a bumbling idiot–and only a bumbling idiot can not see that.
{I think Sullivan is just pointing out the obvious: that the people calling themseveles “Conservative”, are not.} In the case of sullivan, that is true, and it embarrasses me all to hell that he calls himself a conservative–I just call him a bloody asshole. He’s so damned full of himself I just wish he’d unfuck himself. He’s one screwed up guy on an ego trip. Hewitt was laughing at him–he thought Sullivan was a joke–like anyone who listened did. Thank God he is not representative of gays or I’d have a really low opinion of them, but then I read the guys here and say thank God–they are nothing like Sullivan.
Kat, I agree. In fact, let me say this: Sullivan is the “Michael Moore” of gay moderate-liberals, if such a thing is possible. Let me explain.
You know Michael Moore as the maker of such docu-fantasy films as Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9-11. Moore’s technique is to start with real events, people, quotes, etc. – but edit them so intensively, and leave out so much other stuff, that the average viewer comes away thinking the exact opposite of reality.
Many lefties despise Moore. They despise him because he makes their movement look silly. A conservative can spot a Moore-head a mile away and rip him to pieces, just by mentioning all the stuff Moore had left out. The conservative walks away having won the argument.
I once read a leftie saying something like, “I condemn Moore, because he makes my arguments – incredibly badly.”
That’s Sullivan. Bush isn’t perfect. In certain areas, Bush probably isn’t a true conservative. There is a legitimate gay, moderate-libertarian critique of Bush to be made. Sullivan claims he’s doing it – but blows it to a degree that I can hardly find words for. He makes it all about him: always pushing the ignorant, hysterical inventions of his deluded and self-absorbed fancy. He makes my arguments against Bush – incredibly badly.
Calarato: All because Bush “only” supports gay civil unions (when States want them), not marriage in full name!
There’s a few issues squished together here, so I want to ask some authentic questions about Bush’s views on the matter.
Does he personally support civil unions, or or is simply willing to tolerate them when states want them? In other words, has he said enough for us to conclude that he’d vote for civil unions if Texas had a referendum on a bill creating them?
If states want to expand actual marriage to include same-sex couples, does Bush support preventing them from doing so?
I know that Bush has made comments about civil unions in the past, but I’m not sure precisely what he has said, so that’s why I’m asking the questions. Another question, of course, is why he is so quiet about any support he might have for civil unions. I doubt it would change my basic feelings about him, but it would make me feel less alienated if he made that part of his discussion whenever he condemned same-sex marriage.
Bush keeps using gay marriage as a campaign issue, apparently. The thing is, I’d probably forgive him for not suppording full equality under the law. But he is appealing to actual anti-gay sentiments among people to get votes for Republican candidates — I don’t think there’s any doubt of that. When he says something like this:
…I think it’s rather clear he’s not appealing to people with specific views about separation of powers. He’s talking to people who think “the instition of marriage” needs to be defended from me an my boyfriend. And that’s just unnaceptable to me and, frankly, indefensible for any self-respecting gay person.
I apologize for the double post. Usually, it prevents me from doing that! 🙂