Maybe you missed the highly publicized period a few weeks back when a handful of Republican Congressmen and leaders criticized Rush Limbaugh,

In what alternate universe do two people constitute “a handful”?

Winning elections is an important step towards being a credible political movement, but so are things like intellectual honesty and empirical evidence.

Then I think you should be able to provide both, right?

Fantasies…. FANTASIES????? Have you looked at Obama’s budget projections for the next five years? Even fellow liberals know his numbers are about as real as a day dream.

Best wishes,
-MFS

Dan’s new blog nickname. Sisyphus. Constantly pushing uphill, against liberals who are dumb as rocks

But of course, when Obama spends quadruple the amount that Bush did, it’s OK.

Since the spinning shill Levi refuses to say that Obama’s spending is wrong, he has no right to criticize Bush. Indeed, all Levi’s posts are is a demonstration of how liberals like Levi project their own inability to criticize their black Messiah and their own willingness to set aside any principle or morality for the sake of the Obama Party onto Republicans.

Alright, I’ll bite…

Three words: Comprehensive… Immigration…Reform…

Wait, I can name that tune in two… Harriet… Myers…

Well, what did I win?…

Best wishes,
-MFS

The answer to when I started losing interest in him is in my archives. I have learned it does no good to dredge up past posts when debating with you, so if you want to learn that just do an advanced google search for references to Sullivan on this blog.

It’s amazing how you keep digging your hole, based not on facts, but faith, a faith built on the animus expressed on left-wing blogs.

We do tolerate vocal critics. I mean, Levi, do you realize that it takes time to respond to your comments? Do you realize that I have rescued dozens of your comments from the spam filter? If I didn’t tolerate critics, I’d have deleted them and banned you. But, I don’t.

I take the time to respond to you, but it does me no good. You’ll continue to hold your fixed view of me no matter what my response.

We are truly the devil’s disciples of your creed.

So your criticism is based not on reality but your own prejudice.

Look, I can believe you had your points of contention with George Bush. He directly contradicted himself so many times, that as individuals, I’m sure you did get a bit angry from time to time. But as a broader movement and as a political party, was that individual anger channeled into any sort of vocal criticism that could potentially get back to the President?

It quite clearly wasn’t, as Bush continued to spend like a madman. Angry individuals obviously made the decision that any concerns they might have had needed to be subordinated so that the group could continue winning, which again, is what binds your coalition together.

I’m curious, when did you switch to despising Andrew Sullivan? If he was out ahead of most other conservatives for pinging Bush on his spending, as you say he was, why has he been totally ostracized by the party? A similar thing happened to John McCain – he generated a fraction of the enthusiasm that George Bush created, and a person he ran against, Ron Paul, was dismissed out of hand by most Republican rank-and-filers. If Andrew Sullivan, John McCain, and Ron Paul are better conservatives than Bush, why are they so marginalized or loathed by the conservative movement?

It seems to me, they’re on the outside because they were examples of vocal critics. You guys just aren’t built to tolerate vocal critics. The Republican party is built upon a series of fantasies, not to put to fine a point on it, and so anyone that pipes up about the emperor having no clothes has to be discarded. There’s no room for Sullivans or McCains or Pauls because they spoke truth to power.

It’s either already true in the minds of those making the baseless charge (despite the disconnect between truth and reality — that never seems to be an issue no matter how many links to the contrary) or it’s merely leveled to distract for the purposes of attention, i.e. to stir up trouble on a right-leaning blog. Answering such comments the first or second time might be understandable (depending upon the uniqueness of IP addresses), but repeated proof proves both futility and the purpose of the comment having nothing to do with truth. Arguing with a tar baby merely greets you with a blank stare and only serves to get you dirty.

If that listserv was archived, I could cut and paste the proof.

And it wasn’t just me. Go back and read the Wall Street Journal. Or any conservative blogs up and running in ’03 and ’04.

One reason I first started reading Andrew Sullivan regularly in 2003 was that while he then had respect for the then-president, he did not hesitate to take him to task for his spending habits. Other conservatives appreciated his willingness to call Republicans out on their spending.

And John McCain said his fellow Republicans were spending like drunken sailors–this back in 2004.

So your criticism is based not on reality but your own prejudice.

A little rhetorical advice: anyone who uses the words "always" or "never" flags themselves as unserious.

Democrats always…
Republicans never…
Gays always…
Jews never…

Best wishes,
-MFS

L: But you didn’t critique Boooooosh early enough in his term.

That wasn’t exactly my initial point. I’ve always maintained that Republicans only got around to criticizing Bush at the end of his term, after he started to become a political liability that no one wanted anything to do with. Far from proving me wrong, posting a bunch of links to articles written in the 2006-2008 vindicates that point completely.

If I’m scoring points, it’s not because I’m moving the goalposts, it’s because you guys are scoring on yourselves.

You want someone to give a sh*t about what you think? Win an election.

Winning elections is an important step towards being a credible political movement, but so are things like intellectual honesty and empirical evidence. The Democrats simply have a better combination of those qualities at the moment than the Republicans do, because again, you’ve put your focus on winning to the detriment of your party’s coherence and cohesion.

First, he says here:

First among those points is that yours is a party that focuses almost exclusively on winning elections as a means of gaining credibility

But then what does he use for his credibility index?

You want someone to give a sh*t about what you think? Win an election.

The test of political principles doesn’t come when your party is in inglorious decline, it’s when your party is ascendant.

Which says what exactly about Farva’s complete lack of criticism of the Democrats? (Except for, “Oh, perhaps he shouldn’t have hired that nice, b-r-i-l-l-i-a-n-t man with the inconvenient tax history.”)

You are correct, ILC and Livewire, Farva has not shown himself to be anything other than a partisan hack. And a bit of a conspiracy nut.