Saturday, June 29, 2002
QUOD LICET KAUSI ...:
Just one more note before we perhaps archive this week's posts.
Why is it OK for Mickey Kaus to make a remark implying Sully's chubbiness (scroll down to June 21 entry) by suggesting Bob Hoskins should play him in the forthcoming movie based on the Stephen Glass affair, but when some peon blogger says the same sort of thing, he gets semi-seriously rebuked?
I guess he makes exceptions for his former subordinates (or, as Kaus actually once put it, his menstrual-synchrony partner).
posted by Sully 6/29/2002 05:28:00 PM
�DE-OUTING� FATHER JUDGE:
Given all of Sully�s invocations of 9/11 victim Fr. Mychal Judge, the heroic chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, is he going to read this and advise his readers he was mistaken in claiming that Judge was gay? After all, it�s yet another example of liberal media bias, right? (Or, perish the thought, respond to it?)
These ladies seem to have it down if Sully doesn�t.
SEEING THROUGH SULLY:
The above link came courtesy of our good friends at Warblogger Watch, where we�d also like to direct your attention to this dead-on dissection of Sully by Grady Olivier.
Sullivan's problem, endlessly deliberated and whined over in several media properties, is that he's a Brit in America. Never mind that hundreds of thousands relocate similarly each year, most doing so without the benefit of native comprehension of the language (here we are charitable to Sullivan) and a large bank account. Sullivan may well be the sole wastrel among them who has squandered a ponderable hectarage of newsprint in his incredibly novel project of documenting the experience. When work on the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is at last completed, Sullivan will likely still be banging away about how he feels, like, so oddly American after visiting the orthodontist
Sullivan's career in self-absorption is one of vacillations. One year he tells his devoted Sullivanians that he made a studied effort "to lose [his] accent within months of arriving" in America. The next year he plays Quentin Crisp (though substituting a gym towel for the trademark scarf), bloviating endlessly on foxhunting and other pursuits of Britain's overclass. The year following he embraces America and its innumerable wonders, and endorses military action against anybody anywhere who upsets our sleep.
It�s always struck us, too, that the lad can take himself out of Sussex but he can�t take the Sussex out of the lad.
The harder he seems to try, the more he waxes maudlin about the flag and the infinite wisdom and character of George W. Bush, a man who probably wouldn�t know him from some gum he stepped in a few minutes ago, the more obvious it is that deep inside under the Harvard Ph.D. he�s more aware than ever of his humble origins ... and insecure about them. Thus the wavering between sentimental affectation for Old Britannia and bathetic embraces of �red state� sensibility (this from someone who�s chosen in his entire life in the U.S. to live in �blue states�), two cultures he can never really belong to as fully as he would like.
Hey, T.S. Eliot had the same affliction, going the other way (but at least he parlayed into a Nobel). Whereas, as Olivier rightly concludes in Sullivan�s case:
The endless waffling in self-conception demands an attendant modification in opinion with each change. Sullivan, however, seems to have grown disoriented in the to and fro. Confused as to how and where he should be coming down, he diverts attention from his own insecurity with omnidirectional belligerence.
You might be able to fool us Yanks, Sully (as indeed thousands of your countrymen have since 1776; not that we always mind) but you can�t put one over on them Commonwealthers.
posted by Sully 6/29/2002 05:05:00 PM
YOU FENIANS FORGET A FEW THINGS ...:
William Saletan on why it isn�t so smart for Republicans to exploit the school-voucher decision. The analysis Sully forgot to do in his rush from journalism to cheerleading.
PINK IN THE RED STATES:
Not to beat a dead horse too much, but in his item on the debate Sully says that a younger generation of gay men and women is growing up far from the big cities and shares those heartland values instead of the (implicitly liberal) �urban� values of Goldstein and Vasquez and every other gay person who dares challenge him on any issue.
Is he talking about gay men and women who grow up in places like Laramie, Wyoming?
(If they manage to grow up at all there, that is).
posted by Sully 6/29/2002 01:39:00 AM
Friday, June 28, 2002
YOU�RE THE ONE FOR ME FATTY:
Reading through the two blogs Sully linked to regarding the debate (well, one who then linked to another like-minded individual(ist)), we�re really not surprised. Goldstein has long shown in print that he�s forgotten how to do anything more than preach to the converted, and apparently that�s what he came to do. (That is, of course, assuming that the libertarian bloggers he linked to represented the event accurately, which may itself be a debatable proposition. Eschaton has asked for, uh, independent takes on this).
But what surprised us was his pretense at forgetting the name of Goldstein�s second, although he apparently remembers that she linked gay liberation to global warming (perhaps someone had told him Lomborg would be on the other side?).
This is one aspect of Sully that never fails to annoy us. To wit, does the man ever bother to reread his own website? Or does he just forget in a fevered rush to write about how he doesn�t need an editor?
If you go back there, and scroll down to earlier in the week where he first advertised the debate, you�ll see the name �Carmen Vasquez� written out quite plainly. Hard name to forget ... I think it's even a character in Starship Troopers (the movie, at least).
We did it. Sasha Castel and Clay Waters must have (assuming they hadn�t disdainfully chosen to forget it). Why can�t Sully?
Was he all in a tizzy over the audience not noticing what a hot stud he was?
MISSING LINKS:
Now that we�re getting a little more comfortable with this, we perhaps owe an explanation as to why there was no link back to Sully�s page.
First, we think that if you�re here, you already know how to type in andrewsullivan dot com and go there. Or, God forbid, hit your bookmark.
Second, His Lordship already has a ridiculously high Google score without us adding to it.
posted by Sully 6/28/2002 01:27:00 PM
SMALLTOWN BOY BACK FROM THE VILLAGE:
Well, whaddaya know? While we were in setting this blog up, Sully and a certain tendentious LA Times columnist were out doing the debate thing.
Obviously we weren�t there, so we can�t offer our own take. But we would like to perform our first public service: not letting Sully get off running Richard Goldstein down that easily.
Yes, he caved to Sully in email. But, anyone who read Goldstein�s Nation piece can see for themselves there�s more than just the quote Sully singled out for response, troublesome ones (for his position, anyway) whose authenticity Sully never challenged, and which Goldstein never retracted.
Lines like �I think that after we get the right to marry we should have a party and shut down the gay movement for good," for instance.
And then Eschaton found this choice bit from Love Undetectable, which tends to contradict everything Sully�s publicly asserted about his views on marriage in gay society on his site
So who smeared who here? And who knew?
But if this is how Goldstein fights, it wouldn�t surprise us if Sully took home the prize.
Pity.
HOWELL RAINES SUCK-UP WATCH:
Hmm. At some point in the great summer journey up to Provincetown, the attribution for the �Unfit to Print� quote seems to have disappeared.
posted by Sully 6/28/2002 03:00:00 AM
WELCOME:
So thatMax Sawicky,The Rittenhouse Review, Warblogger Watch, Eric Alterman, Media Whores Online, Eschaton, Scoobie Davis and countless others no longer have to defend truth, honesty, deceny and integrity from Andrew Sullivan�s daily barrage, this blog is hereby launched.
As we get the hang of this, we�ll be posting more frequently. For now, we just want to point to Rittenhouse�s quick and dirty takedown of Sully's effusions regarding the pledge decision (top of page).
UPDATE: Now on top is their entry in the great waistband measure-off our boy started.
posted by Sully 6/28/2002 02:11:00 AM
