Friday, December 12, 2003
FOR THOSE TOO POOR OR OTHERWISE TAPPED OUT ...:
If you, for whatever reason, have decided to take a pass on opening your wallet (and you can still change your mind), or even if you have, you might want to go over to this year�s Koufax Awards for left-leaning blogs and bloggers and cast a vote via the comments section for us as Best Single-Issue Blog, where we have garnered some support.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 12:46:00 PM
COMPULSION:
Glen at A Brooklyn Bridge checks up and find Dana Milbank has hardly conceded:
That�s a concession? Well, maybe, in the sense that Milbank has graciously conceded that the horse had been beaten enough: anyone who was going to get it already had.
then adds:
But that leads to two questions. What is it about this administration that feels compelled to fabulate* even the most trivial events? What is it about the Sullivans that feel compelled to defend any and all fabulations*?
*New words, related to "fabulous," which see. See also my copyright attorney.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 12:35:00 PM
GODLESS? REALLY?:
TBogg is led to a trail we blazed by Sullivan�s offhand remark about Dean.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 12:27:00 PM
BIG PICTURE MAN:
Woody at We Report ... You Deride with another take on why Dean might have said �Soviet Union� when he meant �Russia�:
Did Howard Dean say something unconscionably stupid when he kept saying �Soviet Union� for �Russia� when asked how we could keep nuclear equipment out of Iran? Only in a political sense. Any governor who runs for president is presumed to know nothing about foreign affairs until he proves otherwise. Dean made a mistake that every opponent will throw in his face.
But why he did it? And how could he do it? According to recent studies, there is a perfectly sensible reason. Bright people tend to store information conceptually � the specific term used to refer to the item is secondary.
If the name for the item or concept changes, it�s much harder for those people to remember it. For example, I am aware that the NFL�s �Houston Oilers� moved to Tennessee, but I still forget in casual conversation. (I have the same problem with �African American� for �black� just like my parents used to sometimes call blacks �negroes�.)
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:53:00 AM
IN CASE YOU WERE STILL WONDERING WHY PEOPLE WRITE THINGS LIKE ANGELS IN AMERICA:
Arthur Silber has more on how it wasn�t what Reagan did about AIDS that still enrages today, it was what he didn�t do.
Shilts� book is filled with details about the Reagan administration�s general lack of concern with the AIDS crisis, including how it seriously misled Congress a number of times about both the nature of the crisis and what the administration was doing to meet it. Of course, it is anyone�s right to be an apologist for the Reagan administration and its AIDS policies. But if you�re going to follow that course, you should at least be honest about the kinds of actions, and inactions, that you�re apologizing for.
And then try to make your peace with your conscience as best you can.
And leaves no doubt about who he�s talking about here:
What is it with Sullivan? Does he have to lie as a matter of course? It would appear so. He clearly cannot meet opposing views on the merits of their arguments.
[...]
For Christ�s sake. This hardly merits refutation. But for the sake of thoroughness: first, who the hell ever said �Reagan deliberately foisted HIV onto the population of the United States�? Precisely no one, that�s who. Before I forget, with regard to Bobby Kennedy: I just suspect, dearest Andrew �but mind you, I can�t be sure of this, it's just the whisper of a suspicion in the back of my mind � that perhaps the reason people don�t cite Kennedy as �the true soul of modern conservatism,� particularly with regard to the AIDS crisis which surfaced in the early 1980s, is BECAUSE HE WAS KILLED IN 1968.
[...]
This is not a minor issue. This is a major failing given the policies followed by the federal government in general � and if one examines the available historical record, it clearly stems from the extremely negative views of homosexuality held by many in the Reagan administration. And that fact deserves condemnation.
But none of this reality for Sullivan. It might necessitate his having to question his conservative faith. And none of that for dear Andrew. And make no mistake: faith is all it is. His belief in the policies of �modern conservatism� has nothing to do with a record of achievement � there is none, except for the destruction of liberty and freedom; with facts � which would force him to acknowledge the profoundly destructive policies of the current administration, as well as of Reagan�s time in office � the singular achievement of which was the rise of the New Right (as detailed in the second half of this post), which is hardly unrelated to the still largely negative views of gays held by those in important positions of power in the current Bush administration; or with reality � which might lead to a deep dissonance between Sullivan�s homosexuality and the people with whom he apparently prefers to keep political company.
I do not envy Sullivan at all. I would pity him, except that I find it very difficult to find that degree of sympathy for him at this point. I simply cannot fathom how someone can so endlessly seek to ingratiate himself with those who despise Sullivan and all gays, in those rare moments when they are honest � and his efforts at pleasing his slave-masters even extends to grossly distorting Reagan�s record with regard to AIDS.
The moral: don�t believe a word uttered by self-proclaimed pot-bellied, hairy-backed bears.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:41:00 AM
WHY THE WESTERN MEDIA IGNORED THAT IRAQI ANTI-TERROR DEMONSTRATION:
Because it was sponsored by depraved Stalinist butchers, and Sullivan always told us we should know a cause by who is behind it.
UPDATE: Riverbend adds:
The Iraqi communist party and SCIRI were also involved. The irony is seeing SCIRI members hold up the �NO TERROR� banners (they could start by not terrorizing the Al-Iraqiya station because the anchorwomen don�t wear hijabs�).
There were other demonstrations in some provinces, and they�ve all been lobbed together with the one in Baghdad. The truth is that some of them were actually anti-occupation demonstrations, like the one in Khaldiya. There were large crowds demonstrating in Khaldiya, demanding the release of boys and men who have been detained for over 3 months in American prison camps.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:36:00 AM
UH, DO YOU REALLY THINK IT�S SUCH A SMART IDEA TO BE SAYING THIS IN PUBLIC?:
In fact, it has largely displaced a large amount of my paid work.
We have some news for you, Sullivan. One of the reasons our blogging has been light this week so far is that, pledges or no, we found we had to make a choice for a couple of days.
This is serious abuse of his brand. He can cop to this because he knows that, at least for now, it will not hurt him with the people who might hire him because they�ll be getting, oh my God, Andrew Sullivan, to write for them.
But, Andrew, eventually that attitude will catch up with even you. Enjoy the view of the surf while it lasts.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:32:00 AM
YOU SAID IT, PAL:
Smart of me to insult a hefty section of my readership the week I�m begging for money, isn�t it?
But what else would you expect from someone who regularly makes a point of pissing all over his employers in public and then acting like his inevitable firings were part of some sort of grand PC conspiracy against himself?
If you�re that reader, we know how you can express your displeasure.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:27:00 AM
PAYBACKS IN AMERICA:
Whether people really do fall asleep watching or not, journalistic ethics demands that Sullivan make full disclosure that he hasn�t gotten over Kushner saying this two years ago.
This is a world in which the Netherlands becomes the latest European country to lurch to the anti-immigrant anti-Muslim right through the offices of a gay politician assassinated by an infuriated vegan anti-mink farming gun-toting lunatic, and I am simply too old-fashioned and maybe just too old to explain to you how we got from Stonewall to Pim Fortuyn, I�m still trying to understand how it is that I pay taxes but I can't marry my boyfriend, but I bet you can get the Netherlands and more explained for you on http-backslash-backslash neocongaypundit.com, and maybe you could have gotten that guy, you know, whatsisname, to come to explicate further the future we face of new crusades and the clash of cultures and how laws against discrimination and hate crimes are actually bad for gay people.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:23:00 AM
FORGIVE OUR DEBTS, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO REALLY, REALLY, SCREW US OVER:
But of course, Sullivan misses one point: It was not a particularly good idea to do this on the same day you send fixer extraordinaire James Baker out to ask those same countries to forgive all or part of their Iraqi debt, as Josh Marshall, first among equals, notes. (In any event, we fully expect this decision to be gutted a few months down the road, when some French, Russian or German company is �certified� by a major campaign contributor as being the best at doing the job. As Marshall also notes, the prohibition doesn�t extend to subs, and the administration has even hinted this may just be a squeeze to get debt relief).
And just what the hell does Kristol/Krugman have to do with this? Oh, maybe this,which argues, basically, while quoting Bush�s rationale, that what�s really going on is a neocon plot to sabotage any effort by Baker and the pragmatists from the first Bush administration to exercise some restraint over them, and which explicitly says:
But I�ve always found claims that profiteering was the motive for the Iraq war � as opposed to a fringe benefit � as implausible as claims that the war was about fighting terrorism.
UPDATE: Marshall points out that this is hardly going to hurt France and Germany economically or politically, but makes our position even worse:
Think about it. The whole pot is about $20 billion. Let's imagine the French and the Germans both got fabulously lucky and their companies managed to land contracts for a billion a piece. Does anyone think that Germany or France are going to write off billions of dollars in Iraqi loans or invite a backlash from their anti-Iraq war publics by sending in some troops all for the privilege of having the French or German versions of Halliburton or Bechtel make a few million dollars?
Of course not.
The heart of the matter here is that for some folks there's a certain failure to appreciate the situation we�re in.
Think back to your grade school science class.
We�re like the Saber-toothed Tiger sinking into the tar pit. And over on dry land are a few giraffes munching away on some leaves. And we�re taunting them with what terms we�re going to give them to buy into the good thing we�ve got going on.
posted by Sully 12/12/2003 03:16:00 AM
Thursday, December 11, 2003
HIS CALENDAR, AND THEIRS:
If, as Sullivan says, boomers are unable to not see everything through the prism of 1968, can he also admit that neocons are unable to see things not through the prism of 9/11 but of 1989?
posted by Sully 12/11/2003 12:18:00 PM
DEAN THERE, DONE THAT:
Jo Fish picks apart Sully�s meanderings on Dean.
Sullivan goes after Dean by, of course, bringing up 9/11. On which day will that finally get old? Can�t say. But it sure is an enduring theme for our lassie. He thinks that as the spectre of 9/11 fades Dean might become a bigger threat to his beloved most favorite member of Skull and Bones (Andy just wants an invitation to the coffin ceremony). Sullivan�s premise that Dean will be speaking mostly to the �uppper middle class� Blue Staters is wrong on a lot of levels, most of the so-called �Deaniacs� I know don�t fit that descriptor ... and Dean has been working for a long time to achieve the kind of reputation and �mo� that will strike fear in the hearts of even the most ardent Kool-Aid Konsumers. Yeah, like Sullivan.
Amen. We�d also add to this mischaracterization of Dean�s support the observation, emailed to us a couple of weeks back, that when Sullivan described the former Vermont governor�s base as �the Starbucks metrosexual elite� it ignored the fact that the coffee chain has more outlets in Wyoming than it does in Vermont.
So, once again, folks, are you going to send your money to a lazy self-absorbed pundit who can�t even be bothered to go to a website to look something up, or some people whose names and addresses are completely unknown to you who do? If the latter, go up to the tip jar if you haven�t already and make your contribution.
(And like he�s gonna leave you alone for another year? Yeah, like he didn�t rattle the cup in the summertime, too).
posted by Sully 12/11/2003 12:16:00 PM
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
THE NO-HOPERS:
We�d suggest that Sullivan has some nerve calling Al Sharpton �an insult to black voters� intelligence� when he ran the Bell Curve excerpts suggesting that that quantity is inevitably rather limited to begin with.
And as for Kucinich �bankrupting a city� ... Lord knows we�re not fans of his presidential campaign. But he didn�t bankrupt Cleveland. The city defaulted on its notes, which is not the same thing, when the then-mayor refused to agree to a plan, sponsored by the city�s creditors, major local banks with not-coincidental ties to its major utilities, to roll them over by selling the city power company ... which remains public today.
It wasn�t a great thing for Cleveland, to be sure, but if it resulted from any negative quality of Kucinich it was his intransigence as opposed to his incompetence (Many of the city�s electorate still supported him afterwards ... he survived a recall, after all. But it was his clumsy public firing of his police chief sometime later which ended any chances of his re-election and drove him into the political wilderness for a decade).
posted by Sully 12/10/2003 06:19:00 PM
�I BET HE BROTHER WITH THE KKK ... HE JUST WANNA BE BSTA�:
Sullivan�s concern for sexual privacy �ber alles takes him into worrisome territory when he makes his first statements on the Michael Jackson case. One can, of course, bemoan media coverage that could make it hard for Michael to get an impartial jury and fair trial. One can be, even despite Jacko�s vast (at one time, anyway) personal resources, be a little taken aback by the resources Santa Barbara County has thrown into getting one individual (and wonder if the Bush administration should turn the WMD hunt over to them).
But when you join him in, even tentatively, attacking the prosecutor, you are into dangerous ground. Andrew, there are times when you shouldn�t be so quick to play up links because your friend Matt put them up. Even though the story makes clear that when DCFS called the allegations �unfounded,� it was because they believed there was no merit to the allegations, we wonder if that was a sop to the star, as the main evidence cited boils down to �well, nobody saw anything.� As if a man who was molesting children and had escaped one serious charge would just go and do it again with witnesses! �Nobody saw anything� does not mean there was nothing that could have been seen. How often and for how long was Jackson alone with the boy? They slept in at least the same room, the report admits.
Besides, anyone familiar with child-protection agencies knows that they have a nasty habit of bending over backward to consider cases �unsubstantiated� or �unfounded� to reduce their case loads and get into fights they can win. To us the memo proves nothing, and if Sneddon�s investigators found (as rumored) evidence of kiddy porn or something close to it in Jackson�s possession it�s all over but the shouting.
Sullivan�s understanding of sexual privacy, as we�ve noted before, is a rather poor subject for a poster. Michael Jackson is an even poorer poster boy for it.
Besides, doesn�t he sound like he�s talking about something else here?
... [T]hey were trying to use the law � any way they could � to destroy an eccentric figure they despised. If the case falls apart, these witch-hunters need to face public accountability.
posted by Sully 12/10/2003 06:08:00 PM
HAVE YOU NO SHAME AT LONG LAST, ANDREW?:
Roger Ailes on the one thing Sullivan misses about Captain Yee:
In this age of phony wars on terror, Sully shows no remorse for pissing on the presumption of innocence. A textbook case indeed.
As Atrios notes, once sexual privacy is invoked Captain Bareback feels the pain.
There�s an an interesting comment here:
When I was an undergrad, Sully was a grad student at my institution. I knew him fairly well; we were both on the debate team. Even then he was smart and eloquent, but largely living in a world conjured up by his ideology. I more or less stopped talking to him after we had a conversation in which he vociferously defended the South African apartheid regime on the basis of the fact that Black South Africans were essentially incapable of democracy.
Sounds like the Sully of the blogs was there long before �blogging� was a word.
Further Ailesian Sully-bashing snark here.
posted by Sully 12/10/2003 05:49:00 PM
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
WHY YOU SHOULD GIVE:
Sebastian rates andrewsullivan.com a �hold�, as savvy analysts used to say, and urges readers to spend the money here instead:
Not so fast. You can see the stats here. January 2002 shows 198,993 visitors, a year later there were 311,518 visitors. October 2003 (that�s 21 months later if you're keeping track) clocks in at 380,099 visitors, i.e. nearly the double. But not quite. And not in a year. We�ll see what November had in store for us, but if Alexa is any guide Sullivan's traffic (like InstaPundit�s) is heading down, not up.
Sullivan is also telling a likely story, Sebastian concludes, when he claims that blogging is such a full-time job that it justifies him getting over $100K from readers alone on top of his income from books he keeps putting off, speeches at obscure tiny colleges, columns in foreign newspapers that few Americans read, the odd TNRpiece and the occasional op-ed on gay marriage for one of the big papers.
Oh no no no no � no no no! We shall limit our research to a single week of the Daily Dish (last week for no reason in particular.) Microsoft Word reports that it contained 7,603 words. A rough count shows that about half of that consists of quotes from articles, poseur alerts, and emails fromSullivan�s other personalitiesreaders. Once you count the part of the DailyDish Sullivan recycles into the WeeklyDish for the Washington Times, one is left with a couple of long posts on Reagan and AIDS or gay marriage, and a whole lot of linking to articles that argue the opposite of what Sullivan pretends they do. (i.e. sullivan, v. To base your argument on a source that actually argues the opposite what you claim it does. And yes, we coined that phrase!)
Let�s also note that Sullivan�s lifestyle is also not going to win him any awards for frugality or modesty anytime soon. Your money goes to a man with a choice beachfront property in a popular Cape Cod resort town and an Adams Morgan condo.
Face it. What are you paying for?
Marketers have a word for it: the brand. It's also called goodwill in financial statements. The American media establishment made Andrew Sullivan successful. You make him wealthy.
And all because he once edited a prestigious magazine. Sullivan knows that he didn�t have to do a lot of brand-building as a blogger ... he�d already done that. That�s why he can be so lazy.
We, on the other hand, built our brand from scratch, on our blogging alone. As Sebastian rightly observes:
All of which is our way of saying that there are bloggers out there who: a) actually invest a lot of time into their work, and b) do so without the benefit of full time writing jobs that pay the bills. And without (allegedly) collecting $75,000 a year to do it. And on top of our list is SullyWatch, who has decided to run a competing (and much more deserving) pledge week to keep its work going, and free it from the mediocrity that is blogger. Really, how often do the blogspot sites need to be down in a single week. (And besides, who collects $75,000 in a single year and then chooses to stay on blogger?)
Actually, we�re not about to leave Blogger, just perhaps Blogspot, and only because it�s cooler to have your own domain, as Kevin Drum has done.
But Sebastian says it better than we could and he�s saying it for free. Give if you haven�t already.
posted by Sully 12/09/2003 05:18:00 PM
HE�S GOT AN ANGLE:
While often watching all this right-wing Machiavellian theorizing of just exactly is going on on the left, what sort of alleged power game is being played by whom, is amusing (has it ever occurred to him that maybe Gore just plain thinks Dean is the best candidate? That his former running mate is stalled in the garage? That the email republished at &c is indeed emblematic of the Kerry campaign in wayward freefall? That it would be best for the Democratic Party and the nation if Dean ran and won? What will he say and do if both Bill and Hillary endorse Dean? (Oh, we know already how he�d spin that)), we read it with the full knowledge that it says more about how the cons and Reps conduct their internal affairs than it does about Dems.
They�re all a bunch of conniving manipulators, and since they�re the best that humanity has to offer, everyone else must be, too.
Cripes, they sound like the sort of Midde Eastern public they�re always complaining about.
And isn�t it just hilarious that he now considers the Clintons, and all he�s said about them, the saviors of the Democratic Party? Does he not understand that the leftward drift of the Democratic Party, or at least its perceived leftward drift, is an inevitable function of the decades-in-the-making rightward drift of the GOP? Where was his concern when that was actually happening (oh, never mind, we know) and he could have done something to prevent it?
Maybe he should go and start a South Park Republican Party to nail down that elusive and underserved center.
posted by Sully 12/09/2003 02:02:00 AM
PLEDGE CHALLENGE:
We�re glad to see that some of you have already responded to our call to arms.
Now that Sullivan has laid down what he expects of his readers ($20 a year from regular readers), we have a clearer idea of what we want you to beat. Twenty-five dollars would be a good ballpark figure. His average from readers during last year�s December pledge drive, which he claimed netted him almost 80 thou, works out to about $23.
For occasional readers, $15 will be enough to show that you, as consumers in the marketplace of ideas, value our meanderings and underinformed rants more than Sullivan�s, based on applying that $79K net figure to the previously-stated average daily readership.
Don�t just stop there. Tell your friends. If you are a blogger yourself and, as many of our fellow bloggers do, you like our work and think we perform a valuable public service, tell your readers and link over to these parts.
And with your donation, or if you�ve already sent one, let Sullivan know where you�re putting your money.
Give. (Sorry, we couldn�t afford those flashy yet annoying animated .gifs he had up but seems to have taken down. So we just have to do like public TV, interrupting our service every so often to talk about Viewers Like You, for the week).
(By the way, why has his snailmail donations address moved from New York where it was last year to LA? Something to do with Schwarzenegger?)
posted by Sully 12/09/2003 01:23:00 AM
Monday, December 08, 2003
A BUSH-BASHER-BASHER WHO AT LEAST PARTLY GETS IT:
James Tarantino � excuse us, Taranto � over at The Wall Street Journal is the first conservative to see the larger point of the current unrest on the left:
Democrats and liberals are beginning to sound like a beleaguered minority. They are employing many of the same complaints and tropes that Republicans and conservatives used during their decades in the political wilderness.
Put differently, it was �we were there too.� He at least does not try to pretend, as so many other righties have, that this is some sort of unexplainable phenomenon, a sort of passing tantrum. The Democrats are at last learning to behave like an opposition party (and, it would be interesting to know, did Tarantino find those tactics so dislikable when it was Republicans who were employing them?). We think that is a great development ... as the Republicans eventually learned, only when you really accept that you�re in the minority can you begin to find the path back to building a majority again.
All he can do, really, is suggest that this calls into doubt the idea that liberals are somehow truly �progressive� (as if most of them ever were). He should be intellectually honest enough to admit, however, that the corresponding use of arrogant majoritarian tactics like leaving House votes open for several of the small hours until you can get two people to change their votes is thus no more worthy of being called �conservative.�
He�s also wildly off-base when he discusses the emerging liberal �media bias� industry:
Sure, conservatives have Fox News Channel, talk radio, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and a variety of small magazines and blogs, but liberals have almost everything else: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, the New York Times and most other major newspapers, not to mention (your tax dollars at work) PBS and NPR.
When will conservatives at least cotton to the fact that just because they see one alignment of the planets in the media heavens does not mean liberals will see it that way too? Liberals do not, and never have, seen at least the first five of those he assigns us as being on �our� team the way that conservatives see the ones he lists as being on theirs.
Take The New York Times, a favorite whipping boy, especially in the Raines days. Consider that Fairness and Accuracy in Media, the left-liberal anti-bias outfit, has a rather lengthy page linking to its blasts at the Grey Lady. Or that many of us never completely forgave Raines (never even began to forgive him, really) for turning the editorial page on his watch into a tonier version of Taranto�s as far as President Clinton was concerned, with constant appeals for him to resign, prove his innocence, etc., no matter what brickbats Sullivan and the others might have hurled his way (In fact, one with a conspiratorial bent might assert that the two colluded to make Raines more acceptable to the left).
If any media outlet could be seen as being on our side, it might be Pacifica News, and that�s mainly in one region of the country, and it leans a bit further left than a fair amount of the people buying Franken, Moore et al feel they do.
So, James, can we spot you the Washington Post, at least, by your standards?
posted by Sully 12/08/2003 09:34:00 PM
PROJECTION WATCH:
Or else he would have to answer for consorting with those who practice it.
Sounds a lot like Sullivan�s relationship to right-wing homophobia.
posted by Sully 12/08/2003 09:16:00 PM
PRO-TERRORIST:
As usual, Sullivan tells us that the decision of one of the most bloodthirsty, deadly, wealthy and anti-American terrorist groups in the world to shift its resources to a country currently nervously hosting 150,000 Americans doing what Sullivan never would even if he were straight and HIV- is �a good development.�
Would you say that when they get to Provincetown, Andy?
And how is it that you know so well what Osama is thinking? Perhaps you would like to consider what the view of the ocean is like from the beaches of Gitmo, no?
(Also, isn�t it way revealing that he stumbles over his own metaphor, and what was once flypaper is now �flytrap�? Is your poor, atrophied conscience trying to tell you something, Blog Queen?)
posted by Sully 12/08/2003 09:11:00 PM
DOWDISM, OF A SORT:
Via TAPped, a rebuttal of sorts to the New York article:
Since the beginning of November, world media have given wide coverage to the striking response to one question in a complex survey taken within the nations of the European Union by the European Commission. The finding, as put, for example, by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, is that: �59 percent of E.U. citizens now consider Israel the greatest �threat to world peace.�� Similar statements have been made throughout national and international media, including Israeli publications. Increasingly, the idea that Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat has become an axiom in discussions about both the Middle East and the EU.
But that does not happen to be what the survey reports; the pundits didn�t read it carefully. Rather, the 59 percent, when asked the question, �For each of the following countries, tell me if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world?� answered "yes" for Israel. The other top losers were Iran, North Korea and the United States at 53 percent, Iraq with 52, and Afghanistan with a mere 50. Palestine, Israel�s opponent in the lack of peace on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, was not covered because it is not a "country."
That most Europeans consider Israel, a country at war, to be a threat to peace is quite different from their believing that the Jewish state is the �greatest threat.� Respondents were asked to list as many threats as they wanted; they were not asked to think hard about which they thought to be the greatest single one.
[...]
Israel is presumably at the top, and probably would be even if the Palestinian Authority were included, because of many Europeans' distaste for Sharonism. But that distaste should not be confused with anti-Semitism or even anti-Zionism. Some Israelis and their friends have been using the survey to dramatize what they see as increasing anti-Semitism among Europeans; they have been abetted by their opposite numbers, European anti-Sharonists who move too quickly through anti-Zionism to real anti-Semitism. But at least so far as this survey goes, both sides are vastly overstating its meaning.
All the survey says is that most Europeans believe that countries at war are threats to world peace. Surprise!
posted by Sully 12/08/2003 09:06:00 PM
WHERE HE SHOULD BE SEEKING PLEDGES:
Jo Fish on Sullivan�s moral deficits.
posted by Sully 12/08/2003 09:00:00 PM
LET US KNOW IT�S CHRISTMAS TIME THIS YEAR ...:
That moment has arrived.
As you may recall, we said when we set up our tip box that we were waiting for Sullivan�s bi-annual pledge breaks to make a specific challenge to you, our readers, to go along.
Now it's time. Chef against chef.
We do not presume to compete against Sullivan in terms of total gross, although we�d be happy beyond ecstasy if someone
with way too much money on their hands shelled out the $75,000 plus in our direction.
So, what we ask you to do is to contribute more money per average daily reader than Sullivan gets.
As of this post, that number is 6,815 over the last three months.
Divided by the $70,000 or so he raises in a typical pledge period, that's about $10.25 per reader.
As of today, our number is 392 (over the life of the blog).
So, we wanna see roughly $4,000 in that tip jar by week�s end. If you make that, we won�t make any more requests until the next pledge drive.
What you will get:
We will blog all year long, to the best of our ability. No spring break, no post-election break, no August off. 52 weeks.
We will improve our network connection, so we don�t have embarassing lapses like last Monday.
We may even register the domain name sullywatch.com and see if we can find hosting somewhere more consistently reliable than blogspot (which has been good to us, we admit, but it does have its limitations) without compromising our anonymity (in fact, it would make our Christmas, and soften our need for cash if someone took care of those on our behalf. Let us know).
We may also be able to go on the road to the conventions, or pay someone to do it on our behalf, if Sullivan does.
C�mon folks ... this is your chance to show Sullivan who the market values more.
Let the games begin!
UPDATE: We also promise the sort of copy editing you would expect from a reasonably competent daily newspaper or glossy magazine.
posted by Sully 12/08/2003 05:39:00 PM
