The General’s Politics
by Lee
On a nearly daily basis one off my detractors will mention Andrew Sullivan’s name. I admit I link to Sully’s blog a lot because, when it comes to many things Bush, he and I appear to be part of some sort of hive mind, and he, being a far superior writer, often expresses my thoughts better than I do. But we do disagree.
The unnamed reader in this post is me.
Update: Gee, this sounds oddly familiar, doesn’t it?
Comments
And now for something completely different…
Ok so I’m totally off topic but I thought this was hilarious and had to share.
Mime interpretation of Torn, or -
Can we start a blog war with Sullivan?
I keed, I keed!
At least Sullivan would have the balls to respond.
At least Sullivan would have the balls to respond.
But he likes other men’s balls - so doesn’t that automatically invalidate anything he says?
Never been too Balloon-Juice, thanks for the link and what a fucking great smackdown!
But he likes other men’s balls - so doesn’t that automatically invalidate anything he says?
Rule number 152 for BushBots - the reason why Andrew Sullivan makes the arguments he does is that he is HIV positive. Thus, you must dismiss anything he says as the rantings of a dying homo with AIDS.
is Randy Andy a liberal? Or libertarian?
Andrew Sullivan is a NIMBY moderate...he has decried the loss of liberties (for himself) and opined for the imposition of limitations and laws (for the rest of us).
That is what ruined him for me, because I was a Daily Dish reader between 2001-2004. He began disliking GWB when the man came out against same-sex marriage. He is all for small government and federalism, but railed against states that voted to prohibit same-sex marriage in the spirit of the 10th Amendment. He thinks the government is too bloated, but supports a gas tax to pay for the WoT....however, dear readers, Andy doesn’t drive a car.
That kind of doublespeak turned me off to him a long time ago. Lee’s agreements with AS are not reason for me to debate him...I think AS is a hypocrite all on his own, and I think Lee is a libertarian.
He began disliking GWB when the man came out against same-sex marriage. He is all for small government and federalism, but railed against states that voted to prohibit same-sex marriage in the spirit of the 10th Amendment.
He began disliking GWB for a whole whose of reasons. It’s a right-wing meme that it was enturely over gay marriage, primarily because that’s something that immediately raises animus in the conservative base. Bush ran as a federalist, and then tried to use the Constitution to deny gay Americans the right to convince other Americans that they should have the right to marry. He is against hate crime laws, does not feel that the courts are the appropriate place for issues like gay marriage to be decided, and is often at odds with much of the gay establishment. (See his post on the HRC just today.)
See, this is what I don’t get about his critics, you being the most convenient one right now, John. A federalist would let each state choose whether to support gay marriage. The GOP and much of the conservative movement in this country want a Constitutional amendment explicitly preventing this from happening. They want to guarantee that, now and forever, no gay American will ever be able to use our political process to convince other Americans that gay marriage is a good idea. So who is more traditionally conservative, the federalist or the big government Christian authoritarian?
He thinks the government is too bloated, but supports a gas tax to pay for the WoT....however, dear readers, Andy doesn’t drive a car.
Wow, what a concept. Paying for a war. What kind of cuckoo bananas idea is that? You don’t pay for wars, you borrow money from China to pay for wars.
Inevitably, when someone lists the reasons they don’t like Andrew Sullivan, it’s because they’ve gotten a distorted version of his views by reading (ahem) other blogs.
But let’s not turn this into a referendum on Sullivan. A lot of people don’t like him and that’s fine, lots of people don’t like me either.
No....let’s not turn this into a referendum, but I’m going to state my case against Sullivan.
To suggest a tax that applies to everyone BUT yourself is very NIMBY....uber-NIMBY. James Lileks even wrote against that, and Lileks is compatible with anything under the sun. If he were so for paying for the war, why not increase taxes on those making more than $100,000...a tax on all income above that number. How is that less fair? How is it more fair? Problem is, it would apply to him, and that’s the problem....not the gas tax itself, but the fact that he pushed that idea numerous times , all the while saying that it was the most fair way to do it. All the while, only a tiny percentage of the population would not be affected....and that population includes him. That, in my mind, is hypocritical.
About his changing mind.....here is a link to an article I did about it. It’s an awful sharp turn, and it was centered on Bush supporting the Clinton DOMA and the debate over same-sex marriage. That is Sullivan’s modus operandi....the drive to both secularize America and remove any social stigma from homosexuality. Because Bush opposes gay marriage, Sullivan opposes Bush. Name the other reasons, but Sullivan is no more conservative than the religious Republicans, named by him ‘Christianists’, are (see this post, for example). Both he and the RR (religious Republicans) suppost government intervention in support of their wants, desires, and the like.
Sullivan is quite against the people of the States voting for gay marriage. He came out in favor of civil disobediencefor homosexuals that wish to marry..i.e., breaking the law because one didn’t agree with it.
I have always thought AS had a formidable intellect, but since early 2004, he’s gone off the deep end with hatred against Christianity, the Religious Right (or not-so-Right) and GWB, whom he sees as the orchestrator of all of it. His opinion is wrapped around the percieved injustice that was perpetrated on him by Bush and the Christianists, and that has completely rendered his opinions asunder, in my book.
he’s gone off the deep end with hatred against Christianity
The guy is a practicing Catholic, for Christ’s sake. If anyone has “gone off the deep end” it’s you.
Here’s that notorious Christ-hater Andrew Sullivan debating faith with noted atheist Sam Harris.
But you’re right, his hatred of Christianity is obvious.
Did you ever think that it’s not Christianity he doesn’t like, but the particular brand of bigoted, hateful, exclusionary Christianity that is so popular with the conservative right these days?
Because Bush opposes gay marriage, Sullivan opposes Bush.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sullivan opposes Bush not because he opposes gay marriage—he’s ALWAYS opposed gay marriage, even in 2000 when Sullivan endorsed him—but Because Bush supports a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage for all time.
One of the rights we enjoy under the Constitution is the right to petition government for a redress of grievances. The Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, supported by Bush and the Christian right, would not only permanently prevent gays from petitioning government to change marriage laws in their favor, but—and this is the important part—would make it so that civil unions or other types of arrangements, which would give the status of marriage without the name, would also be prohibited.
But, to so many people on the right, being opposed to this type of thing equals a “hatred of Christianity.”
Name the other reasons, but Sullivan is no more conservative than the religious Republicans, named by him ‘Christianists’, are (see this post, for example).
“Christianist” is a specific term used to denote those Christians who use their faith as a political weapon. It’s got nothing to do with your average believer and everything to do with the type of people we see running the GOP these days.
Returning to the subject at hand…
I have to agree with you Lee. I don’t think politics is in Petraeus’s mind with the Hewitt interview. I think he’s just trying to rally the folks back home and giving an interview to whoever he can.
And John, I think you’re mistaken in your analysis. Sully did turn against Bush in 2004. But it had little to do with the Gay Marriage Ammendment and everything to do with the bungling of Iraq and outrageous spending. The most you could say is that, in the words of Lee, Sully’s “Brownie moment” was gay marriage.
The Bible was written by men, so how do we know that God’s message was interpreted correctly? How does one explain thou shall not kill and eye for an eye? I believe God’s message got lost in the translation thanks to the men that wrote the Bible.
One of the rights we enjoy under the Constitution is the right to petition government for a redress of grievances. The Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, supported by Bush and the Christian right, would not only permanently prevent gays from petitioning government to change marriage laws in their favor, but—and this is the important part—would make it so that civil unions or other types of arrangements, which would give the status of marriage without the name, would also be prohibited.
But, to so many people on the right, being opposed to this type of thing equals a “hatred of Christianity.”
Sullivan hates Christianity except as he defines it, and has freely admitted that he detests the Church’s stance on gay marriage, and the Pope. So I don’t accept your definition of his faith, because I am Catholic, and his ideas of Catholicism are not mainstream. Period. His goal, and he has stated this as well, is to work from within the Church to allow gay marriage. As opposed to becoming Anglican (Episcopal), and getting married, he wants to change the stance of the Catholic Church to suit his world view. That’s the arrogance I spoke of earlier.
Another thing....in your post, and in many others on this site and on Sullivan’s site, ‘Christian’ is used like a racial slur. It isn’t an active hatred....but it’s more like an intellectual contempt, because my beliefs aren’t ‘up’ to the level of yours, or AS. That’s another thing that bespeaks arrogance on his part.....this bigotry against those who don’t hoe the same row he does. He’s less open-minded than most, more arrogant than just about all.
As for you, Lee....I am more benign on your contempt for Christians and religious faiths of all sorts, because your view is that we believe in hobgoblins and spirits in the sky. I would assume that if we cut down a tree and worshiped it, you would have the same opinion. So, being an athiest, I get your POV, but not Sullivan’s.
nother thing....in your post, and in many others on this site and on Sullivan’s site, ‘Christian’ is used like a racial slur. It isn’t an active hatred....but it’s more like an intellectual contempt, because my beliefs aren’t ‘up’ to the level of yours, or AS.
Do we need to go through this over and over again? The contempt is reserved for people who try to fuse their faith with politics and claim that God is on their side in everything from war to tax cuts; to those who will quote the Bible but have apparently not read it. The world Sullivan actually uses is “christianist”.
AS and Lee (and I) have nothing but respect for those who live their faith.
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Isn’t it the invisible War Czar’s job to do the politicin’ and the general’s job to do the killin’?