Andrew Sullivan on All Topics
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“We assumed that he wasn't one of the biggest assholes on the planet. So we didn't go there. But he, like Palin, could have been president of the US at some point. And we barely knew him. I want to apologize to my readers for dropping this ball. And congratulate the National Enquirer for following the facts where they eventually led.”
“Bruce Bartlett posts this Kos/Research 2000 poll of self-identified Republicans and concludes "that between 20% and 50% of the party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid." I always respect Bruce's view but think rather that this is a function of the GOP becoming more about identity politics and paranoia than individual freedom and hope. Any party that could treat Sarah Palin as a serious candidate for the vice-presidency has lost its mind”
“What one notes about this primarily is not just its dishonesty but its recklessness. If the crisis is as bad as NRO says it is - and I agree with them - then it is incumbent upon conservative thinkers to propose and explain and cost out the spending cuts they say are necessary to avert catastrophe. This they refuse to do. Until they do, they are not serious contributors to the debate. They are partisan nihilists.”
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated before Congress that he personally believed the policy violated a core principle of the US military: integrity. He said that requiring servicemembers to lie as part of their duty to their country violated their integrity as soldiers and the military's integrity itself. He said, in other words, that the current policy is dishonorable.”
“I want to post again the full Q and A yesterday between Obama and the Republican leadership. It felt so good to watch and listen because it finally brought us a conversation - rather than a shouting match over a canyon. So much of American politics is debate conducted at a distance, through ads or soundbites or various talking points that never actually engage one another in debate.”
“There is one reason this ad was denied. Its gay content was deemed offensive to football fans, while an anti-abortion issues ad wasn't. That's called blatant discrimination and if it doesn't lead to aggressive protests I'll be very surprised.”
“The enormity of what might have happened - the torturing to death of an innocent 21 year-old, held captive since he was 16 and the removal of his organs - would recruit even more Jihadists than Cheney managed in his seven years of torturing and covering up. It would put US soldiers at risk. It would galvanize the enemy. It would be a huge propaganda victory for al Qaeda.”
“I find the proposed spending freeze to be a symbolic start, a way for the administration to show that it can focus on good government, that it can prune domestic discretionary spending both to hone priorities and to cut waste. It is, of course, a substantively trivial debt-reduction without a serious entitlement and defense review. It's not as trivial as the "pork" fixation. But it is an important - I'd say vital - rhetorical framing for the rest of his term in office.”
“But this is the big time and politics is a contact sport. How Obama responds to this will tell us a huge amount about him. He cannot and should not reinvent himself as a Democratic partisan. He isn't. He cannot fake populism. He's too responsible for that. He cannot ram a bill through by hook or by crook if he is to respect the genuine anxiety about the reform. So he has to be calm, patient, reasonable and somehow harness Democratic anger as well.”
“Do your duty. And grow some. Fight back. Explain why you're right. Tell the liberals they can always come back later to reform the bill. Just get this passed.”
“Maybe this process is necessary. Because it is educational. Because the bankruptcy of the right, the cynicism of the right, and the narcissism of the right is exposed. In other words, don't let the Rovians get into your heads. Stick with the problems; propose solutions; demand constructive alternatives from the GOP.”
“In the abstract, if I were devising my ideal health reform plan, it would indeed be hugely different. Probably more like Megan's. But here's the difference: I think the lack of insurance for 40 million people is a real issue that we have a moral duty to deal with - now. I've been deeply affected by the nightmare stories readers have sent in of the current horrors. I also think that healthcare costs under the current system are crippling and require some sort of response by, yes, government - now.”
“So Brown supports health care exchanges, a mandate, and universal care ... but opposes healthcare exhcanges, a mandate and universal care. He is worried about the debt but actually opposes the proposed cuts in Medicare that can make universal insurance affordable - let alone the cuts necessary to bring us back from the fiscal abyss.”
“The conflation of homosexuality with child abuse was a central issue for the people who ran the Prop 8 campaign, hence the ads that focused on the threat that gays posed to children. Since this plays on the oldest blood libel against gays, it certainly implies that the Proposition was motivated by prejudice.”
“This FNC/RNC merger is another threat to reasoned discourse in public life, because it is a showman's concoction of very powerful emotional elements: resentment, sex, religion, anger. It creates its own reality. "We Do Not Torture"; everyone in Gitmo was the "Worst of the Worst"; the stimulus lowered growth; all the debt is Obama's fault; Obama is a Muslim and non-American; the White House is stacked with the Islamist/socialist enemy within; if we had not bailed out the banks, we would be roaring back from the recession; Obama wants to ignore the war in order to effect a radical transformation of America into some kind of scary version of France and Waziristan.”
