Qudzu

Sorry, you read and link to Sully? Even you?

Et tu, Nojo?

I’m surprised the Teabaggers didn’t wave green and proclaim that they were Iranian students uprising against a rigid theocracy who may have stolen an election. Oh right.
a) not US Americun
b) all Iranians ebil
c) they might not worship the same god, but those muslix mullah guys have some good ideas and the Teabaggers would like to subscribe to their newsletter

@RZ: Yes I do. Day-to-day, Sully is very useful, digesting opinion from the Institutional Right. (Just like WND digests opinion from the wingnuts.) Most of it is ping-pong with the Chattering Class, but it’s still a good source for tips.

And unlike Hitch, Sully has not become a caricature of himself. He’s long-since dropped the warmongering, and was even an early Barry supporter. He still has this inexplicable love for drag queens like Thatcher, but I don’t read him to agree with him.

How do you say “Teabagger” in Farsi?

@nojo:
Ah, so he stopped the warmongering. So that’s ok, now.

@RZ: And expresses sufficient contrition when the subject comes up. Nor does he pretend like he’s still against “islamofascism” and just got that particular example wrong — he’s more worried about christofascists these days.

Sully’s not a camp follower, although some folks think he glides on Greenwald’s slipstream. And in the year I’ve been following him closely, he’s been intellectually honest. (Which doesn’t mean he can’t be wrong, but he’s not an NRO debate-team goon.)

Feel free to hold his felonies against him — I’m one of those with long memories of Chappaquiddick. All I’m saying is that Sully turns in solid work these days, and I find him very useful.

@nojo: At this point Sully is one of the ones not taking the kool-aid.

@nojo: If he really wanted to be useful, he would show up on ESPN with a revolver, announce that he is going to take care of one warmonger the way they should all be dispatched, and blow his brains out. Or better yet, strap on a vest bomb and give fucking Rumsfeld a nice big fucking hug.

@nojo:
First of all, let’s be clear. This is Sully, ‘fifth-column in their liberal enclaves’. Sully, resident of Providencetown. That Sully.

Sully, bareback-seeking HIV+ big ghey bear, getting preferential treatment from the justice system, (which he must have gone begging for), due to the connections he has built up, that Sully.

Just want to be clear about which honest dealer in information we are talking about, Sully.

As I understand it, he has hidden his famous fifth-column piece (but not removed it) and never written a piece apologizing for, much less trying to understand, the ignorant filth he threw up on the internets for years.

I may have some of these particulars wrong, but let’s see the big apology piece if anyone has the link. I daresay no one does.

I, personally, wouldn’t want to get within ten feet of anything digested by that hunk of garbage. Further, like all of these scumbags, you should be highly wary of trusting anything coming from him, as he naturally spins stuff the way he wants, for his own purposes.

I like my information (heh) raw, and Sully as filter is both amusing and sickening at the same time.

I love that you first apparently admitted that you are a fairly new reader (I was giving you points for not being able to break a bad habit) and that you just defended him thusly:

in the year I’ve been following him closely, he’s been intellectually honest.

Which is really, really throwing support behind someone, there.

I am just surprised that you admit reading him and actually link to him. Very surprised.

Dare I add that it is about outcomes? This outcome, Sully with an unsullied reputation and still lots of readers and link love, is not productive or helpful, to put it mildly.

@SanFranLefty:
Sorry SFL, that is just not good enough, given the garbage he wrote and his leading role in the new-fangled red guard. Its just like the clinically insane, wow they have been good for such a long time! Let’s now trust that they are honest?

The man is a shitty hypocrite who shilled for years for a party that thinks gays are the scum of the earth and was never going to change.

And he did it for the cash and the power, baby, and every one of you knows it. He is no better than McArdle on that front, plus the bloody hands.

@FlyingChainSaw:
No, he needs to be sat down on national tv and forced to admit his hypocrisy and suffer the attacks he is due for his rank war mongering, for his stupid arguments and put downs of people with real ideas.

I am talking classic Chinese-style ’self-criticism’, hours of it, to be filmed and posted on youtube and linked to constantly.

Then, he should be deported. I will let the glorious private market handle his demise.

@RZ: you should be highly wary of trusting anything coming from him, as he naturally spins stuff the way he wants, for his own purposes

And links to his sources. Which is where I get the value.

Case in point: This very post. “Via Sully” here means that he tipped me off to the three other listed sources — and most of what I wrote was drawn from the LA Times, checked against the BBC and Tehran Bureau. The ABC tweet was something Sully highlighted, and I found it a useful closer.

But you’re suggesting I draw my opinion from Sully, which isn’t the case. The only time I recall actually quoting Sully’s take on an issue was when I made fun of his enduring Thatcher hangup. I rarely quote anyone’s take, for that matter. I prefer conjuring my own.

As far as the Missing Piece, I haven’t read it, but I did find a reaction from October 2001 in Salon:

Sullivan’s Taliban style of argument and his rigid habit of separating the world into the blessed and the damned turns American politics into a free-fire zone where any deviation from his view of the national program is immediately leveled.

Yes, that sounds like the man you’re describing. But it doesn’t sound like the guy I’ve been reading for more than a year. I think I would have noticed.

@nojo:
nojo, how can you just ignore the accomplishments of Sully?

I mean, its one thing to have a high threshold for war mongering. But with nary an apology or even acknowledgement of what he has done? He is ok now?

Well, geez, Clem, he didn’t rape my sister today, so maybe he is ok!

And thus the past is extinguished, leaving the glorious future ahead, and where the precedent of a rabid blood-seeking warmonger getting a promotion and raise for his efforts will certainly not at all prejudice anyone’s future behavior.

I am going to get out of here before this gets ugly. Good day to you.

@RZ: But with nary an apology or even acknowledgement of what he has done?

Not sure what meets your standards, but let’s start here:

After 9/11, I was clearly blinded by fear of al Qaeda and deluded by the overwhelming military superiority of the US and the ease of democratic transitions in Eastern Europe into thinking we could simply fight our way to victory against Islamist terror. I wasn’t alone. But I was surely wrong. Haven’t the last few years been a sobering learning experience?

February 2008.

Or let’s try his visit with Bill Maher in October 2006:

You know, you were talking about the Democrats being cowards? You know who are also cowards? Conservatives, real conservatives and Republicans. They’re too cowardly to have stood up to these people bungling this war. They backed them when they knew they were losing; they supported them when they knew they were spending and borrowing as though there was no tomorrow…

We have a war that we’re losing. We have a doubling of the debt of the next generation. We have the suspension of habeas corpus and the authorization of torture. So, of course, we’re talking about phone sex lines and prostitutes in Tennessee. They’ve got to change the subject because on the real issues, they’re going to lose.

Your mileage may vary.

@nojo:
Wow. After your previous extremely weak defense (for the past year he hasn’t lied us into a war) which you nonetheless hold to tenaciously, now you come up with one paragraph (in a political horse-race piece) and a brief comment on tv.

That is apparently enough for you, so be it. All Sully’s horrible, misguided, mean-spirited, arrogant writing from 2002 to 2005, and all the consequences that flowed therefrom are just not that bad, now that he is making sense to you.

And you don’t mind the pablum that he is still transmitting even today, so long as he makes your Iran posts easier. Poor conservative writers can’t get noticed, well that there is Sully paying his Conservative dues, by transmitting the whining. Quoting Megan on health-care reform, to help muddy the waters. Calling that aide to Carter stupid. That’s in the past couple weeks alone. I notice he seems to be writing less and quoting more, could it be perhaps a little marijuana bust that keeps him quiet?

He, who defended constantly, for years, the party in favor of putting more (poor) people in jail for marijuana. Helped support the rise of the private prison industry, which is going to be a damn bitch to get off our back. Bastard gets a ticket and still has to call in whatever chits he had (that blowjob paid off, now didn’t it, Andy) to avoid punishment.

Sully exceptionalism, and it stinques to high heaven, if you ask me.

I note too that you refuse to engage the many points I feel I have made.

I went off to get links to all the greatest hits of Sully in his prime, examples of all the abuse he rained down on the ‘elite traitorous liberals’ for all those years, but I found this quote from Roy back from 2006, and I think that says more than anything else. Prescient:

Why does Sully-Bear do it? My current guess is that he thinks moderation will come back into fashion and, having ridden the gay-conservative thing into the ground, he wants to stake out his new territory with a lot of pull quotes. (God knows Roger L. Simon and Michael Totten have vacated those premises, if they ever occupied them.) Plaguing both their houses is easy and fun. You can even insist strongly on your own rights as a gay citizen, so long as you also reach out, concerning same-sex matters, to conservatives of good will — such as Pope Benedict XVI:

And yes, that is Sully in quotes, lapping at the hand that totally rejects him, still worshiping the Father (literally) that won’t accept him. How pitiful.

Anyway, let’s not do this. See you around. I got a blog to attend to.

Adios Amigos!

Ya’ll take care.

@RZ: WTF, did Sully suck your dick and then not call you in the morning in P-town in 1992? You really need to chill the fuck out.

Dude, (1) shut the fuck up and (2) move on. For realz. Drop it. Move on with your life. We all have. Keep screaming, I suppose Nojo will indulge your asshattery for a while longer. I’m tired of it.

yes, Sully is a self-loathing fag. Who agitated for war. Do you want a fucking cookie for pointing these two things out? Congratulations, here’s your chocolate chip cookie for being such a smart boy.

Nojo’s point is the guy has some late self-awareness and is also a good source for compiling multiple sources, good for bloggers who have day jobs. And Sully has been especially good on the Iran protesters, which as a johnny-come-lately to this blog you may not have been aware of that.

Now move the fuck on. I guess we’re not as pure as the ideological snow that you eat.

@RZ: note too that you refuse to engage the many points I feel I have made.

Life is short.

@RZ: Actually, let me expand on that. I don’t debate; I prefer conversation. Conversation doesn’t follow an agenda; it flows from one point to the next, and not every thread gets picked up.

I’m not obligated to engage every point you make. And you’re just as free to insist that I do. And either of us, at any time, can decide that we’re just talking past each other.

I’m also not interested in winning arguments. I am, however, interested in the perspective of those I disagree with. Yours is becoming clear, and it’s not my place to dissuade you; I find it more interesting to understand you.

I have no interest in “defending” Sully. I find what he does very useful, and yes, I find his conversation honest. Which isn’t to say that I hang on his every word about atheism and religion, to take a recent example — usually I ignore it, since that’s among the most pointless topics imaginable. And when he blockquotes Megan and others, that’s precisely the point — that’s the digest of the chattering class. One-stop shopping.

I could care less about most of the chattering class, by the way. I’m not personally interested in the sins committed by the WaPo editorial page. But since I’ve taken it upon myself to crank out a post every morning, I like to know what’s happening out there.

Your reference to Roy is interesting, since I recently touched on the very UT scientist at issue there. Yes: Sully was wrong. He worked up a deliberately misreported out-of-context passage in a 36-page paper into a “Lefties are crazy too” post. Fine. I never said I felt compelled to agree with him, and it’s fair to use that as a counterexample to “honest broker”.

And yes, I am late to the game. I’m an Accidental Blogger. I pay more attention to the bloviators now that I normally would because I have to crank out a post every morning. I knew Sully by reputation before, but I never felt compelled to actually pay attention to him — or many, many others. It’s so much Crossfire out there, everyone shouting at each other — on both sides — just to hear themselves.

But again, in the time I’ve been following Sully, I’ve found him very useful, with a refreshing minimum of cant. And if, for some reason, I ever stop blogging, I’ll start ignoring him again.

@nojo:
Well, let’s just agree to disagree. I know its seems like I am being pedantic, but to me it really matters, or Sully will turn into the Novak of the next generation, and will cheer on war until he dies a hopefully painful death.

Mark my words, if these same people are allowed to remain in our public discourse, with their reputations unsullied (heh, that is just a great word to use on this topic, I guess I am the one millionth person to figure that out), then they will be cheering on the next war within a decade or so.

But I know its a really poorly defined line, when does linking to these bastards make one a total traitor!!11! and when should it be acceptable. At the same time, if there is no price to be paid for cheer-leading a total failure of a war, then we will never get anywhere, that’s for freaking sure.

Anyway, you have handled this with total class, not easy I would assume, on your own site. Thanks for that. I tried pretty hard not to insult you, (I don’t feel anger towards you or even a heck of a lot of emotion about this issue, I just think its a serious problem that we have to solve), just Sully, but perhaps we could find a little slight or comment that could bring offense (the comment about how long you have been reading Sully was just intended to make the facts clear, I have been blogging for even a shorter period of time than you have, I certainly did not mean you were somehow late to a party). Sorry if that is the case.

And SFL’s perhaps intemperate comments are understandable, given the close relationship and friendship between you.

Like I said, its that time, take care and good luck going forward. See ya.

@RZ: Not pedantic — passionate. And understandably so. I can’t go with you down that particular path, but I’ve gone down a few of my own.

What puts somebody irrevocably beyond the pale? If O’Reilly really turned a corner, would I find myself respecting him a year from now? Two years? Was Teddy’s later service enough for us to forgive Chappaquiddick? Those Southern politicians who disavowed their Jim Crow pasts — do we let them off the hook?

Here’s where some would go Jesuit: Fine, but what about Nazis? But extremes don’t prove the point they’re intended to. Gray areas are the tough calls.

And besides, I’d probably just sing a Tom Lehrer song in response.

As for the “class,” well, you’ve been around long enough to deserve more than a quick comeback, even if I didn’t hit all the bullet points. And the late-to-the-party line stems from a question I’m always asking myself: If I wasn’t blogging, would I give a shit about this issue? Would I really care that some buffoon from a rag I never read said something egregious? Sometimes you have to go there (deadlines is deadlines), but I’m happier when I’m addressing something that has a practical consequence, even if it’s the next tea party on the calendar.

In any case, I don’t mind at all being challenged — that comes with the turf. And it’s interesting being challenged from the left on what is, in effect if not in purpose, a lefty blog. I like being interested.

And I’ll allow that maybe, just maybe, I’m grading Sully on a curve, given what otherwise passes for conservative discourse these days.

@nojo:
Points well taken.

Yer a class act, Noj. No shit.

@RZ: And apologies for my intemperate comments standing up for my friend Nojo. I didn’t realize this was the Eton debating salon. I will act with more decorum in the future around you.

/cloud of flies gathering over horse carcass

@nojo: Go to bed. God’s sake. You can listen to the Lifetime Golden Collection of Michael Crawford singing the songs af Andrew Lloyd Webber later.

BTW. So pleased to see RZ off on a tear about AS. So glad it’s not just me.

Oh and also, the headlines: excellent. ‘Qudzu’? Superdoubleplus.

Whoa, some heavy shit here this morning *lights joint, kicks back recliner, and tunes in SciFi (ain’t ever going with that stupid new logo shit)*.

@Pedonator: cocksucking dumbass

@SanFranLefty:
don’t apologize!
i wish i had written that lefy, superb!
i would have given him a juice-box though.

(and you will never know what that means, RZ)
now get a grip, take a pill, and you’ll be welcomed back for interesting discourse, not to be confused with your aforementioned drivel.

@AARPrick:
hey, AAR, great to see you! blazing up in your honor, to smoke with you!