Andrew Sullivan – Still Can’t Get Past His Nose…. UPDATE
[Welcome Insta-P readers. It’s always nice to have company ’round here]
Up until today, he had featured this George Orwell Quote as the tagline of his blog: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” It seems to still be quite a struggle.
In light of the Scott Brown victory, here are a few snips of his latest posts:
He’s talking about the fact that the stimulus has done little to bolster the economy or turn back the tide of unemployment. The majority of the stimulus was a collection of political bribes and kick-backs desired by the Pelosi / Reid apparatchiks, pent up by the Republican firewall for the last eight years, and did nothing to improve infrastructure or economic growth. The 1/3’rd of the stimulus that did go to the right places was not nearly enough to do much of anything. Though I don’t disagree with the auto and bank bailouts (they stink, but I think they were the right thing to do) it remains to be seen whether the auto bailouts will result in the survival of GM (probably) or Chrysler (doubtful), and the bank bail-outs are a continuation of policies set forth by the hated Bush administration. The thing that hurt Obama and the congress most is the almost universal predictions by economists that the current recovery will be a jobless one. Obama has indeed not only not absorbed this, but instead of pursuing policy that might change this prospect, he and congress are pursuing policies such as the botched Health Care Deformed, which will only increase the bureaucratic paperwork needed to operate a health care facility and not much else, and cap-and-trade, which will along with HCD increase the costs of everything through tax increases. And Speaking of….. Obama…. tax cuts? You’re kidding right?
Obama has stuck with most of the policies on spying that the Bush administration put into place, and I don’t see much change in restoring the rule of law. Oh, and I must have missed it, but when did it change from Health Care Reform to Insurance Reform? Is this like the time the press and political hand wringers lowered the bar from Global Warming, to Climate Change, after it stopped warming? Or are we in the processes of changing it, now that the bar of possible accomplishment has been lowered.
His chances of re-election just rose????? Based on what exactly?
Strange how every single failure during the Bush administration alway went to the top, but somehow, Obama has no responsibilities in the myriad of policy failures in his first year in office. Face. Nose. and beyond.
UPDATE: Here’s a newer post.
The government funded insurance pool is like the public option, except the insurance companies would still be able to raise rates. How on Earth can something control costs / be budget neutral it it take a massive set of massive tax increases to pay for it? Here is a little advise, from someone who actually runs a business – charging the customer more to purchase a product IS NOT in any way shape or form called “cost controls”. And, as far as winning over the drug and insurance companies… Of course they are on board, because, in the end, the current version of the bill doesn’t affect them at all, except give them even more power to influence medical cost in their favor. The current Obamacare plan is probably worse than doing nothing at all.
PS. And just so no one accuses me of being an “Andrew Hater”, let me point out that I defended him earlier this week. I very much like and respect him, but his love and blindness toward the failure that is the Obama presidency boggles my mind. Perhaps Sullivan is still latching on to the concept of Obama vs the reality of him. Not unusual in politics, as it took many years for the Republican dissolusionment of Goerge W Bush to set in.
Business and Taxes, Economics, Politics / Law Stuff | Sonicfrog January 20, 2010
26 Comments to “Andrew Sullivan – Still Can’t Get Past His Nose…. UPDATE”
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By Duke, January 20, 2010 @ 11:07 pm
If you’re invested in the idea of Obama being a reform administration, then perhaps Sully’s substantial blinders are understandable. Obama ran as that, but many of us on the right saw that it fit neither his past nor the advisors he surrounds himself with and so we didn’t buy it. That Sullivan is still invested in that after the Bamser’s millions and millions of fat cats served, at taxpayer expense of course, is breathtaking in its ignorance of facts piled up over the past year.
By JEM, January 20, 2010 @ 11:14 pm
There’s something fundamentally miswired in Sullivan’s brain, and the only way to figure it out would be a scalpel and a microscope.
I believe he’s right, though, that this all improves Obama’s chance for reelection; he’s on the slippery slope to Carterville, but he’s got a couple more turnouts, one or two more opportunities to play Clinton, chuck Congress under the bus, and people will buy it.
We know this administration is cynical enough to do it, but does Obama and his minions have the ideological flexibility?
By Mike, January 20, 2010 @ 11:16 pm
Why, I mean *really* WHY, does anyone pay any attention to Sullivan at all? I mean, why waste the time reading him or responding to him? Anyone can see he’s a babbling fool.
By journeyman, January 20, 2010 @ 11:43 pm
Mr. Sullivan has a most difficult time seeing anything clearly. And how can he, when the part of his anatomy that has been mentioned that he has trouble seeing past is jammed so far up the Obama arse, is it any wonder he can see anything at all?
By steve, January 20, 2010 @ 11:53 pm
Is this really the same Andrew Sullivan who used to write so convincingly in support of the war on terror, the Iraq invasion, and just about everything else, up till about the middle of 2004? I was with him when he raised his first doubts about what Bush was doing, but then he abruptly left the planet. I haven’t bothered to read anything from him in the last couple years at least.
By MJB Wolf, January 21, 2010 @ 12:21 am
“[W]hen did it change from Health Care Reform to Insurance Reform? Is this like the time the press and political hand wringers lowered the bar from Global Warming, to Climate Change, after it stopped warming?”
Yes.
By Charlie, January 21, 2010 @ 12:40 am
Sullivan is a parody of himself. I would be grateful if he would quit infesting my country with his meaningless twaddle and presence!
Go home, dork!
Charlie
By trashhauler, January 21, 2010 @ 12:41 am
Mr. Sullivan expresses so many mistaken ideas and just flat wrong facts that he almost entirely represents the trouble I have with the so-called reality-based community. Unwinnable wars? Well-crafted stimulus? Concern over joblessness expressed as hostility towards job-makers? These partisan-driven concepts bear almost no similarity to reality as might be described by an impartial outside observer.
By mariner, January 21, 2010 @ 12:51 am
It would be easier for Sullivan to see what was in front of his nose, if it weren’t so far up Obama’s …
By Roux, January 21, 2010 @ 1:41 am
How can he see his nose when he has his head up his ass?
By TomNJ, January 21, 2010 @ 1:43 am
Sullivan’s logic is ruled by emotion, not harsh reality, in my opinion. He follows the thrill of the rise and fall of his moods. He was once something unique: a gay conservative from Britain and so he brought a point of view many of us had not heard before. He has morphed over time into a lock-step liberal railing mainly and most passionately about gay marriage. I happened to support this, but it does not rise to the level of burning issue in my opinion. Gays are hung in public in Iran and the left wants to burn Miss California in effigy even as she holds the same opinion on gay marriage…as Barack Obama.
Sullivan’s ability to give Obama a pass on this is Orwellian/nose stuff. Bush opposed it, it was bigotry. Obama opposes it…Sully calls it “cunning”. Delusional. My personal theory on why Obama has abandoned gay issues is not for political calculation in the US (Ending don’t ask, don’t tell gets majority support in recent polls.) Rather I think it is calculated for how it plays in the “muslim world” he seeks to curry. An unpleasant set of facts is how violently homophobic Muslim countries are. Obama I think knows this and avoids seeming pro-gay for how it would play on Al Jazeera. No, not saying his is Muslim. Rather, having lived in a Muslim country, he knows how viscerally hated gays are by Muslims. Sorry, it is just true. Gays are hung in Iran, by the govt’.
By becoming yet another liberal point of view, all he has left to be unique is a claim to being “independent”. Hogwash. He has cheered every decision of Reid, Pelosi, Obama et al all year and before. He is a liberal dem, he should just stop the fiction. That fig leaf of being a “small c conservative” (He thinks Obama is one too…lol.) helps make him feel like a vibrant critic of the right from the right. It makes him feel more poignant. “Even conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan criticizes Gingrich’s words, saying…” Etc.
It is funny how he is so blind. His image of himself on his blog shows him writing, with his beagle, and atop his scalp he has hair. Andrew in real life, is quite bald.
By Sonicfrog, January 21, 2010 @ 2:18 am
Come on guys. I appreciate the passion, but the “nose up his ________” comment was not clever, funny, or insightful the first time.
By Lethalox, January 21, 2010 @ 4:34 am
I are agree the about the comments regarding noses and asses in that they are pointless drivel. I think what Andrew Sullivan is saying that about Obama re-election chances rose flaws into three categories. 1) He has someone to blame when Congress does not pass his programs 2) If bi-partisanship/republicans sponsor good programs Obama can claim the credit in the election 3) If the economy is still in the tank, he can run as the populist ala FDR. It gives Obama more room for maneuver with a viable opposition, everything is not on the Administration.
Alex
By krelldoggy, January 21, 2010 @ 4:42 am
Leave Andrew alone..clearly he is in love and you know what foolish things spring forth from the mouths of the smitten.
By Marty, January 21, 2010 @ 5:03 am
Stop picking on poor, deranged Sully. It’s not fair to mock the mentally handicapped.
By Chris L, January 21, 2010 @ 6:44 am
The whole “nose” line in his blog isn’t what bothers me, it’s the stupid and (as Douglas Adams would say) increasingly inaccurate “of no party or clique” line. I once sent him email about why he bothered with that one, since he was pimping for Obama during the campaign. I got (surprise, surprise) no response. There is nothing wrong with being a partisan, as long as you are honest about it. My problem with Sully is that basic intellectual dishonesty. You can not continually advocate for a cause or administration and pretend to be an objective observer.
By Sonicfrog, January 21, 2010 @ 7:07 am
Chris, I don’t know who you are, but your reference to DA put you on the list of most favored commenters.
By Anthony, January 21, 2010 @ 9:55 am
On Afghanistan — was Mr. Sullivan or any of the other Obama fans ACTUALLY listening? I mean, how many times did Obama say he was going to send more troops to Afghanistan? You could say that was the one promise he made that he kept. If he does not believe me, tell Mr. Sullivan to use Google or Youtube. I have had someone tell me that he thought Obama was just saying that to sound tough, so Republicans would not accuse him of being soft on terror.
Using war to get elected, when not really meaning it — that sounds sort of cynical to me. Yet Obama was supposed to be against cynicism. So I guess he had to be cynical to destroy cynicism.
By Gord Richens, January 21, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
“What the f**k is he talking about?”
Sullivan can’t tell the difference between an economic recovery and a massive transfer of wealth from tax payers to the stock market.
By A Reader, January 21, 2010 @ 12:22 pm
Your comments about Andrew really struck a chord with me. Your ability to take the seemingly complex and inchoate and give them form and choateness is the reason that I make Sonicfrog a regular read.
By BumperStickerist, January 21, 2010 @ 1:28 pm
Hey, Andrew has glowing “reader” comments … I figured you could use one, too.
Good analysis.
By Gunga, January 21, 2010 @ 2:35 pm
Jane you ignorant slut…the deranged Limey is not refering to his nosey, but your own brand of myopia. His super X-ray vision can see into Gov. Palin’s uterus and therefore needs no correction. You must be some sort of Repub Christianist Nihilist hobby-horsist stooge who is totally unable to filter all reality through the lense of marriage-denial-victimhood. When Sully finally loses his crush on THE ONE, he’ll probably blame it on nihilist fembots beaming hate rays through his foil beanie.
By doug, January 21, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
I read Sullivan loyally for several years starting just before the Afghanistan war. But during the election campaign of 2008, I had to stop. His blind adoration for Obama and his complete unwillingness to openly analyze the many problematic things about the man eventually drove me away. He was quite evidently completely irrational on the subject and I could not take it. Thankfully I left before he went completely bat sh*t over Sarah Palin.
I try not to waste my time reading anything by him, but sometimes one runs across these criticisms from people who do. They simply confirm my wisdom in bailing on him. That Sullivan *still* cannot see that Obama is a Chicago thug politician who has made pretty much every thing he has touched worse shows that he is blinkered beyond recovery.
I don’t much care whether Andrew thinks of himself as liberal or conservative. It really doesn’t matter. Either way he is a fool.
By Nolanimrod, January 21, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
Boy! Am I glad to hear you state most clearly that you are not an Andrew hater. When I was young it was a universal requirement that one be kind to dumb animals and while, if writing can be considered a form of speech, Andrew is not dumb, he is several of the other D words, including Deluded, Disingenuous, and Delirious which probably qualifies him. He is also Disabled when he tries his hand at logical, coherent thought, which would bring him under the aegis of the ADA, further militating against harboring hate for Andrew, in the heart, Carter-like, or elsewhere.
By Jeff Alberts, January 22, 2010 @ 3:31 am
Re: choateness
I think they have a pill for that.
By Sonicfrog, January 22, 2010 @ 6:31 am
The Lesson Here: If you write something criticizing Andrew Sullivan, you’re sure to get lots of traffic. Me, I’m not that hungry for hits.
But I’m glad you stopped in.