Sully, reacting to McCain’s failure to vote to ban torture:
I’m heartbroken. Torture is illegal and immoral whether it is conducted by the military or the CIA. That was McCain’s original position. It appears it is no longer.
I like Andrew, but has he not followed ANYTHING the past 7 years? McCain, Graham, Specter, hell- there are a number of them- have spent the last two administrations running cover for this President. They say all the right things and then roll over and play dead, or are appeased with some last minute non-concession concession from the administration, and the President gets his way. It is an extremely cynical game, but it hasn’t been very well-hidden. Hell, Tim even created a category for it- Spectering.
This is why there is simply no chance in hell I will vote for a Republican this fall. The party is simply rotten to the core, and a vote for McCain will be a vote to continue this crap. The party needs to be destroyed, and I would vote for Cynthia McKinney for President over any Republican.
At least this time the bill passed. Most of the time when McCain stabbed us in the back the result went the other way.
*** Update ***
I really wouldn’t vote for Cynthia McKinney. It is called hyperbole, folks. You all should be familiar with it if you read this website.
4tehlulz
No.
SA2SQ
In before Paul does his JOHN IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE schtick.
4tehlulz
*Phil
All the trolls merge into one amorphous mass eventually.
Jamey
I want to like Andrew, but he’s a brittle, selfish, intellectually dishonest, transparent hack. And he’s a total unhinged bitch about Hillary.
Why Sulli has any credibility remaining is a mystery. Maybe because he speaks with an English accent.
binzinerator
Another reason I stopped reading Sully. Regarding torture, he’s a conservative who actually does have a conscience — and yet he keeps coming back to those same damn republicans who enable it.
I mean really, it’s like watching Charlie Brown get the football jerked out from under him yet again, and even though you might have once thought “You’re a good man Charlie Brown” after the eleventy-millionth time of him falling for it you feel the beginnings of contempt and you just can’t bear to watch it another time.
Unfortunately, I’ve decided he holds the belief that conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Seven years. I thought he’d figured out what Bushism is really about, but obviously not. God what a clueless dope. A real pity, that.
Michael D.
Chokes.
On.
Own.
Tongue.
CPR.
Needed.
In all seriousness, I am seeing someone who admitted to me yesterday that he is a McCain supporter. I like the guy, so I covered my ears and made “I can’t hear you” noises. Fortunately, he is a green card holder and can’t vote.
But I would NEVER go so far as to vote for Cynthia McKinney. N.E.V.E.R.
Punchy
Speaking of dumb things politicans say/do….here’s something I was completely unaware had changed.
Just hand him his pink slip. Please.
Jake
I was going to pick on John Cole for picking on Dullivan for a blog post he must have written back when McCane the Maverick showed his soft white underbelly to President Bush.
Alas. This dumbass really is all of a sudden heartbroken about this now. TODAY. Just wait until catches up with all of the other shit his party’s been up to since 2001. Someone follow him around with a fainting couch.
j
p.s. I hate V.D. but married bloggers who open a post on Feeb. 14 with the words “I’m heartbroken,” should be forced to sleep on the couch. At a friend’s house. For a few weeks.
Stupid oaf.
Don
McCain didn’t vote to ban torture? You wouldn’t know it to glance at today’s Washington Post article about the amendment. Here’s a larger picture of the story, making the quote clear.
Zifnab
Here, this might help.
rawshark
The man is running for president on the R ticket. No way is he going to piss off the base if he can at all avoid it. If you want the 24 viewer vote you vote FOR torture.
cleek
i’ve been waiting for that realization hit hit Sullivan. he kept saying things like “McCain goes part of the way – these primaries have ensured that the U.S. will not be torturing after the Bush-Cheney years.” (yesterday!) but McCain clearly plays both sides of the torture issue – he’s against it when he wants to be a maverick, and for it when he wants to be a wingnut. maybe his talk is straight in another dimension ?
and Sullivan writes:
surely? of course?
poor fool – he’s still clinging to the myth.
4tehlulz
I guess he didn’t get the memo that these are now the American way of interrogation.
Stupid tool.
zsa
The Democrats also indulge in Spectoration, but then I believe it’s called “kabuki”.
It’s amazing (and scary) just how little accountability there’s been on the Bush admin, and it’s looking like we’ll never actually bring any of this gang before the bar.
RSA
Fixed.
Tom Hilton
I would vote for Lincoln Chafee over Cynthia McKinney, maybe…but just about any other Republican I can think of I would vote for McKinney. And I really can’t stand her.
Jen
Yeah, in my mystification as to exactly why McCain makes unhinged people reach heretofore unknown levels of unhingedness despite being pretty much a conservative, that’s all I can come up with. They just really, really, really want to torture people.
Tom Hilton
Also, this is just one more episode in McCain’s long history of flip vs. flop. Matt Yglesias notes opportunistic shifts in McCain’s overall voting record; The Carpetbagger Report has a lengthy list of other McCain flip-flops. Straight Talk Express, my ass.
TenguPhule
And then voted against banning it.
There is no compromise possible with madmen.
Either send them to the madhouse, or get rid of them.
binzinerator
Jen, that’s what George Orwell came up with too:
Jake
libarbarian
Wanna See the REAL John McCain plotting to take over Iran? Direct file footage from within the secret planning rooms of the government?
Pay attention to the part when they outline their sneaky plan to subvert Iran through a culture war and see if it sounds familiar.
The Grand Panjandrum
He hasn’t been the straight talk express since he got pimp slapped by Bush in the 2000 primaries.
DougJ
Sully’s whole shtick is to “surprise” people.
You know, “I’m socially liberal but I hate liberals”, “I favor racial equality but I also like to publish unscientific, racist manifestos about IQ ” “I’m gay but I’m a big slob”, etc. etc. It’s that old TNR trick. Josh Marshall rightly describes it as “facile contrarianism.” Meghan McArdle is taking it to a whole new level over at the Atlantic, by the way.
Dennis - SGMM
McCain is running for president for the same reasons that some dogs will chase a stick no matter how many times you throw it. He is advantaged by the fact that the original Republican field had more flakes and nuts than a pound of granola. Any Republican who may have actually strayed far away enough from Bush to have even a whiff at the general election would be shot down in flames by his own party. So we have McCain, the sorta’ straight-talking pseudo maverick. If McCain loses look for an ideological purge withing the Republican party that would make Stalin envious.
Uncle Kvetch
I like Andrew, but has he not followed ANYTHING the past 7 years?
Have you not read ANYTHING Sullivan’s written in the past 7 years? And if you have, what in the name of the FSM do you find “likeable” about him? As has been pointed out by numerous others on his thread, this “shocked, shocked” routine isn’t an aberration–it’s his entire schtick in a nutshell.
Between now and November 2008 he’s going to devote tens of thousands of words to why he doesn’t want to vote Republican again, he really really really really really really really doesn’t, but Hillary’s cooties or Obama’s something-or-other leave him no choice, and bloggers far and wide will commiserate with poor, poor Andrew, because even if you disagree with him, he’s so damn likeable. Utterly mystifying.
jcricket
Well, when you “define torture” down, and do all sorts of “ends/means” justification (see Scalia, for a great example), is it really a surprise that Mr. Maverick has no problem authorizing “enhanced ticking-time-bomb-preventing interrogation techniques”?
There are no meaningfully, useful, moderate Republicans left at a National level. Unless they start voting against the crop of Republican policies (not just Bush, mind you) that got us in the current set of messes, they all need to be voted out of office. This includes Snowe and Collins.
States that are already blue are doing this within their state legislatures (see Washington, Hawaii), with pretty good results. Republicans being banished from the suburbs and even exurbs, to the rural parts of the state where their conservative base still holds sway.
Sully’s conservatism is this “platonic ideal” of goodness, transparency and light that’s never even been close to the platform or actions of the Republican party. Like most gay Republicans (and I mean this), he can’t bring himself to admit that his chosen party hates him and that should be enough to at least get him to vote “not Republican”, if not vote Democrat. I don’t care how much you like tax cuts, hate abortion, consider yourself hawkish, if you are part of a party that does not and will not (unless dragged kicking and screaming by the other party) want to let you “live your life” in any meaningful way – you are going to live a life of chronic disappointment.
srv
Mukasey says GW will have to do the waterboardings himself.
The Other Steve
If Cynthia McKinney ran for President, do you think she’d ask Michelle Malkin to be her running mate?
It’d be a bipartisan crazy ticket.
Zifnab
Yeah, Scalia’s little bullshit hedging on “cruel and unusual punishment” left me caught between laughing and crying. So, Mr. SCOTUS, let me get this straight. If I torture someone as a punishment, that’s wrong. If I torture someone because somewhere on earth a timebomb may or may not be ticking, that’s fine.
I’d love to ask our most esteemed judge this little query. “If you’ve got three guys in custody, and one of them knows about a ticking time bomb, how hard do you shit your pants before you water board all three?”
Ed Drone
The original meaning of “maverick” was un-branded cattle. But it’s pretty obvious that McPain has several brands all over his sorry hide. The most recent and enduring brand is a big, fat “W”. It’s so large I’m surprised it isn’t visible from space.
“Maverick” my ass! Someone (psst, Barack!) should publicize this (hey, Hillary!) all over the playing field. Every speech or TV spot should have a line like,
“John McCain used to be a maverick but now he wears ‘Brand W’ proudly. He’s just part of the herd now, an old steer put out to pasture.”
Ed
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I will be dipped in shit.
I know that guy. My grandmother was his fucking maid, back in the ’60s (and probably before, but I didn’t arrive on-planet ’til the late ’50s and didn’t give a rip then).
Honest-to-God. And though he’s a wealthy Southern white man (they had a big ol’ house in Belle Meade that I was privileged to visit once), I really thought better of Douglas Henry than that. (My gramma referred to him affectionately as “Mr. Duck” — she was just Dottie to him).
Wow. Small fooken’ world to be so full of assholes.
DougJ
And would David Broder write approvingly of them? Would they pimp out Sam Waterston to plug this Unity 08 Dream Team?
4tehlulz
One more reason that the GOP needs to be crushed.
Actually, can we stop referring it to the GOP or the Republican Party and call it what it really is — the Party of Bush (GW)? I doubt that Goldwater, Ike, Reagan, or even Newt would pull this kind of shit.
ThymeZone
If she were running against Cindy Sheehan?
{ you know I had to }
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
What? They might let Cindy Sheehan run as a Republican?
Damn, I need another drink.
Zifnab
He’s the guy who says things you shouldn’t trust in a convincing manner, right?
crw
Okay, put up or shut up time from the Dems. I really really want to see Obama and/or Hillary turn this into a campaign issue. Lets see a clear voice speaking against this sophistry for once.
mark
I confess I bought it. I thought McCain at least drew the line here. I want to throw up.
Delia
Actually, it appears Lincoln Chafee is no longer a Republican. And he’s going to endorse Obama
Zifnab
Can we give him Joe Lieberman’s Super Delegate vote? Better yet, can we just out-and-out trade Chafee for Lieberman?
demimondian
John, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, nobody understands — much less indulges in — hyperbole here.
Tim F.
That has to be the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
The Other Steve
Never have I read a more utterly profane endorsement of the truth.
anonocrat
An Open Letter to John McCain (With Apologies to John McCain):
Dear Senator McCain:
We would like to apologize to you for assuming that your public assurances to us regarding your desire to stand against the illegal, unethical, and immoral use of torture by officers of the United States government were sincere. When you insisted that, despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2002, 2004, and 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit and honor on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, we concluded that your professed concern for the rule of law and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing us of such notions with your vote on February 13, 2008, which illuminated your decision to retreat from your previous honorable position. We are embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics we failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured we won’t make the same mistake again.
Regards,
The Disappointed
DougJ
Yes, like the importance of robot insurance.
Uncle Kvetch
That has to be the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
What a fascistic thing to say. Jonah Goldberg was right–you guys are worse than Nazis.
jcricket
But if Nazis are liberals, and we’re worse at being liberal than Nazis, doesn’t that make us conservatives?
tBone
I love how snide jackasses like you dismiss this issue out of hand.
Like it or not, robots are everywhere, and they eat old people’s medicine for fuel. Don’t come crying to me when your grandfather drops dead of a heart attack before he can complete his will because the Roomba you bought him for Christmas ate his nitroglycerin tablets.
ed
I do not like Andrew.
Delia
So are they all, all honorable men.
p.a.
re: Sully is surprised. It looks to me as if 21st century Republicans suffer from a strange sleeptime malady, overnight amnesia. Every day is bright and shiny new. Every statement by their leaders on our wars, economy, values etc. are contextless and ahistorical; taken at face value as a 4 year old believes the statements of his parents without guile or cynicism. This goes far beyond Orwell’s description of newspeak, which was an active device by the subject to erase cognitive dissonance. Todays Repubs are way, way beyond that. There is no dissonance to combat. They are empty vessels to be filled by their leaders’ pronouncements. Daily.
DougJ
Perfect imitation of the commenters on the Atlantic blogs.
Ted
Funniest thing I’ve read in days. The mental image alone was hilarious. Love it when John gets going on about the Republicans.
Ted
I think the real question is: would John vote for Cindy Sheehan before he’d vote for any Republican? Think of him in the voting booth, just about to pull the lever. Would there be gagging? Any regurgitation?
sglover
Look, the reason darling Andy doesn’t allow comments is that, deep down in that place that he never ever wants to examine, the stupid twit KNOWS he’d be outclassed by his readers.
Who cares what Sullivan thinks? Why bother reading him? He’s a narcissistic idiot. Just say no!
SteveinSC
It’s actually quite erotic, when the young become engorged with emotion and righteous indignation. Reading about it constitutes a sort of political voyeurism and is very entertaining, bordering on the pornographic.
jww
Hey John,
I feel quite confident in saying, “you would spill the beans on the entire nation for a hot cup of Ramen”.
You still make a very sad case, but I guess never having a spine of your own makes it easy to melt into the existing surroundings.
I and many others are elated to see you on the outside and not within.
Tax Analyst
That’s got to be “Zen-Moron” speak, right?
I thought Ramen was made with noodles, not beans.
If JWW is “within” I am most grateful to be “without”, or on the outside, whichever the case may be, thank you.
Maybe the “within” he is talking about is “The Funny Papers”.
TenguPhule
Jww, today’s Irony of the Day.