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You are here: Home / Way To Get Out In Front of an Issue

Way To Get Out In Front of an Issue

by John Cole|  February 19, 20118:02 am| 35 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity, Teabagger Stupidity

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Sullivan gives a “Yglesias Award”, which honors “writers, politicians, columnists or pundits who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe,” to Jeff Flake and Karl Rove for… denouncing birthers. You’re about three years behind the curve, clowns.

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35Comments

  1. 1.

    Cat Lady

    February 19, 2011 at 8:08 am

    They’re denouncing them after a majority of likely Republican primary voters are birthers. I think Sully meant to give them his Having Your Cake and Eating it Too award.

  2. 2.

    Maude

    February 19, 2011 at 8:11 am

    Next it’s the Thatcher award.

  3. 3.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    February 19, 2011 at 8:17 am

    If Sullivan can’t distinguish a really weak spin from a denunciation he needs to take another month off.

    Here’s a clip from Karl “Black Love Child” Rove:

    … we need the leaders of our party to say “Look, stop falling into the trap of the White House and focus on the real issues.”

    You can read the whole sorry Rove/O’Reilly exchange by following the link in Sully’s post.

  4. 4.

    morzer

    February 19, 2011 at 8:20 am

    Sullivan is such an ignorant whore, even on his best days, which are increasingly rare. I suspect the influence of Connie von Freepersdorf.

  5. 5.

    Aimai

    February 19, 2011 at 8:22 am

    How embarrassing for ygleisias.

  6. 6.

    Superluminar

    February 19, 2011 at 8:28 am

    You can read the whole sorry Rove/O’Reilly exchange

    You can, but why would you want to? And why another Sullivan post? This is like a certain young lady and her Kain stalking. Is there something about your feelings for Andy you’re not telling us, John?

  7. 7.

    Mark-NC

    February 19, 2011 at 8:28 am

    I think they are denouncing the Birther BS because they can see that it actually hurts Republican chances at winning tight races. Being crazy only gets you Republican’s votes.

    So, how do you get the wingnuts to stop something this stupid? Rove knows what he’s doing! He said that this is a “PLOT” by the Obama clan to make Republicans look bad.

    If the nuts can be convinced that Obama wants this – they’ll stop!

  8. 8.

    patrick II

    February 19, 2011 at 8:40 am

    What a profile in courage! The president — born in the U.S.! I don’t visit Sullivan so when I hit the link I thought I was looking at an Onion parody. But he seems to be serious. Wow. What stand up guys — both the nominee and the nominator. It’s not parody — you’re sure?

  9. 9.

    Mr. Prosser

    February 19, 2011 at 8:43 am

    @Mark-NC: You are so right, these guys,Rove especially, are not teatards, they are guys out to win elections.

  10. 10.

    DougJ®

    February 19, 2011 at 8:44 am

    I’m so fucking tired of Andrew Sullivan, but I wonder, if enough people emailed Matt Yglesias about this, he might consider asking Andrew Sullivan to stop using his name for the award.

  11. 11.

    MattF

    February 19, 2011 at 8:50 am

    Without looking at what Rove actually said, I’ll bet he managed to accuse libruls of doing at least three different things that he did during the Bush years. It’s the Way of Rove.

  12. 12.

    ornery curmudgeon

    February 19, 2011 at 9:10 am

    Oh, Sully did something. Thank you for the very important information.

  13. 13.

    balconesfault

    February 19, 2011 at 9:15 am

    I think it’s just quality control on the lies that come out of the GOP. Rove doesn’t like anyone else having final say.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    February 19, 2011 at 9:24 am

    Guess he couldn’t find a scientist ranting against global warming/climate change so he had to use this fallback….

  15. 15.

    Marty

    February 19, 2011 at 9:40 am

    Give a Republican congressman an award for saying that the President is an American citizen? That is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

  16. 16.

    PeakVT

    February 19, 2011 at 10:43 am

    Can one of the FPers move the link to Silly Sully down to the “Blogs We Monitor And Mock As Needed” section? McAddled should be in there, too. Also.

  17. 17.

    matoko_chan

    February 19, 2011 at 10:46 am

    give EDK the hook. hes no different than sully and conor.
    we dont need a fifth columnist inside our walls.
    This is war.
    and like Sully and Conor, EDK is on the other side.

  18. 18.

    matoko_chan

    February 19, 2011 at 10:48 am

    @PeakVT: move LoOG too, since DougJ trolled them and mocked them.

  19. 19.

    morzer

    February 19, 2011 at 10:48 am

    @DougJ®:

    Better than being so tired of fucking Andrew Sullivan. Accentuate the positive.

  20. 20.

    matoko_chan

    February 19, 2011 at 10:52 am

    FIGHT you fucking coward!
    im so fucking tired of your ennui and moral equivalance.
    EDK can be one of us when he shrives himself in blood like you and i did!

  21. 21.

    alwhite

    February 19, 2011 at 11:25 am

    Don’t know about Flake but Rove’s story changes depending on the audience. He still encourages birthers, at least with dog whistles when decent people are not paying attention.

    Rush used to be the master of this. He would say the most awful, racist, hate-filled crap on his radio show but in public appearances with actual media present was much closer to reasonable. He even joked about this on his radio show. The media was, of course, polite enough not to embarrass the anal cyst by bringing this up.

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    February 19, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Because Balloon Juice readers are smarter than Andrew Sullivan on this one.

    Here’s the Rove transcript. Rove claims (1) the birther nonsense is a “White House trap” and (2) direct quote: “Look, these guys may be lousy at governing, Bill, but they’re damn good at politics.”

    Projection anyone, Karl?

    Andrew Sullivan is training me to stay off The Daily Dish for a few weeks.

    Maybe the antibiotics damaged some brain cells? Or ate his understanding of nuance?

    ROVE: I don’t know, but whatever it is, it ought to be less, because we need the leaders of our party to say “Look, stop falling into the trap of the White House and focus on the real issues.”
    O’REILLY: You know this stat that was put out — that 51% of Republicans…
    ROVE: … look, this is a lousy poll.
    O’REILLY: I know it is, but it’s going to be picked up — it already has been by the mainstream media.
    ROVE: Absolutely.
    O’REILLY: To demonize the rest of the Republican party.
    ROVE: Sure, it fits into the White House theme-line.
    O’REILLY: But isn’t that smart of the White House to do that?
    ROVE: Oh, absolutely.
    Look, these guys may be lousy at governing, Bill, but they’re damn good at politics.

    http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/karl-rove-gop-must-denounce-birthers-not-coddle-them/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OTB+%28Outside+The+Beltway+|+OTB%29

  23. 23.

    dj spellchecka

    February 19, 2011 at 11:47 am

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen beat me to it but this is worth repeating…rove isn’t calling out birthers for being, you know, birthers, but because they are “falling into the trap of the White House.”

    a non-existent “trap” the white house didn’t set, i might add.

  24. 24.

    suzanne

    February 19, 2011 at 11:57 am

    The sad thing is that having Flake as my Senator would be an improvement.

    Like, a VAST improvement.

    I need a hug.

  25. 25.

    piratedan

    February 19, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    @suzanne: who knows Suzanne, perhaps he aspitres to be Jon Kyl? Then again, I’m probably wishing for a pony here, but I’m hoping that Giffords really recovers enough to make a run for the seat.

  26. 26.

    sukabi

    February 19, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    see, it’s this kind of self-aggrandizing bullshit that Sullivan does that makes it not worth the effort to pay attention to him… that and his pandering, which this is part and parcel of.

  27. 27.

    eemom

    February 19, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    1. I am tireder of McArdle than I am of Sullivan. Fer as I can tell the FPers are WAY more unhealthily obsessed with what appears to be a completely useless, vacuous woman than even Sully is with little Twig.

    2. Toko-loko, shut the fuck up already about getting rid of E.D. Not. Gonna. Fucking. Happen. Find a new moo-cow to cudlip on.

  28. 28.

    Allan

    February 19, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Really, it’s OK not to read Sullivan. I stopped years ago, and survived.

  29. 29.

    Jeffro

    February 19, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    @Mark-NC:

    I think they are denouncing the Birther BS because they can see that it actually hurts Republican chances at winning tight races. Being crazy only gets you Republican’s votes.

    Yup, that is exactly right, it is the only reason they’re dropping it: it only flies with the crazy base, and the crazy base doesn’t need any more reasons to vote Republican.

    Rove is especially interesting to watch/listen to for anyone who wants insight on where the right wing will head to actually win votes/elections. At a recent debate with Howard Dean at the U of DE, he became most perturbed at how Republicans had been unable to control their nativist base the past couple of years, basically destroying all of the inroads W had made with Hispanic voters.

    Well, he didn’t put it that way of course – he accused Dean & the Dems of twisting the immigration issue. But you could tell he was mad that teabaggers had blown it in this area and made his job that much harder =)

  30. 30.

    matoko_chan

    February 19, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    @eemom: make me you stupid cow.
    ima ruin every weepy bathetic “conversion” thread that fucking glibertarian wanker puts up here.
    im sick of him dipping a toe in the sea of reality and “evolving” his positions so you retards will pat him on the head.
    and im not sorry. and it wont stop……until he shrives himself in blood.

  31. 31.

    El Cid

    February 19, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    If I identify myself as an anti-war liberal Democrat who now harshly condemns John Cole as a big spending debtor who wants China to own us all, do I get an Yglesias award from Sully?

    Would I have to read Sully?

    Would I have to spell completely ridiculously wrong and employ less-than-sensible grammar?

    Certainly I could at least take pride in being a contrarian.

    The problem is I don’t have that snotty dismissive attitude that Yglesias can adopt whenever he feels like telling the working and poor classes that they just need to buck up and deal with changes which will make our country, particularly its professionals, awesome.

  32. 32.

    matoko_chan

    February 19, 2011 at 1:28 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I think they are denouncing the Birther BS because they can see that it actually hurts Republican chances at winning tight races.

    Agree. this was all over CPAC last year too. they cant switch off the racism….it runs too deep.
    that is why Breitbart is morphing into a frothing lunatic. They hear the demographic timer ticking, and there seems to be no way they can turn the black and brown vote. And youth (except skinheads and OKeefe) wont vote for racists.
    Racists are uncool.
    the branding of the GOP is very bad right naow.
    they need a PR makeover. mebbe MTV-Made will undertake them.

    you jus cant get to Cooltown on the conservative express. it only goes to Crazytown anymore.

  33. 33.

    themann1086

    February 19, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    Sully can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. He’s always been a wanker.

  34. 34.

    Batocchio

    February 20, 2011 at 3:43 am

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen beat me to it – Rove blamed the birther crap his side started on the White House! So Rove spews some more propaganda, and Sullivan praises him for it?!? There are times he’s on, and great, but wow, this one is just embarrassing. Rove didn’t just admit the truth for “tactical” reasons, as Sullivan suggests – Rove spread some new smears at the same time.

  35. 35.

    Nancy Irving

    February 20, 2011 at 7:23 am

    “for the sake of saying what they believe” –

    The only thing Karl Rove believes is that what he is saying at any given moment is what’s best for Karl Rove’s party and for Karl Rove.

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