I’m this close to a bottle of wine, a hot bath, and some straight razors:
Many readers have written in on these lines:
Was it only a week ago that you wrote:
I hate the term “war on women”. It’s so hackish and echoes with the kind of liberal screechiness that backfires with everyone else. But the fact that there is a wave of laws in GOP controlled states, making abortion harder and harder and more humiliating to obtain, and what can reasonably be described as a full-bore assault on Planned Parenthood, is simply undeniable.
And yet I used the term “war on gays” today. My critics are right. It was a lazy headline and I should have tried for a better one. I’ve now replaced those headlines with the original Grenell meme: “GOP: No Gays Allowed”. But I haven’t downplayed or dismissed the real issues women face in various states.
Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, you are ABSOLUTELY killing me. The problem isn’t you using the headline the “war on gays.” There is a war on gay people, and the GOP has been waging it for years. The problem is you dismiss the also accurate description of the brutal assault on women’s rights by claiming a “war on gays” is mere hyperbole. It isn’t. They are also waging a war on immigrants, the poor, unions, and so forth. It’s not hyperbole. It’s reality.
Don’t change your headline, just pull your head out of your ass and recognize it isn’t just you and your sexuality they are targeting.
Trentrunner
Andrew Sullivan is a cunty git.
Jerzy Russian
It is times like this that I wish Al Gore did not invent the internet.
James E. Powell
Mr Cole, you are trying to reason with Andrew Sullivan? Why?
Corner Stone
SNAP!
Culture of Truth
If Mr. Sullivan is ever wondering why some people have not bothered with him for more than 10 years, he has an, if not the only, answer.
erlking
Thank you, John. I was trying to compose a response and couldn’t get past, “ARRRRGGGH! Are you fucking kidding me, motherfucker?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I see he’s also decided that Cheney was for gay marriage while in office, if not actually during the ’04 campaign, at least by implication. I’ll admit I could be wrong, but my recollection is that Cheney came out for marriage well after Obama’s inauguration.
Arclite
Fixed.
Corner Stone
So, Big Break: Atlantis is almost here.
I’m kinda torn at this point.
Cathyx
But then he would have to rethink everything he’s be espousing for the last 20 years. That would undo everything he’s believed in. Uh, no.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Talk about the worst traits of both the left and the right: No empathy and yet the need to be consistent in everything. I have been guilty of the latter, but in part it’s because I can empathize with others.
David Koch
Cole,
maybe you and Sully should start seeing other blogs
Corner Stone
“Except when I did. For exactly 100% of the time. Parsing out these parts, of course.”
– Sully
amk
Isn’t there a nutjob pastor somewhere who can beat the teh
gaystupidity out of sully ?btw, how strong is your desk … or your head for that matter, cole.
David Koch
leave it to Cole to make an inappropriate and insensitive remark on the day Junior Seau died.
ReinWeiss
So what, do lesbians make his head explode?
Is he even aware they exist?
Steve
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Cheney wasn’t all that consistent, but he did say during the 2004 campaign that he personally thought “people be ought to be able to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.”
General Stuck
Who’d a thunk the war party would be offended at the term “war” used by women and their supporters, for being pissed off that republicans want to use them as forced brood mares to make more little wingnuts, and assault them by poking around their insides for no medical reason, to embarrass them into not getting a fully legal medical procedure to end an unwanted pregnancy. These people are not only sociopaths but chickenshit with the terminal vapors, to boot.
Jeff Spender
I’m trying to come up with a pithy comment, but I’m drawing a blank.
I think Sullivan has had the same effect on my IQ as eating lead paint chips did for George Bush during his first term.
Suffern ACE
Well, if you do actually scream, make sure to snap a photo. We might be able to sell it for $119 million some day.
debg
Bravo, John! I couldn’t agree with you more.
Corner Stone
I’m sorry. I just don’t understand why you’re singling out Sullivan.
Because when he’s good, he’s really good.
And when he writes so honestly with his emotions on his sleeve I think we all need to pay attention to his pure honesty and emotion.
Mike in NC
Yeah, damn those decadent Leftists in their enclaves on the coasts.
Comrade Javamanphil
Expecting Sully the Pooh to get a clue will prove as successful as finding WMD’s in Iraq. Move on.
beltane
The best thing that can be said about Andrew Sullivan is that he is just too plain silly to dislike all that much. His beagles are probably less obtuse than he is. I always think of him as the Beard of Perpetual Cluelessness.
Jibeaux
Maybe he just thought “full bore assault on gays” sounded titillating.
Comrade Mary
So once you mentioned a straight razor, I stopped thinking about Sully and pulled up this. You don’t through a fifth of the trilliation I go through …
beltane
Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” sold for $120 million today. It must be a sign of the times.
AA+ Bonds
“Please excuse this thing I did. To make sure you know I’m serious, I’m rewriting the copy you’re most likely to read so that it looks like I never did it in the first place. This is truly what it means to accept responsibility”
Donut
@Corner Stone:
You are high. Sullivan farms most of his job out to interns. When the interns are good, they make Sullivan appear to be really good
kdaug
@Corner Stone:
I agree that he’s earnest and honest.
He’s also wrong.
No prob. Just make sure he knows. He’s evolved before, as has Cole.
He ain’t an asshole, and is willing to change his mind and admit he was wrong.
It’s what keeps him interesting.
JCT
@beltane:
As the owner of a couple of beagles that is really low blow.
KG
I’m sorry, I can’t stand the use of war analogies in politics and sports. And yes, it is an analogy because last I checked they aren’t using guns or bombs. It diminishes the reality that is actual war. And it distorts what should be fairly rational discussions — the war on drugs is fucked up in large part because we allow it to be called a “war”; same with all those other stupid not-war wars we “fight.”
They are advocating terrible, terrible policies; and in some cases, enacting them. That’s not war, that’s the democratic process. Don’t like it? Then get politically organized and win the election in November. Make better arguments to convince people you are right — do you have any idea how many people you turn off by calling it a war on women or a war on gays or a war on whateverthefuckissueorgroupyoucareabout?
Go ahead and flame me now… because the best way to win in politics is to ridicule those who tend to agree with you substantively but not stylistically. Calling someone an asshole is always a winner.
AA+ Bonds
“So you know that I understand how wrong I was about the Iraq War, I will be taking some time off from my paragraph-length column to rewrite all those old entries so it looks like I had the exact opposite opinion back then”
“People must take responsibility for their mistakes and this is just my way of saying, TAKESIES BACKSIES I AM IMMUNE FROM CRITICISM NOW”
gaz
@Corner Stone: I’m waiting for sullivan to get his first trans-vaginal ultrasound. Then we’ll see what he thinks about the War on Women. You can do it sully! Pull a Hitchens!
Odie Hugh Manatee
“Don’t change your headline, just pull your head out of your ass and recognize it isn’t just you and your sexuality they are targeting.”
It ain’t happening, Sully likes the fit. It’s like it was made for him.
Morbo
Sure, but they’re also promising to lower his taxes.
jwb
@Corner Stone: You’re so catty.
Elizabelle
“To see what is in front of one’s nose
needs a constant struggleis beyond me some days. Yet still I blog.” — Andrew Sullivan, with apologies to George Orwell(Suspect cornerstone’s comment was tongue in cheek. Agree with kdaug that Andrew’s heart is usually in the right place, but the cognitive dissonance on some topics burns.)
I never read him anymore. (1) The Daily Beast site loads too slow. (2) Tina Brown.
Corner Stone
@Donut: What do you mean? Sullivan works his way to the right answer eventually. He’s just really honest about his journey. He writes with his emotions on his sleeve.
And when he’s good, he’s really, irreplaceably, good.
David Koch
Gotta admire the way Romney stands up to the radical homosexual agenda.
Suffern ACE
@beltane: Yeah. His 2nd most famous painting, “Arthur, the well adjusted, happy clown” sold for $59.99. There is a premium for anxiety.
jwb
@Corner Stone: You’re cracking me up. This is too funny.
Corner Stone
Gah. Win McMurry and her flat hips should not be wearing that white skirt,
Now that is catty.
Paddy
Sometimes something good happens. Video- Missouri “Don’t Say Gay” Bill Prompts Rep. Zach Wyatt to Come Out, Stimies Bill
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@KG: And people are dying because of them. War.
Calouste
We’re talking about a conservative here. The core tenet of modern conservatism is that it is just them.
Chris
@Arclite:
In fairness, the world seems to have been waging a war on gay people for centuries. It’s only in the last half century or less that, in this country at least, that became a GOP thing rather than a bipartisan consensus.
Corner Stone
IOW, fuck you DougJ.
Steve
@KG: I suspect calling it a war alienates you and the 2 trillion other Americans whose hatred for war analogies trumps all other political issues. Or, arguably, it might be some number less than 2 trillion, but surely not much less.
gex
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Well, gays and women sure do get killed based on the rhetoric and policies of the right. But I suspect KG doesn’t need to worry about that and can pretend like we’re merely exaggerating. Tell that to the dead kids in Bachmann’s district.
clayton
@jwb: “Catty” is an insult to cats when used to describe Corner Stone.
This is where Cole just doesn’t get it. During the 2008 primaries, my friend and I were just not seeing thing the same way. He’s come around. Sully will never. So I say to Cole: plant your garden.
gex
@Chris: Correcting it to decades is an acknowledgment that the current overt campaign began in 1993 when Hawaii ruled for SSM. It has been a non-stop GOP, RCC, LDS coalition making massive dollars, stoking lots of hate, getting people killed fest since then.
Frivolous
Balloon Juice has too much focus on Andrew Sullivan, John Cole. He’s just another blogger.
If you’re that attached to him, there may be something wrong with you.
clayton
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Do you think KG is Keith G. and he not only has problems with non-white people writing on the internets but women, too?
Corner Stone
@clayton: But what does Mona think about insults to cats?
Do you know? Because I do. I used to ask her during those +1000 comment threads on UT. She would always ask me why you never helped her and her attempts to stop insults to cats.
I never knew why you played all over those threads at UT but left Mona to linger with her troubles and cat related insult based differentials.
Mona always wondered why you didn’t help her when she needed help. Her and her cats suffered because you didn’t help her when people commented repeatedly about cats on UT.
She always blamed you, and I can’t say she was wrong.
Why didn’t you help Mona?
Cluttered Mind
@KG: When large numbers of people lose their lives as a result of these policies, I think it’s appropriate to call them “wars”. The war on drugs, war on women, and war on gays have claimed many, many lives. I think we do a great disservice to the dead to marginalize this as just politics as usual.
Smiling Mortician
@KG: Ah, good. A War on Metaphor. Just what we need.
clayton
@Corner Stone: You know, the day that AL fell for your shit was the lowest day on this blog. I lost all respect for AL and can’t even bring myself to read her posts any more, no matter how interesting they seem at first glance. And you know why? Because she fell for your bullshit.
You are not a positive force in the universe. You are out for yourself and yourself only.
Get the fuck off this planet already.
Scamp Dog
The thing to understand about Sullivan is that he’s a polemicist at heart, trained to argue in a formal debate. He knows how to come up with an argument to support either side of a question. When he chooses to be on the right side of a debate (torture, for example), he can come up with powerful, convincing arguments. When he wants to be on the wrong side of a question (women’s rights, GOP tax cuts, whatever), he will put together some lofty-sounding string of sentences that seem convincing if you don’t look too quickly or think too hard.
How he chooses what side to be on is not clear to me. I lost a lot of respect for him (and stopped reading him regularly), when he I read him discussing Barbra Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed. He found a clever argument against the idea that the people at the bottom were being treated badly, since they didn’t have medical insurance or vacation time: There’s an inherent dignity in work, and those awful liberals are getting in the way with all their protests about this!
No, you upper-class twit. Liberals don’t want to take these people out of the work force by giving them welfare, we want them to have insurance and some time off. Ehrenreich wrote about a woman working for a maid service, hopping around on one leg because she couldn’t afford to take time off to rest the injury, never mind spending money to have a doctor look at it. That image got scrubbed out of his memory of the book, but he did come up with a great line that conservatives could cheer at a debate, so he’s gotten all he needs!
So he’s worth reading when he agrees with you, and you need some cheap debating points (or, if you’re lucky, a good argument or two). Don’t read him to find out how the world works, or if you definitely need a good argument for your cause.
clayton
@Corner Stone: I never played at UT, you idiot.Why don’t you ask all of Mona’s friends about why they didn’t insult her cats?
Or why they didn’t give her money like any other whore on the internets?
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
there ought to be a sullivan award for taking shit andrew sullivan says too seriously.
Corner Stone
@clayton: Mona never thought that way. She always appreciated how I helped her through those tough times on the 1000 comment threads.
She always asked why you never helped her. I couldn’t explain it at the time. Since then I’ve come to understand you’re just a coward.
Mona doesn’t want to think that way of people, but the fact that you never helped her when she needed it is pretty self evident.
clayton
@Corner Stone: You know, when I heard that Mona ate her cats, that kind of turned me off. Though I had never supported her or commented on UT, I read in links from other places that she ate all of the cats that were given to her.
That really turned me off.
Just like I got turned off when AL defended your stupid ass.
Charles Fox
The bad news: Sullivan is now impossible to parody.
The good news: All you have to do to get him to repudiate The Bell Curve is write a mathy sounding book about how gays score slightly lower in IQ tests than straights.
eemom
@clayton:
Well, that needn’t be a problem. Just add Charlie Pierce to your blogroll and eliminate the middleman.
Now. You seem to be a sincere and decent person. How on earth did you get mixed up with
the biggest asshole on the internetCornered Stone, and who the fuck is Mona?Corner Stone
@clayton: Mona understood your cowardice at the time on those 1000 comment threads at UT, and why you never helped her. But I didn’t.
You’re just a coward who tries to use other people’s pain to call out situations you don’t have the guts to face yourself.
We all get it. You’re a coward and a hypocrite.
Mona never wanted to believe it. But truth wills out.
Obviously.
Rome Again
Andrew will always be (and has always been) about Andrew, and ONLY Andrew!
How can you expect a self-important blowhard to understand something he will never be? He might be a great queen, but he will never be a woman!
(Why do my two paragraphs space as if one is a quote and one is me responding? Hmmm!)
clayton
@eemom: Yeah, I know.
In addition to just commenting here, I like to look out for the Keith G.’s and Corner Stones’ of the BJ community.
There are people who just take such pride in being assholes, even when it’s not called for.
Mona is the person who used to argue with Glenn Greenwald on UT (before Salon) and then he hired her to research his books. She was/is a libertarian and then fell upon hard times and had a minor bleg for money. Long story.
Short story: Corner Stone eats cats.
clayton
@Corner Stone: Stop eating cats you catty bastard. Do I have to tell you twice? Ask AL if you don’t understand.
Scamp Dog
@Rome Again: The first paragraph always looks that way: apparently it’s allowing room for the comment number.
After that, they go where you expect them to. I find it kind of annoying, but not nearly as much as Clime Acts, for example.
Corner Stone
@clayton: Mona just doesn’t understand why you hate her so much. Why didn’t you ever help her when you were playing across those +1000 post threads on UT?
Why? WTF is wrong with you?
eemom
@clayton:
Ya mean Glennzie has a Team of Rivals?
bwaaaahaaaaahaaaaahaaaaaahaaaaa
wetcasements
Andrew Sullivan? Really? I thought we’d finally moved past his twaddle Mr. Cole.
Narcissus
@clayton: @Corner Stone: i think you two might feel better after a good hate-fuck
Jody
John: That would indicate a level of empathy and self-awareness that Mr. Sullivan just does. Not. Have.
KS in MA
@Suffern ACE: ROFL
clayton
@Corner Stone: I never posted on UT, Corner Stoner. Stop helping Mona eat those cats.
clayton
@Narcissus: Had you been around for what Corner Stoner and AL did, you might rethink your comment.
clayton
@eemom: You might say that. Corner Stoner seems current. Mona might still be begging. I don’t know.
AxelFoley
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Uhh!
Good God, ya’ll!
Whaaaat is it good for?
Absolutely nuthin’!
Say it again!
Narcissus
Wait what did Corner stone and AL do
eemom
@Narcissus:
They had cybersex on the FP while eating cats. Someone e-mailed Cole to complain and he told them to GTFO and DIAF you jackass. Then he told ABL to STFU and not be mean to Glenn Greewald on Twitter, whereupon AL got all GBCW on ABL cuz Cornered Stone is the only True Commenter and he’s even better than fuckie.
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
Petorado
So “Happy Holidays” constitutes a War on Christmas that Sully will tacitly watch fly by, but questioning a War on Women that beckons ” Happy invasion of a bodily orifice with a state-mandated object” is beyond the pale?
Sully’s the personification of the rift between blind adherence to political orthodoxy and actually considering that political orthodoxy affects the lives of real people. With the gay question, he finds himself on both sides of the line but fails to perceive that he has a conflict. Such is the daily life of someone drawn to conservatism.
Warren Terra
If you click through, there’s an absolute marvel in the letter Sully chose to quote, which isn’t in John’s blockquote in the main post:
Yup: the letter that (sort of) gets through to Sully, the one Sully chose to exemplify these sentiments (rather than, say, linking John’s post that predicted Sully’s eventual hypocrisy) celebrates that the legislative expressions of hate coming out of the GOP these days are concentrated on Women far more than on Gay folks. Thank goodness for that, the writer says.
As a non-Woman (and for that matter a non-Gay), it’s not necessarily my place to say this, but regarding the writer of the letter: fnck him very much.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
This interests me, because I’m not sure for how long. Judaism was pretty down on it, but Roman Christianity didn’t seem to view it as any worse than the sleeping around secular Romans did with women. There were certainly portions of the middle ages where homosexuality among nobles was viewed with an ‘Oh, Richard The Lionhearted, you’re so wacky’ attitude. And Elizabethan England was the same, right? But Michelangelo was sure he was going to Hell for it. I don’t know where to start looking for a comprehensive historical trace on this.
Not to mention non-European cultures.
kay
Yes he has downplayed and dismissed the “issues” women face because he focuses exclusively on abortion.
The reason he focuses exclusively on abortion is that’s HIS issue.
His posts on women’s “issues” aren’t about women at all. They’re about him.
I wish he’d stop writing about this. It doesn’t interest him ( outside of his issue:abortion) so why bother with us at all?
I resent being used by Andrew Sullivan to discuss abortion. Just leave me out of it.
Conservatives have been discussing abortion and leaving women out of it for my entire adult life. It was more honest. They should go back to that.
I really don’t require this smarmy “concern” or fake “interest.
kay
“In various states” is wrong, so he’s again either being deliberately deceptive or he’s uninformed ( again).
Conservatives at the federal level are cutting health care that primarily serves poor and working class women, and that has not one fucking thing to do with abortion, because we don’t fund abortion.
Title X is contraception and Medicaid is standard health care.
He’s misinforming people, and he’s doing that in
a way that benefits conservatives.
Portraying this as “states” and “abortion” is deceptive. If he’s too lazy to understand the basic outlines he should stop writing about it. That would be a sincere expression that he takes it seriously.
Schlemizel
@kdaug:
I’d disagree about “isn’t an asshole” and “willing to admit he was wrong”
Thats the bigger problem – he most definitely IS an asshole as this episode showed and his admissions, when they happen, happen well after the damage has been done, are usually self serving and often are not really admissions of the mistake at all. Read that “admission” and see how he attempts to not take responsibility for what he obviously did.
Kirk Spencer
First they silenced the women and I did not speak out, for I am not female.
Then they came for the unionists, and I did not speak out for I am not a unionist.
They came for the poor and the black and the brown, and I remained silent for I am not poor, black, or brown.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
(apologies to Martin Niemöller)
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: No one is innocent. No one.
the fugitive uterus
i am just a stupid person and, i am sure, not fit to lick the grand Andrew Sullivan’s shoes as a writer, however, even I do have a sense of irony.
here’s something for you, Andrew Sullivan. If you don’t like the term “War on Women” try “Oppression of [insert minority/traditionally oppressed group].” Of course! you can insert “Gays” if you like – but you don’t get to pick and choose based on which group you care about just because you are a selfish tool, sorry to disappoint.
Rob in Buffalo
Shouldn’t it say “. . . by claiming a “war on
gayswomen” is mere hyperbole”??Barry
@Steve: “Cheney wasn’t all that consistent, but he did say during the 2004 campaign that he personally thought “people be ought to be able to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.” ”
I think that he meant that he should be free to torture people.
TenguPhule
I’m sorry, did someone just wake up from a coma and miss the murder and bombings of doctors and abortion clinics?
Mnemosyne
@KG:
Uh, you may need to check more frequently.
Guns.
Bombs.
Guns AND bombs.