Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

I was promised a recession.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Second rate reporter says what?

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans in disarray!

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Let’s finish the job.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

This fight is for everything.

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Poseur Alert

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I have tears streaming down my face:

I might add that it was strange arriving at Harvard to discover that the only non-left-liberals in the faculty were Straussians. The concept of a conservatism that was not dogmatic, that did not rest on eternal truths to be found in Plato and Aristotle but on the prudential management of contingent liberal societies … well, I realized I had left it all behind in Britain. I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor.

Drink, bitches.

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  1. 1.

    Southern Beale

    Umm … WTF? Haven’t heard anything about this…

    Two Democratic consultants who claim they supplied Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer with the idea for the Huffington Post have filed an amended version of their lawsuit, saying emails and other documents they obtained through discovery show how the defendants appropriated the concept and attempted to cover their tracks.
    __
    In the new filing, the plaintiffs, Daou and Boyce, accuse Huffington and Lerer of playing a double game with them in late 2004 and early 2005, as plans for the website were coming together.
    __
    “[A]t the same time as Huffington and Lerer were soliciting Boyce’s and Daou’s ideas and plans, telling them that they were building together what would become The Huffington Post, and shaking hands with Boyce and Daou in a manifestation of their business relationship, we now know that Huffington and Lerer were secretly sending Plaintiffs’ ideas to other individuals and developing their own business venture…while excluding them from ownership and control,” reads the complaint.
    __
    Those “other individuals” were Roy Sekoff, HuffPost’s founding editor, and Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger who worked on the launch in its early stages. (Breitbart died in March 2012.) On Dec. 7, 2004 — three days after Boyce and Daou say Huffington and Lerer agreed to work with them — Huffington emailed a copy of Boyce’s proposed business plan to Sekoff, along with Lerer’s critique of it. Within two weeks, Breitbart had been recruited as well.
    __
    The similarities between the Boyce/Daou plan and the HuffPost that eventually emerged without their involvement were documented in the original complaint, filed in November 2010.

  3. 3.

    satanicpanic

    Other than Sully is a clown, what lesson does Sully want us to take away from this?

  6. 6.

    AA+ Bonds

    @satanicpanic:

    Other than Sully is a clown, what lesson does Sully want us to take away from this?

    American conservatives are like oh doh ee oh doh oh, and British conservatives are like *turns into The Thinker*

  7. 7.

    Joseph P.

    Listen to David in NY. Just stop reading him. Sully is not a real blog anyhow—he doesn’t allow public comments.

  10. 10.

    joes527

    I’m confused. How did DougJ get his over-the-top troll post on Sully’s front page?

  11. 11.

    AA+ Bonds

    I honestly would probably disallow comments or shunt them to a discussion forum so my glorious words would appear without the naysaying of my detractors

    were I Andrew Sullivan

  13. 13.

    geg6

    John, I read that earlier and just about fell out of my office chair laughing. And don’t you love how he first links approvingly to a scathing critique of, not only the ideas but the intellectual ability of, Strauss and then goes on to laud Strauss for those very things. Not the most consistent or organized thinker, our Sully.

  14. 14.

    Comrade Mary

    I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor

    This isn’t something I have to look up in the Urban Dictionary, is it?

  15. 15.

    gex

    Thus demonstrating that he’s so full of shit AND so whiny that he fits right in with the best of American conservatives after all.

  23. 23.

    geg6

    OT, but I just want to thank Tbogg and the Balloon Juice commentariat for the most fun I’ve had on the Interwebz since the day the helicopters were definitely not laughing. Oh, and of course, I must thank George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, SC. Also too.

  24. 24.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    He’s become self-parody, and not even good self-parody, just the tired, half-assed latter-day SNL kind that makes you reach for the remote while wondering if there’s one more cold beer in the fridge.

  26. 26.

    Alexandra

    I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor.

    New strapline for top banner, please.

  28. 28.

    Jade Jordan

    Andrew Sullivan has a special kind of brain cancer that eats all the sane brain cells and leaves nothing but da crazy.

  29. 29.

    jl

    Aristophanian smut jokes are timeless and reveal eternal truths about the human condition.

    The fart jokes too.

    I recommend that our precious youth throw out the Plato: boring.

  30. 30.

    gex

    @Tickraw: Mighty white of him to allow Obama to be on the ballot if he follows the procedures that the white candidates use.

  32. 32.

    dmsilev

    Is that real-Sullivan, or is it some troll who hacked in and is spoofing Sullivan?

    Or is there even a difference anymore?

  33. 33.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Bizono: That Refrigerator Poetry Magnets has come out with a special First Things/New Oxford Review limited edition?

  34. 34.

    Villago Delenda Est

    John Stuart Mill:

    Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

    Sully is in the latter group. He demonstrates that again and again.

  36. 36.

    Yutsano

    What. The. Hell. Did. I. Just. Read?? And he gets PAID for this dreck? I’m soooo in the wrong business.

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Tickraw:

    The only apology the people of Arizona should entertain from this idiot is a Captain Needa apology.

  40. 40.

    Sullivan Hyde

    1. Majority of Harvard faculty are liberals of the emphatically non-left species.

    2. Don’t believe there was ever more than one tenured Straussian (Harvey Mansfield) and that is a remarkably charitable summation of his views.

    “Fancy ways to say ‘ni**er’ and ‘get back in the kitchen bi***es'” would be a more accurate summation of Mansfield’s crazy-ass politics.

    (Ol’ Harvey was of course the dissertation advisor to not only Sully, but also Bill Kristol and Alan Keyes.)

  43. 43.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Sullivan would do well to alternate his Oakeshott binges with a dram of Burkean humility.

  44. 44.

    Donut

    @geg6:

    Not the most consistent or organized thinker, our Sully.

    I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the reason why his so-called blog is a fucking mess is because he acts like he’s still a fucking magazine editor. His interns draft all his online shit, and then he edits. As a consequence, these online shit-stains make no fucking sense, because they are written by committee. Sullivan is a waste of time, but I guess I’m glad John, et al read him, so I don’t have to. I can just mock from afar.

  45. 45.

    Omnes Omnibus

    “It took hold here for the same reasons that cults generally succeed in the U.S.: ignorance, inexperience, and a desire to have a simple answer to complex problems.”

    I think this might be the key to Sully’s online popularity.

  46. 46.

    beltane

    @Just Some Fuckhead: But wait, isn’t that supposed to be Hayekian modesty and Burkean bells?

    Andrew Sullivan is a case study in why conservatives should never, ever be allowed to smoke pot. They are far more tolerable when drunk and passed out on the sidewalk than while spouting pseudo-intellectual stupidity.

  48. 48.

    RealityCzech

    I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor.

    Is this an obscure reference to the British version of Clue?

    “I’ll say that Oakeshott did it in the Widener library with the succor.”

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Can you trust those who do regularly post on Balloon Juice? You might just have made a trust no one argument.

  50. 50.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @beltane: I’ve written extensively on the Burke-Strauss-Oakeshott Trinity of Conservatism.

    Hayek is a mere mortal.

  51. 51.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @beltane: And they’re easier to hit with your left-wing death squad car, too.

    @Omnes Omnibus: Even tequila can’t make me able to read Sullivan at this point. I’d be too drunk to focus my eyes long before my standards for mindless entertainment dipped that low.

  54. 54.

    quannlace

    What….what??

    At first I thought this was a snippet from ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’

  55. 55.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @beltane:

    Andrew Sullivan is a case study in why conservatives should never, ever be allowed to smoke pot.

    “That means…
    –one tiny atom in my fingernail could be–
    –Could be one little…
    tiny universe.

    Could l buy some pot from you?”

  57. 57.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    Even tequila can’t make me able to read Sullivan at this point.

    Yes, the earlier post by Frenchie on Sullivan had me scratching my head, wondering “Who the fuck cares?”

    At this point, anyone who isn’t pointing and laughing at Sully hasn’t been paying attention.

  58. 58.

    Violet

    Can someone please arrange a debate between Andrew Sullivan and George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, SC. Cage match style, please.

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    @Tickraw:

    “If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR.

    Note the “if” in the apology. He’s not sorry he did it, he’s sorry that people were pointing and laughing.

    @Yutsano:
    You do not have the talent required to write like Andrew Sullivan. You are numerate, not intellectually full of shit, and not blind to other people’s interest. You are, of course, much better off without those talents of his.

    (How goes the recovery?)

  62. 62.

    Riilism

    I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor.

    Oakeshott, it’s what’s for succor…

  63. 63.

    sparrow

    Excuse me for being apparently ignorant, but what the hell is a non-left liberal?

  65. 65.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @sparrow:

    You might as well ask what a left-liberal is.

    Not that the sack of steaming bullshit that is Andrew Sullivan could give you a coherent answer, mind you.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @sparrow:

    You might as well ask what a left-liberal is.

    Not that the sack of steaming bullshit that is Andrew Sullivan could give you a coherent answer, mind you.

  67. 67.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @sparrow:

    Excuse me for being apparently ignorant, but what the hell is a non-left liberal?

    According to Jonah Goldberg: Hitler.

  68. 68.

    Sullivan Hyde

    “Excuse me for being apparently ignorant, but
    what the hell is a non-left liberal?”

    Alan Dershowitz, for starters.

  69. 69.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @sparrow:

    You might as well ask what a left-liberal is.

    Not that the sack of steaming bullshit that is Andrew Sullivan could give you a coherent answer, mind you.

  71. 71.

    beltane

    I always think of the MoU as being the consummate non-left liberal aka morons.

  72. 72.

    Felinious Wench

    I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor

    And I’m headed out to have my Cuervo Shot in the Local Pub for succor.

    Wench, -1

  73. 73.

    Yutsano

    @Amir Khalid: I’m recovering but slowly. The problem with spinal operations is that they basically have to move a whole bunch of muscle out of the way in order to gain access to the area. And that heals slow. But I’ve been spoiled with the attention of two puppehs and my mom taking care of everything. It’s only one week after the operation, there are no miracle heals here.

  74. 74.

    jim filyaw

    if this doesn’t blow the bell off his ‘poseur alert’, he really ought to check the damned wiring.

  80. 80.

    hilzoy

    Feh. I was in grad school at Harvard at the same time as Andrew Sullivan. Andrew Sullivan and I were TAs together in Michael Sandel’s course on Justice. (He does not remember this.) I will be charitable and assume that by “non-left-liberals” he does not mean “people who were liberal, i.e. on the left, but not on the Left”, which describes a whole lot of Harvard faculty members, but “liberals in some classical, Millian sense who were not on the left, i.e., who were conservative.”

    It’s still completely wrong to say that no one was any kind of conservative who wasn’t a Straussian. Maybe this was true of the Government Dept. — I don’t know — but it surely wasn’t true of the university as a whole. If he had to snuggle up to his copy of Oakeshott for warmth, that just shows that he should have gotten out more.

  81. 81.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @hilzoy:

    I will be charitable and assume that by “non-left-liberals” he does not mean “people who were liberal, i.e. on the left, but not on the Left”, which describes a whole lot of Harvard faculty members, but “liberals in some classical, Millian sense who were not on the left, i.e., who were conservative.”

    In that case, isn’t he effectively dividing the faculty into hardcore leftists and Straussians? Richard Neustadt and Shirley Williams were both on the Government faculty during the time period that Sullivan would have been there. I have pretty much disproved his thesis right here.

  85. 85.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    OT: Howard Fineman says that Latino support for Republicans is down to… wait for it… … 27%!

  86. 86.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Yutsano:

    The problem with spinal operations is that they

    are spinal operations. FTFY.

    Heal soon, bro.

  87. 87.

    FlipYrWhig

    There’s no way getting succor from Oakeshott in Widener isn’t some special Harvard version of a glory hole.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @FlipYrWhig: I don’t know anything about that. I went to a small liberal arts college in the Midwest and I never thought anything like this would happen to me…

  89. 89.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @FlipYrWhig:

    There’s no way getting succor from Oakeshott in Widener isn’t some special Harvard version of a glory hole.

    O_o

  91. 91.

    Pseudonym

    @hilzoy: I read it as “people who were not left-liberals,” i.e. “non” modifies “left-liberal” and not just “left.”

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    @Raven: Lumbar. Way down there.

    @arguingwithsignposts: I’m now quite perturbed with my mother. She wanted me to put on a show for my aunt since I’m walking better than I was in the hospital. I steadfastly refused. I’m not a fucking sideshow dammit!!

    I’m getting there, it just takes a looong time. But that’s why I got six weeks off work. :)

  94. 94.

    Pseudonym

    I’ve heard people call their partners by many different names, but this is the first time I’ve seen one referred to as “my Oakeshott in the Widener library.” Whoever he really was, I hope he used protection.

  95. 95.

    Felinious Wench

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I went to a small liberal arts college in the Midwest and I never thought anything like this would happen to me…

    The perfect beginning to a Penthouse Letter…

  98. 98.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yutsano:

    I’m not a fucking sideshow dammit!!

    I am sure your mother meant for you to be the main attraction. Now, dance for her, monkey man!

  100. 100.

    AA+ Bonds

    Why aren’t schoolchildren in the United States forced to read at least part of New English Canaan

    That’s what I want to know

    This would maybe teach them to say shut the fuck up to the people Andrew Sullivan criticizes, and then turn around and say shut the fuck up to Andrew Sullivan

  101. 101.

    AA+ Bonds

    @hilzoy:

    Andrew Sullivan and I were TAs together in Michael Sandel’s course on Justice. (He does not remember this.)

    Jesus, he’d better not

    Anyone catch if he started squealing when Friedman (insanely) cited Sandel

  104. 104.

    AA+ Bonds

    No offense but from the comments here it sounds like it was a terrible time to be at Kennedy, with Sullivan as a cause instead of a victim

    It always came across as a little less of a silver spoon prep academy when I was visiting

  105. 105.

    AA+ Bonds

    I mean Christ

    Straussians were much more fun to study with because they believed they were dealing with live issues, not the dry residue of dead historicism.

    yes insofar as they believed that CIA/FBI/MI5/MI6 were the fabled MEN OF FUCKIN GOLD

    I take it this is probably the part that appealed to Sullivan, big manly barebacks carving out the fifth column or w/e, it’s so much “fun” to goose step

    The difference between the British and the Dutch can be summed up for me like this: Andrew Sullivan writes for the Internet instead of running the BNP, while Geert Wilders walks around with bodyguards

  106. 106.

    AA+ Bonds

    Clearly the school needed to be, like, 50% Marxist to keep Sullivan from getting “bored”

  108. 108.

    Mark S.

    I read the article Sully linked to and Strauss sounds even more insane than the last time I read a book review about him:

    The two primary conclusions associated with Strauss’s esoteric reading of past texts are that all philosophers from the time of Plato onward were atheistic hyper-rationalists and that the United States emerged fully formed from the forehead of John Locke.

  110. 110.

    danielx

    No Hayekian modesty on display here, nosiree. After reading that drivel, I’m left to wonder whether there’s a picture of Andrew Sullivan above “pretentious twit” in the dictionary.

  111. 111.

    BruceJ

    Come now, Oakeshott is a standard reference point, and everyone’s library should have his masterwork “The Archeology of Weapons: Arms and Armour from Prehistory to the Age of Chivalry” in their library, it’s the standard reference for sword construction and style.

  112. 112.

    El Cid

    Conservative writers gain infinite degrees of complexity when encountered in really nice books, maybe leather bound and really old, and experienced in really historic and insider-beloved libraries of ultra-elite institutions.

    There’s probably writing and stuff, inside the books, but that’s not the important part. It’s knowing where to see those books and having the ability to access those places which count.

  115. 115.

    slag

    I just had my Oakeshott in the Widener library for succor.

    Oh god. My eyes! I’m blind! Blind!

    Also, too, the British version of Clue would be Cluedo, I believe.

  116. 116.

    KS in MA

    @Villago Delenda Est: I know the repeated posts aren’t your fault, but I’m suddenly thinking of Leslie Nielsen appearing repeatedly in the cockpit with “I just want to say Good luck. We’re all counting on you.”

  120. 120.

    Riilism

    Upon further examination, I call shenanegans on Cole. Clearly that quote has been edited and is now missing several “verily’s”, a “forsooth” and a “lo”….

  121. 121.

    Bob2

    Well, at the time, he was still so far in the closet that Oakeshott was the only man available I guess.
    That nasty non-left-liberal campus! Where could you find rough trade on a college campus like that anyway?!
    The STACKS.

    Sully self-awareness level alert: Orange

  122. 122.

    Riilism

    I’m assuming Andrwoo titled his post, “Beware the Straussian, my friend,…”….

  123. 123.

    jake the snake

    @jlow:

    2 Girls One Cup of Oakeshott

    You either win the internets for the day, or you lose forever.

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