Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Bark louder, little dog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Second rate reporter says what?

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Sully Found His New Fifth Column

Sully Found His New Fifth Column

by | 153 Comments

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This time, it’s Glenn Greenwald.

Some people never change. What is hilarious about this is at least the teatards go after the President with the whole “HE NEVER CALLED IT TERRORISM” bullshit. Sullivan’s too busy blowing Obama to do any such thing, but he will get all worked up over Greenwald and revert back to his fifth column days. My, how the war or terror and the concomitant war on semantics has changed in the last ten years. Some might want to call Sullivan going after Greenwald (who, by the way, has no statutory authority whatsoever) rather than Obama as the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Far be it from me to judge.

Now we’re flaming people because when one person gets killed by nutters, if we don’t use the right terminology, why, they love Osama.

Sullivan, you’ve become a fucking joke. I particularly love this: “I really have to try restrain my anger here.” Oh, not the famed Sullivan anger. Whatcha gonna do, you wanker? Change the color of your website? A ten thousand word essay on Niebuhr or Burke- because trust me, that’s fucking punishment enough for some of us. Christ, I can barely make it through the Sunday catholicism and poems- At what point will it sink in that they FUCKING HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE GAY?

For the record, I have an email chain between me and Glenn where I predicted two months ago that Sullivan was warming up to calling Greenwald a terrorist lover. Some leopards don’t change their stripes, ehh, Andrew?

Jesus fuck.

Edited.

And what makes this all even worse is that what Sullivan is doing to Greenwald, distorting what he has said to call him a terrorist lover, is fundamentally no different from what Marty Peretz and Leon Wieseltier did to Sullivan.

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    God dammit, Cole. You have worse authoritarian motherfuckers commenting on your blog every fucking day.

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    Greenwald and Sullivan in the same item. At least you’re getting more efficient at posting about people who should be entirely ignored.

  4. 4.

    Hypnos

    You know there is actually a Global Terrorism Database which has recorded all instances of terrorism across the world since 1970.

    In North America and Western Europe, 2000-2010 has been the most peaceful decade in terrorism term by orders of magnitude.

    http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=overtime&casualties_type=b&casualties_max&dtp2=all&region=1%2C8

    Would be nice if some journos pointed that out sometime. Try it out. See how it sounds. Most peaceful decade in the past 40 years.

    We have never been safer.

    We. Have. Never. Been. Safer.

  5. 5.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Two things: 1. Greenwald definitely has the better argument here. Not a high bar since Sullivan is being an idiot – but GG’s column is nuanced, well-reasoned, and more or less right. 2. You are missing an “f” in Fifth.

  6. 6.

    Larime the Gimp

    This thread will end up putting numerous people who play the drinking game into comas.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    Wow. Snap throw to 1st from the Astro’s catcher gets wedged under the outfield bleachers.
    That’s not symbolic or anything.

  8. 8.

    Warren Terra

    Can we hope for a murder-suicide in this little contretemps? Or at least root for injuries?

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    You are missing an “f” in Fifth.

    You sure it’s not an “L”?

  11. 11.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    Sullivan can go sit under a bell curve and write his fifth column about how white people are like poodles and not-white people are like beagles.

  14. 14.

    Warren Terra

    @Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:

    Sullivan can go sit under a bell curve and write his fifth column about how white people are like poodles and not-white people are like beagles.

    Close, but backwards: Sully likes and possibly respects beagles.

  16. 16.

    cathyx

    I still don’t understand why the Guardian turned off their comments on this topic.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    Well, I’m glad to see I’m not missing any vital posts while I’m on vacation.

  22. 22.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    @dmsilev: Sully was defending someone whose name I’ve mercifully forgotten, who was making race-and-IQ arguments.

    Sully made the comparison that poodles as a breed were smart, while beagles had an awesome sense of smell (guess which one was supposed to be white people?).

    Speaking as someone whiter than Colbert, let me just say that even my non-beagle nose can smell the racism in that one.

  23. 23.

    Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)

    Serves you right, JC – you read both those assholes. Fuck Sullivan and Greenwald, because they’re two sides of the same coin.

  25. 25.

    lawguy

    It never ceases to amaze me that you can tell people what the “terrorists” do they do for a reason. And it is an understandable, to us, reason. I don’t agree with them (either the terrorist or us for that matter), but I do understand why they (the terrorists) do it. But it does seem like a lot of people do not understand that the meaning of justifying is different than the meaning of understanding.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    When I hear about Andrew Sullivan being especially silly, I almost wish his blog were still free. I like unintentional comedy.

  27. 27.

    belieber

    Ho hum. Cole the wonderboy lobs the softball and I knock it out of the park. Not that I give a fuck what Sully thinks.

    2006 Greenwald on Bush’s decision to start the Iraq war,

    ” “I accept his judgement that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this soverign country”

  28. 28.

    Dolly Llama

    You missed the “blogospheric navel gazing” tag on this one, Mr. Cole.

  30. 30.

    David Koch

    If Leni Riefenstahl was a Greenwald supporter and had a blog, Cole’s blog is exactly what it would look like.

    Greenwald could rape a nun live on NBC, and Cole would still back him up.

  31. 31.

    Redshirt

    This thread is evidence of terrorism, and everyone who’s commented in it should be sent to Gitmo, excluding this post (and any additional redshirt posts).

  33. 33.

    NickT

    Andrew Sullivan can change his fishnets as often as he likes, it’s still the same Beltway whore inside them.

  34. 34.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Jesus Christ WHO FUCKING CARES. I hate this fucking middle school lunch table bullshit.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: GG basically condemned the killing of the British soldier but noted that blowback exists. Sullivan had a screaming fit. GG said “Dude….” He also noted the difference between understanding something and justifying it.

  38. 38.

    Mike in NC

    I never get tired of thinking back about Sully’s “decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts” shit. Worthy of a Pulitzer.

  39. 39.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Can someone tell me how many “We are SO DONE with Andrew Sullivan, he’s DEAD to us, except actually we’re going to post about him 50 million more times” cycles John has to go through before it’s out of his system. NO ONE EXCEPT YOU GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE GUY. To continue the metaphor, you’re like a pair of middle school kids who break up/make up three times every week.

  41. 41.

    Cacti

    @belieber:

    2006 Greenwald on Bush’s decision to start the Iraq war,

    ” “I accept his judgement that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this soverign country”

    And Glenn on immigration in 2005:

    “Current illegal immigration – whereby unmanageably endless hordes of people pour over the border in numbers far too large to assimilate, and who consequently have no need, motivation or ability to assimilate – renders impossible the preservation of any national identity.”

    Haaalp! Save me from the unmanageably endless hordes of Messicans, Mr. Bush!

  43. 43.

    Ajaye

    @Baud: well first gg said blah blah blah then sully said blah blah blah then gg said blah blah blah then jc said blah blah blah. Sumfin like that.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I clicked on the Guardian thinking I might skim over GG’s article and got distracted by a headline that says Yoko Ono is 80. I don’t know why that caught my eye, I’ve never thought of her as anything but Mrs Lennon, and I’m not much of a Beatlemaniac, but it did distract me from looking for the Greenwald column.

  46. 46.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I didn’t post that. Someone must have hacked my Balloon Juice account.

  47. 47.

    eemom

    bwaaawaaaawaaafuckinhaaaaa

    If only there were a Greenwald-ABL flamewar in here too. It’d be the epic-est thread in the history of the innertoobz.

  48. 48.

    David Koch

    @Cacti:

    endless hordes of people pour over the border in numbers far too large to assimilate, and who consequently have no need, motivation or ability to assimilate – renders impossible the preservation of any national identity.”

    Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan, and Don Young agree.

  49. 49.

    burnspbesq

    It continues to amaze me that you have this huge blind spot where Greenwald is concerned, Cole.

    He’s a bully, a hypocrite, and a charlatan. And he can’t write for shit.

    At least Sullivan can write.

  52. 52.

    Cacti

    @David Koch:

    Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan, and Don Young agree.

    The next thing you know, the brown horde is going to demand that the western states start giving Spanish names to the cities and towns.

  56. 56.

    El Tiburon

    Holy mother of God the BJ Doucherattis heads that must be exploding right now. Sully AND Greenwald And GG as the good guy.

  59. 59.

    Older_Wiser

    Can I just scream a while before I bitch slap both of them?

    Who really gives a fuck about 2 fame-whore narcissists who don’t allow anyone to disagree with them?

  61. 61.

    eemom

    @burnspbesq:

    At least Sullivan can write.

    If by “write” you mean masturbate verbally to the adored image gazed upon in the mirror.

  62. 62.

    HinTN

    @kuvasz: I had never until yesterday seen or heard that word. Then, walking the foundling dog that adopted us, a young man with a Razorbacks cap patiently explained that our “shepherd golden mix” is really a Hungarian mountain dog a la your moniker. Too effing wierd, man.

  63. 63.

    Lee Rudolph

    @Hypnos: We. Have. Never. Been. Safer.

    … From. Terrorists.

    From our own native Masters of the Universe, somewhat less so.

  69. 69.

    Lee Rudolph

    @Mike in NC: I can’t tell you how many years – decades, really – I’ve been sitting here, hunkered down in my enclave on the coast, waiting for the decadence deliveryman. Sometimes I wonder if they’ve lost my address, somehow. But then I realize it’s just that there’s such a terrific backlog, and I cheer right back up!

  70. 70.

    Suffern ACE

    Hmmm. Sullivan should have just called Greenwald “smug” and left it at that. Or is smug just reserved for the ladies?

  71. 71.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Seconded. Nuanced, well reasoned and well written. A summary I’ve rarely offered of a column by GG. Congrats on the new gig, BTW.

    As for the topic, it will not end well. Though there will be several subthread spats over who hacked whose nym to post bigoted comments.

  76. 76.

    Keith G

    Hmmm….. Numerous Gay specific put downs here, from the top on down.

    So when do we get treated to the acceptance on this blog of person of color or woman specific put downs?

  79. 79.

    NickT

    @Keith G:

    I demand justice for the magical, gold-farting unicorns smeared by the comment-flingers on this here iniquitous blog!

  82. 82.

    Anne Laurie

    @Keith G:

    So when do we get treated to the acceptance on this blog of person of color or woman specific put downs?

    If history’s a guide, somebody will insult a gay person that Cole cares about personally, and then he’ll crack down on the homophobic slurs.

    Cole gave up being a Republican, but he’ll probably never stop being an authoritarian. There’s a small, noisy rump of tribalists who only show up in the comments here because they get to fling shite at The Other Side, and flinging shite from behind the safety of Cole’s pixeled coattails makes them feel warm and loved. Cole tells them to stop playing the fairies-be-so-funny card, they’ll promptly switch to policing each other — and, unfortunately, the rest of us — for the least hint of heteronormalizing. Goddess only knows which outgroup they’ll have to switch to targeting — if Christie doesn’t run to legitimize the fatties-be-worthless slurs, they may have to go back to hating Muslims. Or Democrats (as if they don’t already).

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    @Anne Laurie:

    Cole gave up being a Republican, but he’ll probably never stop being an authoritarian.

    He didn’t give it up. It’s just been interred until the next Uncle Ronnie or Jack Kemp tweak his funny business.

  86. 86.

    Jay

    In all of Greenwald’s “America is basically the same as its enemies” writing on this topic, he hasn’t answered a key-perhaps THE KEY-question: is it American policy to deliberately target civilians in its War on Terrorism? He can’t and won’t, because it’ll poke a major hole in his arguments.

    His defenders here may come back with: “Well, I don’t think it makes much difference to someone who just lost a family member whether their loved member was ‘deliberately’ targeted or not.” That’s a fair point, and I’ll grant someone’s grieving mother leeway because she does not have the kind of distance from this war that Sullivan, most of Greenwald’s defenders, and Greenwald himself has.

    At least one of the Woolwich murderers is a British citizen. This “I don’t condone it, but I understand it” bullshit from Greenwald and others is something you’d hear from a far – right US wingnut in response to the “New Yorker” (I’m using quotes because the man doesn’t deserve the title) who beat up a Muslim – American cabbie and Iraq War vet because…Muslims..

    If the Woolwich thugs’ violence must be “understood,” that guy’s has to, be, too.

    Me? I have no interest in understanding them; I don’t want to lie down with those dogs, I’d rather we helped people like the grieving mother back in that war zone by, say, making sure she gets financial compensation and an American immigration policy sane enough to at least give her the option of speeding up her departure to someplace stable at least til the dust settles where she’s from. Hard stuff, yes, but far more meaningful than churning out the 985th Andrew Sullivan post.

  89. 89.

    Redshirt

    @Anne Laurie: LOL. That was an awesome piece of analyzing. Thanks for it.

    I think generally, everyone is like that though – we all care primarily about the stuff that directly affects us. How could we not? We’re not all perfectly sentient creatures feeling the pain of all mankind; we all naturally focus on that which directly impacts us.

  90. 90.

    eemom

    @Corner Stone:

    AL’s censoring comments again is why. Speaking of interesting new trends.

    And, um, passing judgment on “authoritarians.” If there’s a bigger fucking hypocrite FPing on this blog, I can’t imagine who it is.

  91. 91.

    Jay

    PS: What’s up with the site not allowing edits to comments within the five – minute window?

    That’s new.

    I’d only add that Greenwald’s writing on profiling and the racism of the drug “war” is really good, but this? Bah.

    On the matter of picking and choosing what one likes from a writer such as Greenwald, I think TNC said it best: “We can’t always choose our sources of information. Ignorance isn’t a weapon.”

    And Jesus. “Blowing Obama?” Really, man?

  97. 97.

    Corner Stone

    @eemom: Give us a break you poor thing. Some of us have lost posts. It’s tragic. But, we go on.
    Only little sad sacks like you keep crying about it. Waah.
    You really had something to say? For once?

  99. 99.

    Corner Stone

    @cbear: I would wonder how close your post was to a post by eemom at this point. She’s obviously the vortex unto which all things get sucked and disappear.

  100. 100.

    Corner Stone

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: Yeah, they’s getting their collective ass kicked.
    Funnily enough, eemom’s involvement must’ve cause the Xfinity picture disruption I’ve had for the last hour.
    So, sure they suck hind tit. No idea in what ways. Exactly.

  103. 103.

    Anne Laurie

    @Corner Stone: As my old dad used to say,

    “It’s Spring, and the sap is rising.”

    Not just in the level of cranking up the crankiness on this here blog, either. Our oldest rescue dog, who we thought had finally gotten over the glitch in his programming, took a moment’s inattention by the Spousal Unit to slip thru the safety gate & dart out the front door for FREEEEEDOM! Fortunately traffic was holiday-weekend-light — and he slowed down enough for us to catch him by the end of the next block — but all three of us are gonna have aching knees tomorrow.

    Sometime around mid-June, the weather will have stabilized, the media will go on vacation along with Congress, Cole’s garden will give him a better outlet for his daily outbursts, and things will go back to what passes for ‘normal’ around here.

  107. 107.

    eemom

    @Corner Stone:

    aaaw……you’re seizing the occasion to be an asshole, again?

    I guess AL’s right after all…..things do get back to normal.

  108. 108.

    Corner Stone

    @eemom: Honestly. As God is my witness.
    What in the absolute fuck could a mash mouth 3rd rate hack ass commoditized litigation lawyer have to say that anyone would bother pushing the mother fucking delete button on?
    I mean, you’re a simpleton. A hack. A stupid, gurgitating human void of hackdom.
    Do you honestly think for one instance you could post anything so damningly trenchant, insightful and or otherwise awesomely revealing that any other human would take the three seconds to fucking delete it?

  109. 109.

    jamick6000

    i know a lot of you are really upset by him, but one thing that gg has been saying for a while is that the attacks on wikileaks/assange would set a precedent that would be used to curtail press freedom in the future. the ap/fox scandals have made that look pretty prescient.

    compare that to all of you predicting obama would NEVER propose cutting social security…

  113. 113.

    priscianus jr

    “Sullivan, you’ve become a fucking joke.”

    For some of us, Sullivan has always been a fucking joke.

  116. 116.

    John Cole

    @Anne Laurie:

    Cole gave up being a Republican, but he’ll probably never stop being an authoritarian. There’s a small, noisy rump of tribalists who only show up in the comments here because they get to fling shite at The Other Side, and flinging shite from behind the safety of Cole’s pixeled coattails makes them feel warm and loved. Cole tells them to stop playing the fairies-be-so-funny card, they’ll promptly switch to policing each other — and, unfortunately, the rest of us — for the least hint of heteronormalizing. Goddess only knows which outgroup they’ll have to switch to targeting — if Christie doesn’t run to legitimize the fatties-be-worthless slurs, they may have to go back to hating Muslims. Or Democrats (as if they don’t already).

    What in the fuck are you talking about? I don’t read every damned comment here, and if I am missing someone making homophobic slurs, you have every right to fucking email me and tell me about it.

  117. 117.

    David Koch

    @Jay: I don’t call cole “prescient”. I don’t call him anything. have you ever seen me defend cole in any possible way? I could care less about him. there are a bunch of other writers who post here.

    On the other hand the hive swarms around cult Leader glenn. glenn can not fail, he can only be failed.

    you guys are more pathetic then the fucking moonies.

  118. 118.

    David Koch

    @John Cole:

    Sullivan’s too busy blowing Obama

    she’s referring to your post, dear leader. read through the comments in this thread (there aren’t that many) people consider that a homophobic slur

  119. 119.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @dmsilev:

    I was rooting for deaths but injuries will do as long as they are severe. If given the choice of cleaning the cat box or reading either of these idiots, I’m cleaning the cat box.

  120. 120.

    Jay

    @David Koch: @John Cole:

    “ponce” (granted, the word’s taken on alot of meanings over the years, but there is more than a touch of homophobia to it)

    “blowing Obama”

    and finally…

    Snarking off on Provincetown. ZOMG PROVINCETOWN! Did I mention he goes to Provincetown!? GHEY GHEY GHEY GHEY!

    C’mon, Cole. Raise your game.

  122. 122.

    Jay

    @David Koch: “there are a bunch of other writers who post here”

    The thing with that is, none of the “other writers” would be posting here without the generosity of the host. Dude ain’t going anywhere, so short of calling Cole out here, the way to make a truly heavy statement is through departure. Seriously, start your own group blog and invite the “other writers.”

    The way this thread is going, you’ll have some luck.

  123. 123.

    John Cole

    @Jay: And Jennifer Rubin blew Mitt Romney the whole last electoral cycle and Sullivan heads to Provincetown several times a year for a month. If there is some hidden meaning to ponce other than wanker/loser/jackass/bullshit artist, I guess I misused the term.

  124. 124.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Redshirt:

    I propose a round of injuries for everyone! Cheers?

    @John Cole:

    This hetero agrees, the expression and the way you used it has no homosexual connotation.

  125. 125.

    Steeplejack

    @John Cole:

    If there is some hidden meaning to ponce other than wanker/loser/jackass/bullshit artist, I guess I misused the term.

    No, the main, and oldest, definition for ponce is a disparaging term for a male homosexual or a man who dresses and behaves in a way that seems feminine.

  126. 126.

    jshooper

    Greenwald has positioned himself as the leading spokesman for Islamic extremism in the western media. There is not a single muslim terrorist who he won’t defend. No matter how brutal and genocidal a muslim dictator is, Greenwald will always be his number one apologist.

    In Greenwald’s world the U.S, UK & Israel are responsible for every horrific event involving radical Muslim terrorists.

    In my opinion the reason the Guardian shut down his comment section is because they finally decided they didn’t want to have to be responsible for the insanity Greenwald was inspiring there. People were literally siding with the monsters who killed that man on the street. His comment section had become ground zero for Al-Qaeda apologists / terrorist sympathizers.

  128. 128.

    Jay

    @John Cole:

    “And Jennifer Rubin blew Mitt Romney the whole last electoral cycle”

    First, when Sullivan actually goes off on the President, he is accused by some here of overreacting (witness: post 2012 debate #1), whereas Jennifer Rubin manufactured stories to make Mitt Romney look good. Thus, in terms of criticism of someone he/she admires, Sullivan beats Rubin. Not by a wide margin, but a noticeable one. And the problem with the “Sullivan blows the President” thing is that it came alongside a couple of related insults you rattled off. If it were a stand-alone comment, on the other hand, I think most people in the room would roll their eyes and move on.

    “Sullivan heads to Provincetown several times a year for a month…”

    Correct. The problem arises when you add context: “I particularly love this: ‘I really have to try restrain my anger here.’ Oh, not the famed Sullivan anger. Whatcha gonna do, you ponce? Change the color of your website? Head to Provincetown for a month with the dogs and tell everyone how mad you are?”

    Shorter: the guy’s gonna blow off alot of hot air then blow off some more in Provincetown. That place. I guess the issue’s tonal here. The only way it could’ve been a sharper taunt is if you subbed “Fire Island” for “Provincetown.”

    Easier to just call the guy a coward and leave it there, no?

  129. 129.

    jshooper

    Apparently John Cole thinks it’s cool to be email buddies with a hate-filled freak like Glenn Greenwald …who compares Jewish supporters of Pres.Obama to Nazis.

    I guess Cole just threw in bullshit like this…

    ” Sullivan’s too busy blowing Obama”

    to earn cool points with his “Mean Girl” buddy Greenwald. Fits right in with Greenwald’s racist sexualizing of Obama with his nun rape joke. Given how Cole treated ABL over the nun rape incident I’m not surprised with his attempt to suck up to Greenwald here.

  131. 131.

    James E. Powell

    All this rancor over Greenwald & Sullivan? Really? Neither one of them as any influence on anything other than arguments like this on blogs like this. Nobody in a position of any importance cares what either thinks or says on any subject at all.

    So tell us, please, what’s the real problem here?

  132. 132.

    cbear

    @jshooper: I just have to congratulate you—-I didn’t think it was possible for one human being to encapsulate so much assholism AND troll bait in so few words.

    Let’s review:
    hate-filled freak Greenwald
    Jews
    Obama
    Nazis
    Sullivan
    Obama again
    gay “mean girl” Greenwald
    racist Greenwald
    Obama raping nuns
    Cole
    ABL

    AND, a triple loop, double souchow, quad dismount:

    Given how Cole treated ABL over the nun rape incident I’m not surprised with his attempt to suck up to Greenwald here.

    I knew there were a lot of assholes lurking around here, but I think we may have just met their king.
    (Or DougJ has truly outdone himself.)

    P.S. I sure hope that nun is okay.

  133. 133.

    Johannes

    Actually, folks, I believe a ponce is a pimp, as in the old Rumpole line about a new judge asking a retiring judge “How much [jail time intended] do you give a ponce?” And being told “no more than ten pounds.”

  134. 134.

    Alex S.

    Hmm, I missed this thread… Well, it would have had at least twice as many comments if Greenwald had been wrong, not Sully. Sully vs Greenwald is like Illidan vs. Arthas.

  135. 135.

    Roger

    @Johannes:

    As an actual native speaker of English-English ‘ponce’ did indeed once mean a pimp but today certainly means acting (but not necessarily being) effeminate and ‘gay’ (which particularly amongst schoolchildren is now an all-purpose term of abuse equivalent to ‘lame’ whose precise sexual connotations while still present are weaker than they were).

    Now it can be used quite affectionately in banter (‘you ponce!’ or ‘what a ponce!’) between straight males whose sexuality is in fact not in any doubt – but this was certainly not the case when I and Andrew Sullivan were growing up in the 1970s when being called a ponce was functionally the same as being called a queer and was always done to wound and insult.

    And I am pretty sure I’ve never heard it used at all by gay friends.

    So unwittingly John is being a homophobe here.

    And since the days Kojak, Shaft, Starsky and Hutch etc filled our TV schedules we’ve called pimps pimps – thus freeing up ponce for use as a homophobic insult

  136. 136.

    Roger

    @Johannes:

    And in your Rumpole quote we are talking about two middle aged to elderly judges in a 1970s TV show who would certainly be using the slang of their own youth when a ponce was certainly a pimp and to ponce was to pimp.

    Can’t seem to edit my previous comment but having re-read the original post am wondering whether unwittingly homophobic was too kind given that even if JC isn’t aware of the precise nuances of English-English slang his blowing Obama line is even worse.

    And no other than having a somewhat similar background (miserable childhood and adolescence in small English town a few minutes from the one where he was brought up) and being rather on his side on the specific spat with Greenwald I am not a Sully fan at all and indeed have 322 Daily Dish posts sitting unread in google reader to prove it….

  137. 137.

    Johannes

    Thanks, Roger; I wasn’t aware of the changed meaning, and appreciate your explaining it.

  138. 138.

    Svensker

    @Amir Khalid:

    His blog is still free, unless you want to read some of the long posts.

    I used to read Sully because he linked to lots of stuff that was interesting. Also, because he read and discussed stuff on the Right without me having to read it, too. But his racism has always angered me and when the Boston Bombers struck he went ape-shit on the anti-Muslim stuff, again. I refuse to read him any more. It’s a moral thing. Reading the GG response to his hysterical poisonous crap only confirms that decision.

  141. 141.

    aTotheB

    Dont you people have something better to do? Go out in your garden, make love to your spouses. And John dont you have some kitties and doggies that need some loving?

    Go away all of you!

  142. 142.

    Roger

    @Svensker: If Sullivan was to carefully demarcate his political from non-political posts in two separate blogs I’d happily read (but not pay for) the latter.

    It would be so easy for him to do the full Reverse Hitchens and actually declare himself the centrist liberal being a mainstream English conservative almost automatically makes you when you cross the pond – but no he just can’t recant the racism that brought him his first measure of fame/notoriety.

  143. 143.

    Bruce S

    @David Koch:

    Jeeezus – are you even a tiny bit aware of what a mindless piece of shit you are? You’ve got the intellectual chops of a Tea Partier.

    I think most of Cole’s blog posts suck and don’t generally come here to read him but a couple of others. I disagree with Greenwald about 85-90%% of the time – actually far more often than I disagree with most of what I’m aware of coming from the current iteration of “Andrew Sullivan” (who, since I’m dissing people, I must add that I utterly loathe as a creepy narcissist who has done more to “intellectually” legitimatize racism than any other person I can think of with pretenses to “polite company” – and who I will never forgive for his vile “fifth column” comments regarding Iraq dissenters such as myself back in 2003.)

    But given all of that, “David Koch” perpetually offers us something so far beneath anything coming from this trio of seriously flawed trio blogospheroids that the mind reels. Koch is just gutter trash. He’s a total moron who uses alleged devotion to a man whose shoe leather he’s not fit to lick as a rationale to arrogantly parade his pathologies. Koch resides a galaxy away from the decency, seriousness and intellect of the President he pretends to “defend.” In identifying himself with Obama, he tries to lay claim to something that he’s defiling – if only by proximity. President Obama works within a complex, critical and admittedly problematic paradigm. Koch is as blissfully reductionist and ridiculous as a Teatard sign. If “Koch” really gave a shit about President Obama, he’d shut the fuck up for the next three years rather than trying to conjure up some twisted version of “if Mark Levin were an ‘Obama supporter.'”

  145. 145.

    Bruce S

    Sullivan: “Does Glenn really believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, however flawed, were deliberate attempts to kill Muslim civilians, in the way al Qaeda deliberately targets and kills Muslim civilians?”

    I fully supported the Afghan war, although I think Bush totally screwed the pooch – probably deliberately. Regarding Iraq, when you have a leading “liberal” proponent of the war going on PBS, of all places, presenting the rationale as having US soldiers knock down doors in the Muslim world and telling anyone on the other side to “suck on this”, yes it’s obvious that one of the underlying pretexts of that war was to terrorize random civilians in the Muslim world in retaliation for 9/11. It’s not exactly the same thing as al Qaeda but it’s deliberate and it was retaliatory targeting that had nothing to do with apprehending perpetrators. It also triggered the deaths of far more innocent people than al Qaeda attacks.

    Also, Cole is free to diss Niebuhr, but if he’d read and understood Niebuhr’s “Ironies of American History” back in 2001 he wouldn’t have likely been so fucking stupid and morally obtuse as to support W Bush and his crackpot war. Cole can go fuck himself forever on that score. I honestly don’t understand folks who went there.

  146. 146.

    Ripley

    Well, since Game of Thrones was postponed this week, this thread will do just fine. Is there a Wiki? Some of the characters look alike to me.

  147. 147.

    Tonal (visible) Crow

    This site should be renamed “Troll Juice” or perhaps “The View from Under the Bridge”.

  149. 149.

    JudenChino

    @BruceS

    Agreed.

    Sullivan: “Does Glenn really believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, however flawed, were deliberate attempts to kill Muslim civilians, in the way al Qaeda deliberately targets and kills Muslim civilians?”

    That’s an obvious no and a total strawman. I can’t believe Sullivan would be so obtuse. Of course it’s not intentional. But the end result is a lot of dead Muslim civilians, whose deaths are reasonable foreseeable. It’s not that we want to, it’s that we’re incompetent. And it doesn’t really matter to those who feel an affinity with the dead civilians, that we don’t intentionally kill them. You get a free pass on the first few, but once you hit the hundreds (of dead Muslim civilians) it’s time you re-think your strategy.

    I only subscribe to Sullivan for the View From Your Window Contest. I wish I could cancel.

  150. 150.

    Jack JD Montana

    ‘teatards’ aren’t going after Obama for ‘not calling it terrorism’. You confuse the genuine Tea Party with the Establishment Sellout Me Too War Whore RINO party. That was Romney’s talking point for the Don King boxing match…er 2nd presidential debate that happened after Benghazi, because Romney damn well couldn’t go after Obama for running guns via Benghazi to Syria jihadists because he’d just publically backed said policy! Same story with John ‘can we send him to Gitmo already’ McCain and his tea sipping with pals in the Al-Heart and Lung Eaters Jihad Brigades of northern Syria.

  151. 151.

    Jack JD Montana

    ‘teatards’ are going after Obama on Benghazi because they (correctly) surmise that it’s the one scandal that is capable of bringing down this whole f’ — n house of cards called the Obama Administration and also expose to what degree the Saudis and Qataris have bought American foreign policy wholesale (not saying it wasn’t bought under Dubya, but even Dubya didn’t try to pull a McCain and say Al-Qaeda was good, outside of maybe some AQ friendly jihadi types fighting Iran). Benghazi is the string that if pulled on unravels the whole rotten sweater that is D.C. where ‘pro-Israel neocons’ are even more disgusting than they appear because they’ve already sold out to the paymasters of Syrian Al-Qaeda while the Mossad and retired Israeli generals publically ask whether the U.S. and NATO allies arming Al-Qaeda to take down Assad is such a good idea, to the crickets of a whorish Washington press corps (and Sully).

    As for Sullivan, he’s a reliable weathervane — worshipping Dubya after 9/11, hating Dubya by 2006, worshipping Obama by 2008, then saying Obama might be not so great, then worshipping Obama again. Maybe he thinks the military industrial complex invented his HIV pills.

  152. 152.

    Jack JD Montana

    “Koch resides a galaxy away from the decency, seriousness and intellect of the President he pretends to “defend.” Still waiting for decency, intellect (by which I mean ability recall damn near anything about before hearing about it in the newspapers), or transparency (where are the White House logs, for instance, the night of Benghazi?).

  153. 153.

    Ramalama

    Some of the comments remind me of when I worked for a famous linguist who also was famed for his political commentary and activism. Said famous guy would argue that the number of people slaughtered by X regime reached a certain number, but that number did not meet the definition of, say, a genocide, so you couldn’t call it that.

    Oh the phone calls, the emails and letters that I had to sit through and sift through after famous guy failed to wring his hands and say time and again that the state-sponsored killings were horrendous, no matter what you called it. He figured, it’s obvious: murder is a horrible thing. Isn’t that something we can all agree upon?

    This thread about GG reminds me of that time.

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