Posts Tagged ‘Andrew Sullivan’
Ex Cathedra – 2
There is no established protocol whatsoever for the titles, status or prerogatives of a retired Pope.
The prophecy of the popes. Another pope betting site. The political science of papal elections. And then about a dozen posts from Andrew Sullivan: Benedict’s Radical End. Why Now? What Now For Benedict? Who Would Benedict Pick? A Black Pope? Resignation And The Papacy.
“It is not good for a Pope to live 20 years. It is anomaly and bears no good fruit; he becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, does cruel things without meaning it.”
Tehran Protests
Over the weekend an old friend wrote me to make sure that I don’t like Andrew Sullivan now. I don’t; his opinions are by and large awful, even if on many important issues he’s slowly switched to “our side” since 2001. But on isolated issues his coverage can be very strong, as it is this morning on the now-illegal protest march in Tehran. Just look at the size of that crowd. (UPDATE: Video from BBC Persia. Wow.) (UPDATE 2: Mousavi is at the rally.)
On Abortion
Andrew Sullivan has been running testimonials about late–term abortion on his site all week, tragic stories of a sort that normally get no attention in detached public-sphere moralizing. They seem to be, judging from his most recent post on the subject, starting to change his mind:
I have to say I am beginning to believe that these abortions, given their excruciating moral and personal choices, may be the most defensible in context of all abortions. And yet they seem to be taking life in a more viscerally distressing way. I need time to think and rethink these things. I would not have without reading these extraordinary accounts.
It’s amazing what happens when circumstances force us to confront reality of difficult choices in practice, not just “in the abstract.”
‘Why I Blog’
Andrew Sullivan on blogs as a new golden age of writing.
The blog remained a superficial medium, of course. By superficial, I mean simply that blogging rewards brevity and immediacy. No one wants to read a 9,000-word treatise online. On the Web, one-sentence links are as legitimate as thousand-word diatribes—in fact, they are often valued more. And, as Matt Drudge told me when I sought advice from the master in 2001, the key to understanding a blog is to realize that it’s a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling, it sinks.
But the superficiality masked considerable depth—greater depth, from one perspective, than the traditional media could offer. The reason was a single technological innovation: the hyperlink. An old-school columnist can write 800 brilliant words analyzing or commenting on, say, a new think-tank report or scientific survey. But in reading it on paper, you have to take the columnist’s presentation of the material on faith, or be convinced by a brief quotation (which can always be misleading out of context). Online, a hyperlink to the original source transforms the experience. Yes, a few sentences of bloggy spin may not be as satisfying as a full column, but the ability to read the primary material instantly—in as careful or shallow a fashion as you choose—can add much greater context than anything on paper. Even a blogger’s chosen pull quote, unlike a columnist’s, can be effortlessly checked against the original. Now this innovation, pre-dating blogs but popularized by them, is increasingly central to mainstream journalism.
A blog, therefore, bobs on the surface of the ocean but has its anchorage in waters deeper than those print media is technologically able to exploit. It disempowers the writer to that extent, of course. The blogger can get away with less and afford fewer pretensions of authority. He is—more than any writer of the past—a node among other nodes, connected but unfinished without the links and the comments and the track-backs that make the blogosphere, at its best, a conversation, rather than a production.
Sarah Palin Watch
Andrew Sullivan is still losing his shit over Sarah Palin:
There are only a few weeks to go before the United States may pick a potential president who has never given a press conference as a candidate for national office. This is not a functioning democracy.
And he’s now being joined in shit-losing by the Washington Post editorial board:
Mr. McCain’s selection of an inexperienced and relatively unknown figure was unsettling, and the campaign’s decision to keep her sequestered from serious interchanges with reporters and voters serves only to deepen the unease. Mr. McCain is entitled to choose the person he thinks would be best for the job. He is not entitled to keep the public from being able to make an informed assessment of that judgment. Ms. Palin’s speech-making skills are impressive, but the more she repeats the same stump speech lines, the queasier we get. Nor have her answers to the gentle questioning she has encountered provided any confidence that Ms. Palin has a grasp of the issues.
It’s amazing to see the media actually begin to do its job for once, and all it took was the McCain camp completely losing its shit, going to war with the media when they were supposed to be campaigning against Barack Obama.
The Sarah Palin Chronicles
More and more evidence mounts that the McCain camp didn’t actually vet Palin at all. They didn’t read a single article in the Wasilla newspaper, and they didn’t talk to Walt Monegan, the man at the center of her still open abuse of power ethics investigation—nor, apparently, did they talk to anyone else. They’ve been pushing as one of her few notable accomplishments her opposition to the “Bridge to Nowhere,” which has turned out to be, well, bullshit. Nearly recalled as mayor, she left the small town of Wasilla over $20 million dollars in debt. That’s after she tried to censor the town library and fire long-time town employees without cause for “not fully supporting her efforts to govern.”
Oh, and her husband works for BP, one of the largest employers in Alaska, which is not in any way a conflict of interest.
And those are just the highlights. Given all this, I get a sinking feeling when I see how much attention the already ubiquitous, totally moronic baby smear is getting. Even Andrew Sullivan is pushing it now, though he’s careful to hedge his bets. That’s just not a basket in which I want to put Barack’s eggs; it’s the raw irresponsibility of John McCain’s cynical and poorly thought-out VP pick—a roll of the dice from a chronic gambler—that we should be talking about, not whether a seventeen-year-old girl does or doesn’t have a “baby bump” in a given photo.
The Juno/Juneau parody poster on Gawker made me laugh, but that’s the only upside here. I don’t think we’d want anything to do with the baby thing even if by some impossible chance it all turns out to be true.
John McCain says he made this decision because he looked into Putin’s Palin’s eyes the one time they met and saw a soul mate. The only thing we should be saying about Palin is that this is not the way to make the most important decision of your candidacy. The Palin pick is stone-cold proof that John McCain has neither the judgment nor the temperament to be president.
So leave her kids alone. Keep your heads on straight, netroots.
Last Words on Palin
Last words for a while on Palin.
* Andrew Sullivan of all people has been absolutely brutal, all day, hitting just about every objection to Palin in order. He’s also pushing the gambling meme, which I’m convinced is the key frame through which to view this very reckless, lunatic choice.
* More gambling: Dan Gerstein, a former adviser to Sen. Joe Lieberman, in the New York Daily News:
“In picking an unknown, untested, half-a-term woman governor from Alaska to be his running mate, John McCain is following in a long line of reckless men who have rolled the dice for a beauty queen. Except in this case, McCain is taking one of the biggest, boldest gambles in modern American political history.”
Sometimes you have to roll the hard six?
* Sullivan and Ben Smith together point out the worst vetting lapse I’ve heard thus far, that Palin supported Pat Buchanan for president in 1996 and 1999. That’s mind-boggling. Was she vetted at all?
* Maybe not: as of Sunday, he’d still wanted Lieberman, and the final decision was only made last night.
* Ezra’s been good today too, particularly on the cable news coverage.
* Robert Elisburg’s verdict: The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in U.S. History.