Andrew Sullivan makes the “endorsement I once never thought I’d write” (but virtually everyone else knew he always would) on the same day it becomes clear that John Kerry and George Bush have close to the same attitudes toward gay rights.
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Serves him right.
(and darn it, I thought he’d come up with the endorsement back in April!)
Even though they wound up endorsing the guy I’m supporting, I have to agree that I found the extended public indecision of Drezner, Sullivan et al. to be annoying and insincere.
Yeah, yeah, who cares. I stopped reading him once it was clear he’d become a one-issue guy.
I really expect “Sully” to ditch his blog after the election. His writing has gotten increasingly stale and generally reactive and his vacations more frequent. I’m not surprised by his “endorsement” of Kerry so much as I marvel at the twisted logic that he has arrived to his conclusion. I refuse to vote for Kerry on the hope that the responsibility will sober him up. That’s nuts!
Sullivan’s surprised that he’s endorsing Kerry, but in the end he’s probably not as surprised as Hitchens would be in the year 2000 if told then that he would be endorsing GWB in 2004. Of course way back in 2000 Roger L. Simon probably couldn’t imagine endorsing GWB in 2004, nor could many of the posters here imagine doing the same. Nor could I. But here we are.
Michael Totten has a good post on this topic at Instapundit:
BUSH ON CIVIL UNIONS: President Bush said today that he favors civil unions for gays, or at least that he doesnít agree with the Republican Party platform that opposes them. This is news to me. How can he be in favor of civil unions and also back the Federal Marriage Amendment? He canít, at least not consistently. The FMA would ban civil unions as well as gay marriage. This is a flip Iíll take, as long as he doesnít flop back on it.
UPDATE: Okay, so this isn’t the first time Bush has mentioned this. Carl Fenley emails a link to this CNN article from February 2004 which quotes Bush as saying the states should be allowed to define “legal arrangements other than marriage.” Bush has tried to have it both ways, even so. The FMA states “Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.” [Emphasis added.]
SECOND UPDATE: Eugene Volokh thinks Bush is being consistent. Perhaps so. Read his whole argument, but here is his conclusion:
So if the FMA is enacted (and note that, as I’ve blogged before, I do not support its enactment), the result will be almost exactly what Bush suggests: A state could still “choose to” recognize “a civil union” as “a legal arrangement.” It would have to do so via a statute — just as most family law is defined by statute — not via a court decision or (probably) a constitutional amendment. But it would indeed be free to make such a choice.
—-
But I just broke blog protocol, didn’t I????
Sorry.
Sullivan’s not going to give up blogging, he’s making too much scratch from advertising.
He wrote back in February that he couldn’t support Bush, so his options were either to endorse Kerry, Nader, another minor candidate or remain silent.
Endorsing Kerry endears him to the Democrats. He’s the new David Brock! Any other option would have left him standing alone without an audience.
Andrew is a commentator, not a reporter, and that distintion has become significant over the last year. After preaching/pleading for steadfastness in the face of the enemy, nobody has wavered more than Andrew, buffeted by the winds of the daily news cycle.
First it was the failure to find stashes of WMD, and he forgot all other rationales for the war. Then it was hysteria over the totally regrettable abuses at Abu Ghraib, and his favorite word became “unforgivable”. So close to the daily storyline, so detached from perspective, history, and the full facts on the ground.
Granted he has policy differences on spending, trade, the religious right affiliations, etc. The FMA disaster is cheap political theater and completely wrong-headed, but Sullivan completely broke ties with Bush over that issue.
Too bad, the almost hysterical indignation and personal attribution to the president of all that is not perfect in the world really makes me doubt Andrew’s judgment and discount his commentary.
Maybe in his own mind he can reconcile the notion that a Senator who voted against the Gulf War and has a twenty-year record of backing and filling will upon elevation to the White House be a more reliable defender of American civilization than the man he has grown to despise. Or maybe he is seeing what he wants to see.
Lola, I don’t mind reading “single issue” writers — I’m one. For me, the single biggest issue is the race toward a civilization-shattering use of WMDs.
Sounds melodramatic, but assuming technology keeps getting cheaper and the requisite knowledge base keeps increasing within the jihadi-infested world (that’s the chief source of worry right now) then eventually the curves cross and madmen will have the means and opportunity to start the Apocalypse.
That used to be Sullivan’s stance too. What I detest is that his “single issue” switched, but he didn’t have the courage of his convictions to come out and admit it. Instead he now declares he was “mislead” and “betrayed” by an Administration he once trusted. That may be true, but only on gay rights. The Administration has been damned consistent in doing what it said it was going to do in the War on Terror, and by any historical measure I’ve seen, extremely efficient in pulling it off. (Recent elections in Afghanistan went off better than they did in Florida. Elections in Bosnia, four years after Saint Clinton and the Blue Shirts played their gig, were a disaster). That Sullivan is willing to preach to the Michael Moore crowd is a true disappointment.
What makes this doubly infuriating is that in the case of gay rights, all the trends are moving toward where Sullivan wants to go, and Bush will no more be able to slow that down than politicians in the 60s were able to keep women barefoot and pregnant. (Unless, of course, that civilization-shaking event that I worry about occurs. Then all bets about anything are off.)
When Sullivan writes about anything other than the Administration, he’s still pretty good. (Haven’t read the Kerry endorsement yet, but dollars to doughnuts it includes the twin thrusts “we need to change the face we present to the world” and “Kerry couldn’t do any worse.”) I’m hoping that after the election Sullivan comes back to his senses, because when he’s not hysterical he’s one of the best political writers of our time.
Thanks goodness Andrew finally made a decsion;
the suspense was just killing me.
*I really expect “Sully” to ditch his blog after the election.*
Are you kidding ? An article I saw a week or so ago indicated he was pulling in $5000 a week just from blog ads. Why would he quit ?
I’ve never believed for one second that Sullivan quit on Bush solely because of the gay marriage issue. Yes, he’s a drama queen (pun intended) but I think it all boils down to money for Sullivan- look no further than the approx. 15k DailyKoS is pulling in a week – I think Sullivan saw a void to be filled (pun intended) when it came to democratic blogs. The fact that he’s openly homosexual almost immediately precludes him from his site having any legs when it comes to holding on to conservative readership. So Sullivan played the odds, changed his position on Bush, the war, et al, safely blaming it on the issue of gay marriage. It seems much more likely that its about the fact that apparently, democratic bloggers make more money because democratic blog readers are stupid enough to contribute more money- why ? Because its not just a blog, its a cause. So more dough for Sullivan.
I simply cannot believe that someone with Sullivan’s intelligence would support the party of islamic apologists, considering the fact that Islamofacists believe gays should basically be killed on sight.
Sullivan used to be an interesting writer who fearlessly let his principles lead him anywhere the truth was. Once he decided Kerry was his guy (about 6 months ago) he started swallowing Dem propaganda wholesale, which made his writing much less interesting. For example, he bought the “Swift Vets are liars” meme without ever examining it.
His critical faculties are in the tank, and now he’s a boring hack.
What I wonder is, what the heck is he going to do after Bush wins?
Expect another extended song-n-dance.
Someone,
What is he going to do after the election ? The same thing the democrats do after every election Pinky- they try to overturn the results.
There’s a sizable army of trial lawyer/civil rights lawyer types meeting in Miami, from what I’ve been hearing. Litigation fallout from the election, assuming a Bush victory will be a year, minimum.
By the time that pile of manure is shoveled, Bush will have taken significant military and/or diplomatic action elsewhere (I do not think for one second W will spend his second term worrying about whether Europe et al likes him) which will give them impetus to continue their attacks. They’ll question every thing he does, claim he stole the election (again) and start preparing their candidate for 2008. While there are alot of people who think Hillary will be the democratic candidate, the only way I can possibly imagine her getting elected is if the republicans run a Bob Dole type candidate against her.
We’ll get more of the same for 4 more years. The left needs Bush to continue its vendetta- a Kerry victory means 4 years of democratic party in-fighting, which while amusing, would spell disaster for our country.
Matt Evans:
I think you are absolutely wrong here. Sullivan may or may not have picked up more “Liberals” than he has lost “Conservatives”, but for years he’s been hard to categorize. That was one of the great things about his thinking. Unfortunately, those of us who read him for keen perspective have found his vision compromised by his passions, and that’s the loss.
But you’re correct, if he’s looking for a halleluja chorus he probably made the smart move. I just don’t see that as the motivation.
And Roger is more right; Liberal and Conservative have become nearly meaningless terms. I’m against the government having the right to tell me where I can put what, anatomically (and age-appropriately) speaking. Liberal or Conservative? Social contracts are social, and the government has no business engineering them. Liberal or Conservative? I’m for proactive military engagement with avowed enemies of our country. Liberal or Conservative?
Every Liberal I know thinks I’m Conservative just because of that last point. The worst thing about the Left right now is its tendency to burn heritics. The Right should be learning from that mistake. A robot can dream.
All this pigeonholing just adds more fog to a political situation that screams out for clarity. So don’t add to it.
Sullivan’s timing looks far from principled,it has more the appearance of somebody doing his bit for the cause,just one more straw on the camel’s back.
The guy doesn’t have a vote yet anyway, so “his vote” is just technical in any case. And at this point, his new readership is more towards the left than the right anyway. Or formerly conservative types who unaccountably switched after the War on Iraq — Paelo-cons, I guess, except that they are more liberal on social issues.
I doubt his “endorsement” will succeed in switching any undecided voters. Anyone with more than crap for brains knew this was coming for months.
There’s more than one irony here. Sullivan is returning to his New Republic liberal roots for his full return to liberal support.
Meanwhile, all this was predictable months ago, even before KJL challenged him that that is where he was headed and he coyly denied it by saying, “not so fast.”
And in the interim, he’s “positioned” himself as an undecided voter with “enough credibility” left so that he do his best to undermine Bush’s case while tauting his former support for the war.
Meanwhile, of all the analysts on military affairs in the blogosphere, he strikes me as the worst one going, because he has no understanding of how it works. Everytime there’s a setback, he’s pretty much ready to toss in the towel and conclude ‘yet another disaster’.
It’s a big victory for gays and lesbians that Bush says he’s not opposed to state-by-state recognition of civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Sure, no new rights were conferred by Bush’s mere statement, but Bush’s statement marks a tidal wave of progress for gay and lesbian Americans.
It is important that Bush mentioned rights in his statement. This frames the issue of civil marriage for gays and lesbians as about individual rights. Bush and others have been framing the issue as about protecting children and traditional values – which is not only more difficult to challenge but is also very dangerous for gays and lesbians. Turning gays and lesbians into threats against children and society is a low form of propaganda.
The activists who are disgusted by gays and lesbians are more concerned about the redefinition of homosexuality than they are about the definition of civil marriage. By extending civil marriage to include gay and lesbian couples, society is voicing greater tolerance towards gays and lesbians. No longer are gays and lesbians immoral perverts shunned by society, as viewed by a fundamentalist worldview.
Bush has taken a stand that puts the redefinition of marriage “rights” front center in this debate. We should use this as a reframing opportunity that will help extend civil marriage rights to gays and lesbians under the full and equal protection of the law.
Just say It: Homosexuality is a Crime against Nature
George Good for the Gays?
For all I know, Sullivan is a shill for the New York Times, and not as clever as Maureen Dowd. He definitely has a tin ear to the ground when it comes to reading American politics. Besides being consumed with his one issue, he is so far removed from listening to signals, he might as well have stayed in England. I used to recommend his blog, but I’ve stopped. There’s nothing there anymore.
Seems to me he’s a one issue guy. On the other hand you have Pat Buchanan who was opposed to the war but will vote Bush. You could say he’s a one issue guy too. I think most of us have a few make or break issues. I would hope national security would be # 1. Without that you can forget about most other issues.
This endorsement, amongst other things, caused me to have a minor on-blog nervous breakdown, which may or may not be entertaining to read. If you see that as some sort of shameless link-whoring then don’t go there and instead read this brilliant Ron Rosenbaum piece. It’s a dark comic future history written on January 20, 2005. Though there’s a lot of comic exagerration in the piece, I think the broad outline he lays out is, unfortunately, quite realistic.
Maybe it’s just because I’m bipolar, but I’m starting to see this election and its aftermath as something like the beginning of the end of the republic.
Who gives a rat’s ass?
“[T]he Democratic Party needs to be forced to take responsibility for the security of the country that is as much theirs as anyone’s.”
Kinda sounds like handing your kids over to a child molester. Maybe once he is forced to take responsibility for these children, he’ll reform.
Or kinda like giving nuclear materials to the Iranians, to give them an opportunity to prove that they can be responsible members of the international community. Oops, exactly like this.
I don’t care who Andrew Sullivan endorses or whether he is obsessed on issues of gay marriage. I care that a blog that was largely (though not entirely) devoted to blowing the lid off the hypocrisy of the extreme left and right has now become devoted to parroting the Democratic drumbeat where EVERY problem or setback becomes grist for the mill of Bush’s incompetence. There is no context, no nuance, no real analysis. He has become Daily Kos. What happened to the Sontag Awards? The Derbyshire Awards? No, Andrew has decided Bush must go so everything must be geared towards this goal. Just like the NY Times that he despises. If Kerry wins, Andrew will spend the next 4 years publicly regretting his decision. If Bush wins he may or may not return to what he used to be but it is too late. His endorsement of the cypher has ruined him for me and I suspect many other moderate persons in the blogosphere. I still read Andrew but not for much longer. And he was the first website I checked every day. I have given him money. No more. I can subscribe to the Times.
As often, Terrye sums up the earth shuttering importance of this particular issue best, with the frugal economy of 16 letters.
Gosh, what a lot of strong feelings. I have no desire to stir things up, but just a couple of points, since no one has mentioned them so far. Firstly, the actual post is implying that really everything should be fine between Andrew Sullivan and Bush as far as gay rights are concerned. That’s surely nonsense. Just read Andrew’s most recent posts. Secondly, I think the endless discussion of whether Andrew is capable of any kind of balanced judgement independent gay rights, repeated here over and over again, has been successfully debunked elsewhere. I think its shameful that people have these views. This is hardly any different from racial stereotyping. Finally, I see all you guys have strong opinions, but for the rest of us it would be wonderful if you could actually offer interesting or indeed compelling arguments for why the views posted by Andrew in his Kerry endorsement are wrong. That would be a breath of fresh air.
Katherine:
Hey, I am a Gary Cooper fan. The strong, silent type.
I heard Bush say that he had no problem with civil unions and Sully just had to make this a one issue campaign anyway.
Fine and dandy, he can quit hitting me up for money.
Phil:
First of all, a couple of people actually did do that. Check out Mark Poling, for instance, above. Second of all, a lot of us have been going over the same ground, and debunking these Sullivan-type arguments over and over again for a long time by now. It’s kind of a tired subject by this point. But, if you must hear it, in broad outline my problems with this Sullivan’s endorsement or whatever (which is really just a repetition of things he’s been saying on his blog since Spring) are:
1. The argument that because the Democrats and Kerry have been so unserious about the war on terror and irresponsible in their critcisms of Bush that they should be given power so they are forced to be responsible is ridiculous. First, why reward bad behavior? But, more importantly, if they have not demonstrated seriousness on the most important issue of the day why take the chance and assume that they will just because they have the presidency?
2. Far too much of Andrew’s argument hinges upon taking at face value what Kerry has been saying. (I personally don’t even find what he’s saying to be that compelling but, for the sake of argument, let’s leave that aside.) As if, merely by making the right noises on the campaign trail and at this convention Kerry can erase his 20-year record in the senate in which he was on the dovish side of every single foreign policy issue during that time.
I agree with you that some conservatives go too far in their denunciations of Andrew (similar to the way they go too far in their denunciations of McCain). I don’t know what you mean by the idea that his judgement being colored by his judgement on gay issues having been “bebunked elsewhere”. At least do us the service of providing a link then. I also don’t buy the reductive analysis that Andrew’s pivot was entirely over Bush’s support of the Federal Marriage Amendment (though you’d have to be kidding not to think that this was part of it.) Why, I personally, as someone who favors gay marriage, reads Sullivan every day, and has contributed to all of his pledge drives, am gettting exasperated with him is that I think since he’s gone anti-Bush he has become shrilly and predictably so and he has too readily accepted Kerry’s talking points as fact. Worse, for a blogger, he has become completely predictable.
There now, did that meet your lofty standards?
I think just about everyone’s missed the point here.
The truth of the matter is that Andrew Sullivan joined the ranks of Kerry’s Anti-Liberationistas because he did not have the courage to face the daily consequences of being excommunicated by his friends and colleagues for being pro-Bush and pro-Liberation. It is that simple. In the end Sullivan could not find it within himself to stand up for his principles alone.
Anyone who has read his blog carefully since September 11, 2001 has probably noted how plaintive he became once it became clear to him that people he cared about were drawing battlines that could not be crossed by those holding his views. Were it simply a matter of personal weakness, I could probably be less distainful of him, but what makes this doubly distasteful is his hiding behind his homosexuality and supposed ‘unacceptability’ of George Bush’s stance on gay marriage instead of owning up to the reality of his own cowardice.
The reality of the matter is that this isn’t about being gay, or gay marriage, or Iraq, or presidential competence. It’s about being able to go to the right parties, and be with the right people, and get a wave or a phone call from an old friend. It’s about being readmitted to well known and travelled circles.
So instead of choosing to be Andrew Sullivan, now he’s the gay Josh Marshall. It’s a comfortable and safe, if uninteresting spot, and he’s welcome to it. I just hope he doesn’t harbor expectations of being taken seriously in the future. I wonder when, if ever, he will start to become acquainted with the costs of selling out?
Doug also makes a nice point…that Sullivan has, in effect, become that which he once despised…the biased, untruthful and manipulative New York Times.
I agree completely with Dennis’s analysis.
What a long, boring trip it’s been with Sully . . .
I am going to tackle this non-issue by starting with Sullivan’s basic operating premise. “Homosexual is what he is not what he does.” The logic of his position ultimately drives him not just to endorse John Kerry but to move to the far left. People who subscribe to the “is” and not “does” [and by no means do all homosexuals subscribe to the "is"] are seeking a radical transformation of society to validate their “is-ness.” We say that Sullivan has become a single issue [gay marriage] voter. However, that particular single issue is merely a symbol of radical transformation. What Sullivan wants is to replace what “Queer Theory” calls Hetro-normnativity with Homo-normnativity. Sullivan really wants homosexuality to be elevated above historically normative sexuality. [homosexual exeptionalism vice homosexual rights] So Sullivan endorses Kerry [can't vote for him] not because he hopes Kerry will adopt a more effective GWOT strategy but because of who will come in with Kerry, particularly in the Federal Court system.
I also don’t buy the argument that things are moving his way on the marriage issue. It is illusory. Yes, young unmarrieds say the support same marriage in theory but as they grow older get married and/or have children then their altitudes become more traditional. Think about it, how many parents would ask a same sex couple look after their same sex child? I think we all know the answer to that one even among liberal parents…very few to none at all.
The bottom line is that homosexual exceptionalism can only be enforced through coercive means. Only the left [Democrats] will govern coercively. Just look a Canada. If Homosexuality is what Sullivan is about then he must move to the left wing of the Democratic Party. All the other trappings are simply a self-delusion to ease his transition to the coercive radical left.
Roger,
One week before the election Bush comes out in favor of civil unions. Are you so delusional that you can’t see the whore behind the pander? Why would you, a man of integrity, pimp this act? Why not just call it what it is, a shameless appeal to the log cabin Republicans?
A political pundit named Sullivan
Gives a liberal hack a huge mulligan
All his hopes he will pin
On this tree with a grin
An endorsement he may wish to mull again
One of the ironic aspects of Sullivan’s switcheroo is that he complains about terrorists flowing into Iraq after spending months hyping his idea of the flypaper strategy (remember that one). What did he think would happen? Well here they are, Andrew, so this is no time to leave the bunker.
Although he used to write so evocatively, it has become apparent that he doesn’t believe we are at war, a real war. He says we are, but he can’t walk the walk. Thus, Kerry truly is his candidate. Appearances seem to matter to him the most, and he can’t stand for things to not look good. Even the first sentence of his TNR column reveals this, as he talks about Bush and Kerry being second tier politicians at a time when we need… Who the hell does he think chose them? He’s worried about their cosmic placement on some imagined list of credits.
DtP describes him as a coward. I agree. However, I can’t tell about how much he wants to be seen at the right parties, but he is afraid of being commited to real war and is afraid of really seeing Iraq and Afghanistan as wars. He is afraid of how it all looks. It was as if the ugliness that is war was profoundly embarassing to him and that his embarassment is the most important thing there is. He’s embarrassed that it wasn’t a cakewalk and that the enemy actually, you know, intends to fight back. He thoguht they’d just give up and have no cleverness or expertise of their own? If so, then they wouldn’t be very dangerous now, would they. This is the deep contradiction for Sullivan and his new friends. He describes the enemy as dangerous but doesn’t seem to really believe they are. The “dangerous enemy” is merely a journalistic trope, something he hopes to spin out to some clever line or sentence.
We were supposed to just take over Iraq and watch them all swoon at our wonderousness. If we had twice as many troops and possibly twice as many deaths, he’d be saying how stupid Rumsfeld was for not sticking to his original plan. Gee, isn’t that something, the enemy actually had a plan of their own. That makes them slightly smarter than Kerry. He only says he has a plan.
Well the Iraqi elections will come in January, and they will move further down the road to representative government. They will train more security forces, and we will be leaving in phases. The Iraqis will be getting on their feet and beginning to manage their problems, albeit imperfectly. And while that’s happening, the Balkans will still be a mess. Perhaps Andrew will figure out some clever phrase to describe that situation if he lunches with Tom Friedman.
To me Sullivan has transformed into MoDo whom he used to grill with relish. Well I guess you are what you eat.
Nothing new, just not reported too much:
KING: What about the union of gays?
G. BUSH: Well, that’s up to states, you know. If states choose to do that, in other words, if they want to provide legal protections for gays, that’s great.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/12/lkl.00.html
DtP:
“You want the truth?! You can’t handle the truth!”
Katherine,
Terrye’s succinct summation was definitely admirable (and accurate). But just in case anyone would appreciate a more, ummm, detailed and nuanced refutation, click on over to Lileks and scroll on down to Uh oh… Can’t STOP SCREED….
He tells us he’s an Authentic Conservative™ but his cause celebre is arguing that gays will never feel loved or accepted by society until Big Daddy govt bestows upon us the sanctity of marriage. This is boilerplate liberalism, & insulting to me as a homo.
Now he’s just angling for his old job back at the Times, so he can churn out dreck alongside Dowd & Krugman. Right where he belongs.
Jeff:
Bravo! Sullivan is exhibiting an immature personality. He needs have his lifestyle validated by coercion if necessary. A mature person, totally comfortable with his own sexuality, does not need anything from me or anyone except to be left alone in peace.