Ezra Klein: Andrew Sullivan and "Honesty"

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October 13, 2007

Andrew Sullivan and "Honesty"

Earlier this week, I questioned Sullivan's publishing of the Elizabeth McCaughey article when he was editor of The New Republic. Classily, he sought to make my age, rather than the honesty of the piece he published and championed, the issue. I guess that didn't do the trick. Because now he's accusing me of seeking the "subjugation of free inquiry and free ideas" and calling my writing "chilling." I'll let the argument of the post in question stand on its own merit. But I will answer the basic smear, which is that I lack integrity as a writer, and sacrifice the truth in order to elevate an agenda.

So let's talk honesty, and commitment to speech, as that's the issue here. It was Sullivan, remember, who accused the anti-war left of mounting a "fifth column." Who went on a rip evaluating the patriotism of the war's critics. Who doesn't even allow comments on his site. Tell me again who's trying to marginalize speech. And it is Sullivan who brags, in his bio, of winning a National Magazine Award for the article written by Elizabeth McCaughey. Here's the letter from a National Magazine Award judge that The New Republic, under Sullivan, didn't publish:

April 27, 1995

To the editors:

I was on the panel of judges for the National Magazine Awards and cast my personal vote in the public interest category for the entry from the New Republic, “No Exit” by Elizabeth McCaughey. I did so because I thought it was the magazine article that had the greatest effect on public policy in 1994. I first read “No Exit” and McCaughey’s subsequent reply to administration critics of her article (the reply was also part of the entry) when they appeared in the New Republic. They were convincing to me during the judging of the awards. Perhaps I was right to be convinced, perhaps not. But I now know something for certain: I was wrong to believe the New Republic.

Your magazine endorsed Bill Clinton. The health care plan was a central, if not the central, piece of legislation of Clinton’s presidency. You put a devastating story about the health plan on the cover and then, a few issues later, heralded McCaughey’s reply to her critics with the cover line “Elizabeth McCaughey: White House Lies.” Lies! How could a magazine endorse a story and its author more strongly? As a reader I assume that such endorsement means, at the very least, that the basic facts in the article will be correct. Now I read Mickey Kaus saying in the New Republic that, among other important errors, McCaughey was wrong when she said that the Clinton plan would not allow a patient to pay his doctor directly for medical care but must allow the doctor to be paid by the government plan. Her errors, Kaus writes, “completely distorted the debate on the biggest public policy issue of 1994.” But where was Kaus when the story came in? Didn’t anyone there bother to check McCaughey’s citations to see if she was accurately reading and quoting the plan? It couldn’t have been that hard. If it turned out that you slipped up and McCaughey’s story was wrong, you should have said so yourselves back then rather than waiting for Kaus to shoulder the load at this late date. Then again, how does a reader know that Kaus is right? Did anyone there bother to check his story when it came in?

I am not talking about the difference of opinion between McCaughey and Kaus. A magazine is a chorus of many voices. There is lots of room for disagreement. But that’s not the problem here. Clinton’s plan says what it says. Any article on that plan must be based on accurate statements about what the plan says. Making sure that an article is accurate is one of the things an editor does. If you are not going to do that for a cover story on a central piece of legislation by a president that you endorsed, if you are not going to do that for a follow-up in which you call the administration liars, when are you going to do it? If Kaus was wrong and McCaughey is right after all, then how could you have published Kaus’s column? I can imagine a good magazine publishing neither McCaughey’s story nor Kaus’s story. But I cannot imagine a magazine with respect for its readers publishing both.

Yours,

Gregory Curtis

Tell me again abut honesty, Andrew, and the pursuit of truth over ideology.

Here are some excerpts from a contemporary article by Mickey Kaus, one of Andrew's then-employees, and surely someone who explained McCaughey's failings to him:

Guess who just won the National Magazine Award for "Excellence in Public Interest"? We did! We won it for Elizabeth ("Betsy") McCaughey's articles on the Clinton health plan. McCaughey "waded through all 1,364 pages of the health care reform package," the judges said, then she "tore it apart." Her " carefully researched" pieces "transcended the coverage in most of the press. More than any other single event in the debate, what she wrote stopped the bill in its intellectual tracks."

So why don't I feel more like celebrating? Is it because, as a New Yorker editor publicly complained, the McCaughey articles seemed to have been " nominated for buzz"? Perhaps. But does The New Yorker not care about buzz? (Tell it to the Easter Bunny.) Is it because my colleague Michael Kinsley, in this space, denounced the initial McCaughey piece as a "screed," and James Fallows, writing in the Atlantic, said its claims were "simply false" and Theodore Marmor, professor of public policy at Yale, told me his fellow health experts of left, right and center consider McCaughey's articles " risible"?

[paragraph after paragraph dismantling the McCaughey article]

I don't mean to leave the impression that McCaughey's efforts were worthless. She did unearth some juicy provisions, like one steering medical training slots to "racial or ethnic minority groups" (though, like a good GOP apparatchik, she called this inchoate preference a "quota"). She got some things right. But she got a lot wrong. In the process, she completely distorted the debate on the biggest public policy issue of 1994. Give her a medal.

Andrew sought, earlier this week, to explain why he published this article. He explained that it was "provocative." Full of lies, to be sure. Lies, in fact,that were exposed at the time, and not only by Andrew's employees, but publicly, by James Fallows and the White House, and many other. But no matter. The article was "provocative." And that's what mattered. Not honesty. Not impact. But provocation.

It's a peculiar quirk of Washington that repeatedly being wrong doesn't harm your reputation for accuracy or prescience. Indeed, if you leverage your poor predictive abilities correctly, and always stay in a safe mainstream, they can even do something more important: Make you seem courageously honest.

Sullivan hangs his hat on a reputation for honesty that comes because he constantly shifts his opinions as each, one after the other, is proven flagrantly incorrect, and the mainstream moves to reflect that. Then Sullivan spends a lot of time writing about his anguished evolution, and eventually settles in the new center. This was true of Bush, true of Iraq, true of some of the largest issues of our time. It's telling, though, that when wrong opinions serve his career, as happened in the case of No Exit or The Bell Curve, then honesty is subsumed beneath a higher value: "Provocation." Sometimes the truth is dull, or politically marginal. At those times, being honest and being provocative conflict. And we've seen which Sullivan chooses when pressed. It makes him, to be sure, a fun and interesting writer. One I rather like to read. But it doesn't leave him in a position to throw stones at the integrity of others.

October 13, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

Have you gotten permission from Matt to write this post? You're making things uncomfortable for him. It could be dangerous.

Posted by: pivot | Oct 13, 2007 2:07:52 AM

You are writing at cross-purposes. Yes, Sullivan does say, as a throwaway line "It makes Sidney Blumenthal seem intellectually honest.".

And you can focus on that, if you wish.

But that isn't really his argument, but more of a flourish.

The argument - such as it is - is this:

"It is a full-throated and not-even-regretful support for the subjugation of free inquiry and free ideas to the demands of political organization."

And this:

"This isn't narcissism; it is the duty of any writer and thinker to state his own views as best he can without concern for how the world might greet them, who might use them unfairly, or who might expropriate them for insincere purposes. Without this independence, a writer is merely a hack"

So - Sullivan's argument is, you demand purity, and you are wrong in calling Cohen narcissistic.

The "honesty" thing is bait. Don't take it. It makes you look as if you can't address his argument head on.

Posted by: JC | Oct 13, 2007 2:27:13 AM

Of course, perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps I'm acceding to having the debate on the grounds Sullivan wants.

For example, he cherry-picks that particular post of yours, without addressing the evidence that Cohen makes statements that are smears.

Right in that previous post of yours, you offer evidence of Cohen's statements that are smears, and it's persuasive. So Sullivan coming back, after cherry-picking your psychological argument, and then states "He has arguments to make, arguments that can be agreed with or disagreed with, but that have merits of their own that should be addressed regardless of the arrangement of political power at the time."

But you DO address his arguments, in that post. For him to claim you don't, is ludicrous. You just went beyond, to make an observation in alignment with the "seriousness" of all these beltway pundits.

Posted by: JC | Oct 13, 2007 2:33:45 AM

I just read that post of Sullivan's and honestly I just lost a lot of respect for him. It's like he's tacitly acknowledging that you've got him cornered on the McCaughey article, that his conduct was genuinely indefensible, and yet rather than admitting this, he reflexively moves towards the ad hominem. His method: well, I don't know for sure, but I can see him just going to this site, going page by page, looking for a post that he could have a hysterical reaction towards, laughably call "chilling," and fit into his inconsistent framework of a world populated by hordes of partisan apparatchiks [uh, sure] on both sides with only a few brave 'skeptical' types above the fray. I'm not going to say that there weren't some issues with the post he quotes, and I even sort of agree with him, but he's clearly not concerned with what you actually think about Roger Cohen and liberal hawks and is just looking for something, anything, to bludgeon you with rather than actually admit his mistakes. It's sort of interesting how genuinely repentant he seems about the Iraq War and how frequent his ministrations on that subject are in contrast to the sort of crap we've seen from him recently -- perhaps 10 million more uninsured and he'll be writing homilies about how blind and callous "we" all were.

Posted by: Zack | Oct 13, 2007 3:11:41 AM

Agreed with JC that the “honesty” thing is bait. Having said that, let’s also say that Sullivan has a weird reading of your Roger Cohen piece--namely, that you’re demanding conformity and political subjugation from pundits. You made no such demands. Instead, you called out Cohen for lending support to the neoconservatives, and you talked about the consequences of his writing.

This back-and-forth thing between you two is turning into a pissing match, and I think that Sullivan’s intellectually dishonest schtick is simply his way to escalate it.

Posted by: tb | Oct 13, 2007 3:24:00 AM

These people aren't honest. Not honest. Stop pretending that they are, they aren't.

Posted by: Oliver Willis | Oct 13, 2007 4:04:44 AM

Another killer post.

On Sullivan: I read him often, and find him to be one of the rightwingers whose writing I can still stand. But periodically---in "No Exit", in the fifth column post, etc---he does something pretty awful. And, at some level, appears to later realize how awful it was. But rather than apologizing for the error, he tries to divert and attack.

Posted by: JoshA | Oct 13, 2007 4:09:51 AM

"Having said that, let’s also say that Sullivan has a weird reading of your Roger Cohen piece"

Nah, I dont think so. How many ways can you interpret stuff like "Who he empowers, and which actors in American politics find their ideas legitimized by his columns, is all that matters"?

Now, I get the sense that klein does think other things like 'honesty' ect matter and has just run afoul of letting his writing serve the device rather than having the device serve his writing. But as a reading of the text itself I think sullivan's is just about the only one you can make.

Posted by: pimp hand strikes! | Oct 13, 2007 5:47:38 AM

Gen. Joe Ralston: Lies, Lockheed and the PKK. How Bush burned his own mediator in Iraq.

If you don't know who Joseph Ralston is, then George Bush is likely very, very happy. Because Joseph Ralston is the former NATO Supreme Commander who was supposed to prevent America's exploding crisis with Turkey from happening.

Bush appointed the former NATO Supreme Commander Ralston to be his special mediator working with Turkish, Iraqi, US and Kurdish authorities to end PKK incursions into Iraq in May, 2006. . Ralston is retired and works for a high-powered firm that includes former Clinton defense officials. Ralston didn't make a dent in ending PKK terror in Iraq and Turkey. Seems General Ralston did sell a lot of Lockheed planes to Turkey about the same time.

Lockheed, of course, approached the Turkey sales job like professionals. Bush not so much...

How serious was Bush about ending the PKK threat? Not very.

According to some, the process had been doomed right from the beginning. Assuming his job last year Ralston, who lives in the distant Alaska state, had no constant office or staff directly reporting to him. In his part-time job, he had been working on an on-and-off basis with State Department and Pentagon officials who were already dealing with Turkish matters.

Ralston lasted longer than his Turkish counter-part

Oct 11, 2207
Ralston and his Turkish counterpart, retired General Edip Başer, met several times between last fall and March this year in an effort to develop an anti-PKK strategy of tripartite cooperation among Turkey, Iraq and the United States, but this mechanism has never become effective, causing frustration in Ankara.

The Ankara government fired Başer in May after he vocally expressed his frustration and replaced him with senior diplomat Rafet Akgünay. But Ralston and Akgünay never met face to face.

In his last public appearance in Washington in early July Ralston said he would resume his work after the Turkish general elections on July 22, but this did not happen.

Sources here said that Ralston had failed in his efforts to urge the Washington administration to apply larger pressure on Iraqi Kurds who control northern Iraq to take measures against the PKK.

Top Turkish military officials and diplomats in on-the-record remarks have accused Iraqi Kurds of providing the PKK with shelter, arms and logistics.

Fox buried the Ralston resignation story in a corner of a bigger article. Confronted by questions about Ralston State tried to pretend as recently as October 3rd that Ralston was still on the job.

Finally after much digging the real story emerges:

The United States, which considers the PKK a terrorist organization, has said repeatedly that it wants to help Ankara and Baghdad, as well as the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq, to solve the problem.

The Bush administration appointed a special envoy to deal with the matter a little more than a year ago. But the envoy, retired Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, resigned last month, frustrated with the Iraqis' lack of will to act against the PKK. Colleagues say he was also troubled by Washington's reluctance to put more pressure on the Iraqis — especially the Kurdistan government, which is privately sympathetic to the PKK's goal of an independent Kurdish state.

"The argument that we have [too many] troubles in Iraq for our forces to start fighting the PKK is a valid one, but we don't have to fight them," the former senior U.S. official said. "We can help the government arrest people."

Why would Bush keep the PKK around?

...Washington has its own considerations in northern Iraq, where it has indirect links with Iranian Kurdish dissidents in the mountainous Iraq-Iran border area through the PKK. It would like to use the Iranian Kurds against the Tehran regime at the right time, and a Turkish operation in northern Iraq would seriously dent the alliance...

We do know Turkey isn't going to stand for it.

America's Top Negotiator with the Kurds, Turkey and the PKK quit working for Bush three months ago because he couldn't get his job done. Now the wheels are coming off. It's another story of greed and incompetence. No staff, no office, no support. Smoke and mirrors from Bushco. Ralston did, however, did secure an additional deal for Lockheed-Martin before walking away from the Bush mess.

We know Ralston wasn't the only unhappy military man working for Bush in Iraq. But the Ralston scandal is at the very center of the crisis with Turkey and some folks wish Ralston would just go away.

As for Andrew, he's a Harvard Ph.D who can't drive to the corner store. Should you ever wish to hear from him, just rattle Cheney's zipper. His master's voice.

Posted by: kidneystones | Oct 13, 2007 6:56:39 AM

If provocation was the goal, they sure could have accomplished that without distorting the facts. Healthcare is a controversial topic, and of course the Clinton bill was far from being perfect, Enough room for provocational coverage. Citing 'provocation' as a reason for distorting the facts is dishonest and pathetic.
I thought Sullivan had changed, but obviously he's still just another columnist who would go to every lying length to avoid having to admit he had been wrong. Hacks like Sullivan are responsible for the horrible state of political disourse that's crippling US politics for years now. More honesty, less spin, pls pls pls!

Posted by: Gray | Oct 13, 2007 7:28:17 AM

Damn, that's a killer post.

I think you would have been in a stronger position to (a) leave out the "fifth-column" thing and (b) to leave out the nastiest paragraph from Matt's review of the Conservative Soul.

The point here shouldn't be that Andrew Sullivan is a worthless bag of crap, which is what this post verges toward. The point should be that Andrew Sullivan published a bucket of lies, many of which he knew to be lies, and instead of apologizing for it, he takes pleasure in it. Just stick to that one story, that one narrative, and hammer it home. The rest is window-dressing.

Posted by: DivGuy | Oct 13, 2007 7:46:13 AM

Ezra: at least Andy hasn't expressed any fear (as yet) that you'll give him cooties.

Yes, he "provocatively" made that "money quote" about Hillary on Chris' Matthews weekend show a few months back.

All the Washington Apparatchik Journalists on the panel (not thinking about those "who might expropriate" Andrew's words "for insincere purposes") shared a "a full-throated" laugh with him at Senator Clinton's expense.

"Well, it's just really, really depressing", but they all made "Sidney Blumenthal seem intellectually honest".

Posted by: frank | Oct 13, 2007 8:45:09 AM

While I feel Ezra Klein often lacks any real self-reflection, that he never attempts to understand the reasons why he holds some of the positions he does, I don't think he's really a dishonest person.

But at the same time, I think that same dynamic is involved in a lot of what Andrew Sullivan does. He isn't really 'lying' most of the time, he just doesn't really acknowledge why he holds the positions he does. He doesn't understand the degree to which his personal ideology colors his interpretations of events. He just doesn't understand himself.

Posted by: soullite | Oct 13, 2007 9:01:06 AM

Is there anybody in the business of political commentary with a worse track record than Sullivan? I doubt it!

Accordingly, the man can't keep a job!

Sullivan should stick to writing about fact-free subjects like religion.

His epistle with Sam Harris was arguably the world's second-longest greeting card after 'Bridges Of Madison County'. Sullivan's writing is big, billowy, and colorful. Just like cotton candy!

And like cotton candy, once chewed upon for awhile, one realizes that it's just a bunch of spun sugar and hot air.

Posted by: JoeCHI | Oct 13, 2007 9:21:01 AM

"While I feel Ezra Klein often lacks any real self-reflection, that he never attempts to understand the reasons why he holds some of the positions he does, I don't think he's really a dishonest person."

You sure you ain't talkin about Sullivan here?
Ezra? Lack of self reflection? Doesn't understand the reasons why he holds positions? Come on, soullite, you must be kidding...
8-/

Posted by: Gray | Oct 13, 2007 9:22:54 AM

"Is there anybody in the business of political commentary with a worse track record than Sullivan? I doubt it!"

Uh, Krauthammer, Safire, Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh...
:D

Posted by: Gray | Oct 13, 2007 9:24:45 AM

soullite: Exactly! Sullivan isn't a liar, he's just a moron. Everyone quit picking on him!

Klein slips in a bogus word here: feels. Cohen doesn't feel he is a liberal hawk; he believes he is.

See, a liar would be smart enough to realize that that's just too stupid of an argument to rely on when sliming someone. It's so obviously wrong that no one with a wit of intelligence could buy it. But a moron, on the other hand, would think of that and immediately put it to paper. "Wow! I am so smart! I have decisively refuted that young whippersnapper Klein boy, and can safely cease worrying about whether or not I am a sleazy hack whose arguments are useful only as a barometer of elite opinion."

feel (fēl) pronunciation
v., felt (fĕlt), feel·ing, feels.

v.tr.

1.
1. To perceive through the sense of touch: feel the velvety smoothness of a peach.
2. To perceive as a physical sensation: feel a sharp pain; feel the cold.
2.
1. To touch.
2. To examine by touching. See synonyms at touch.
3. To test or explore with caution: feel one's way in a new job.
4.
1. To undergo the experience of: felt my interest rising; felt great joy.
2. To be aware of; sense: felt the anger of the crowd.
3. To be emotionally affected by: She still feels the loss of her dog.
5.
1. To be persuaded of (something) on the basis of intuition, emotion, or other indefinite grounds: I feel that what the informant says may well be true.
2. To believe; think: She felt his answer to be evasive.

Posted by: George Tenet Fangirl | Oct 13, 2007 9:26:40 AM

I've never been under any illusions about where Ezra is coming from regarding his politics soullite, and I'm sure Ezra isn't either. Unlike Sullivan, who has often been a contrarian sort when it comes to what he advocates and is unwilling to own up to his past deeds. Your armchair psychoanalysis is pretty lame too, BTW.

Posted by: David W. | Oct 13, 2007 9:28:06 AM

Nah, I dont think so. How many ways can you interpret stuff like "Who he empowers, and which actors in American politics find their ideas legitimized by his columns, is all that matters"?

Suppose I said I think invading Iraq is a great idea, and Bush uses that as an argument to invade Iraq, does so, and it turns out terribly, and I say that I really meant that it would be a great idea if a competent liberal president were in charge and invaded Iraq.

I guess if Andrew is right that "it is the duty of any writer and thinker to state his own views as best he can without concern for how the world might greet them, who might use them unfairly, or who might expropriate them for insincere purposes" then I'm in the clear.

Which means I guess that all those people talking about how awesome Communism would be if it weren't ruined by every single Communist government that has ever existed are in the clear with him. If you think that Communism sucks because guys like Stalin inevitably end up on top, I guess you're just a dishonest hack, activist, or apparatchik.

In reality, the actors who will implement your policy recommendation are a fact of the world that must be taken into account when evaluating your recommendations.

You can look at Cohen's piece and see that Cohen really does feel he's a liberal hawk--there's no intellectual argument or belief, just emotional posturing, name dropping, and MoveOn bashing. It's about what he feels and who he hangs out with, not about what actually improves life for either Americans or Iraqis. At the end of the day, all Cohen is pissed off about is that people are mad about invading Iraq even though the invaders had the noblest of intentions. Which is ultimately the exact same thing all the neocons are pissed off about, so it's not clear what separates him from them.

Posted by: Consumatopia | Oct 13, 2007 9:39:32 AM

Somewhat off topic, but I was surprised to learn that Sullivan supported John Kerry in his presidential bid and also supported the Democratic takeover of Congress, not to mention he's a foreign born alien resident homosexual.

Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 13, 2007 9:40:46 AM

Sullivan is a creature of his meds, whose obviously reduced his heavy testosterone intake.

But as for honesty, let's get back to S-CHIP and the planned debate. I propose Ezra Vs. Ezra because Ezra has a completely opposite position then Ezra, so he really needs to debate himself.

On one hand, he claims the Frosts cannot afford to pay for their insurance, BUT on the other hand he claims we collectively can afford their insurance.

So lets put all of us in a room with the Frosts making approximately the average US income. Thus, every person making less then the Frosts also cannot pay for health insurance based on Ezra's own claim that if the Frosts can't and shouldn't have to figure out how to pay for it, then certainly nobody making less and having fewer assets then the Frosts would have to either.

So now you have 1/2 the population paying for the other halfs health insurance, BUT, since only half are contributing anything, the price for those people will obviously double since they are paying for another half of the country. So if the cost was 1,000 with everyone, Ezra just made everyones cost go to 2,000.

But of course as the cost goes up , you have more and more people who can no longer afford it. So say another 25% can't afford the doubled premiums so now we have to move them into the Frost category of not being able to afford the cost.

So now Ezra has 25% paying for 100 percent of the health insurance. BUT, that means the price burden on them has also now just doubled because we had to move the last 25% who couldnt afford the last doubling.

And so on, now with the price doubled again, more and more will move to the side of not being able to afford the cost for carrying everyone else.

Bottom line: Ezra's own argument and debate is with himself, UNLESS he will concede the point that people in the Frost range of income and assets and below SHOULD be able to pay for their own insurance.

But once you concede that point, then you have to concede that asking the question if the Frosts fall into the ones who could pay ,then becomes a legitimate point of inquiry.

Gee, Ezra, you just lost your debate with yourself and provide Michelle's point, the Frost ability to pay is a legitimate question.....

Posted by: Patton | Oct 13, 2007 9:44:33 AM

I think Soulite got pretty close to the actual picture. Or another way to read soullite's comment would be: to hell with Andrew Sullivan, Ezra, you would be a much more interesting and valuable pundit and source to us liberals if you would question your own assumptions.

Sullivan is an asshole but I think pimp hand is right about the implications of that one sentence alone stripped from the rest of the text.

Posted by: feh | Oct 13, 2007 10:12:47 AM

Patton, all that fancy-footwork just to avoid looking at the real problems. Your post is stunning in its obfuscations. Even more stunning in its complete hostility towards people who don't behave as you think real and deserving poor folks should.

Posted by: little tragedy | Oct 13, 2007 10:14:01 AM

Sullivan exposed his true character once and for all when he wrote that 5th-column-in-the-decadent-enclaves column. That piece said everything you need to know about Andy Sullivan, dishonest political thug.

1) He didn't have the integrity to avoid jumping on the Iraq bandwagon even though he was putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people at risk just so he could go along with the popular crowd

2) Having made the gigantic and immoral error on Iraq, to then proceed to attack those who had the moral fiber to stand up to the powerful faction in their country that was forcing this disaster upon us and to accuse of us of treason! Holy shit, what an asshole! What a complete and total asshole!

Is there any question at all that if Andy Sullivan had lived in Nazi Germany that he would have been one of the most enthusiastic of the Hitler Youth and would have proudly turned in Jews to the authorities? I don't think there is any question at all.

Posted by: Junius Brutus | Oct 13, 2007 10:18:33 AM

Actually, I think this throwaway from Ezra nails it:

Who doesn't even allow comments on his site. Tell me again who's trying to marginalize speech.

Bingo. Yeah, it takes some labor to take care of a comments section. Progressives think it's worth it. Big Media Matt thinks it's worth it. Benedict, The Married Man, doesn't. What does that say about Conservatives and their precious movement?

Posted by: lambert strether | Oct 13, 2007 10:20:29 AM

Sullivan attacks the Clintons because they didn't fawn over him enough in his omnipotent position as editor and because of that don't ask/don't tell thing. After all, it was a personal slight, don't you know. And boy does Andy dish it out against anyone who doesn't bow down enough to his greatness. Sure brains are one thing, but he's such a mixed bag of Oedipal and Elektral angst and longing that he doesn't even realize why he thinks what he thinks. On the one hand, he needs the approval of elite power in order to feel safely assimilated nationally and regading sexual identity. On another hand, he is a provocateur who rebels against his own toadying to power. Make up your minds, Andy! And dish on yourself for a change till you figure yourself out.

Posted by: Larry | Oct 13, 2007 10:21:34 AM

It is amazing to see how quickly a great magazine can be destroyed from the inside. Sullivan, Shalit, Glass...and of a different nature, Peretz. I stopped reading TNR after No Exit made it clear that the magazine was no longer credible, and it is a mystery to me as to why anyone bothers with Sullivan, today, except as a horrible example.

Posted by: Barry | Oct 13, 2007 10:24:06 AM

Sullivan is a person who has great talent at writing, but tremendously poor judgement. It's a dangerous combination.

Posted by: F. Frederson | Oct 13, 2007 10:24:48 AM

I remember Elizabeth McCaughey's articles and the point she made about the politicizing of "risk" as a cost via the regionalizing in the Clinton healthcare plan was a good point. Her example was that it would be a political decision which region gets, say, the south Bronx which had a high population of very sick people. Also, the fact that the federal government intended to save money by pushing high cost Medicaid patients onto employers (same premiums for everyone in the region) was a good point.

Patton makes a very good argument; thanks for posting that. If you don't include assets in elegibility for taxpayer subsidized health insurance, the program becomes a sham very quickly. You have a single person who lives in a small, old, unairconditioned apartment and makes $500/week, has no pension, can't save on that income and he/she has to pay a $1/pack tax for health insurance that benefits families that are so much better off and have sizable assets and its just wrong.

Posted by: Randy | Oct 13, 2007 10:25:20 AM

I have always thought that Andrew Sullivan is the gay version (no slur intended) of any of the hack uberboys at the Corner but with better writing skills.

Posted by: gregor | Oct 13, 2007 10:29:15 AM

You know, Patton, you're exactly right. That makes perfect sense, if we merely assume that the Frosts make the median income, preventative care doesn't exist, and the top 50 percent of the population have only 50 percent of the wealth. Oh, wait...

Smarter trolls, please.

Posted by: Cyrus | Oct 13, 2007 10:31:06 AM

If you said I think invading Iraq is a great idea when you originally meant it would be a great idea if a competent liberal president were in charge and invaded Iraq then I would say you are a crappy pundit and writer that few people should be paying attention to, because I agree with you that the actors who will implement your policy recommendation are a fact of the world that must be taken into account when evaluating your recommendations and in fact your policy recommendation was actually wrong.

That's not what Sullied was saying....

it is the duty of any writer and thinker to state his own views as best he can without concern for how the world might greet them, who might use them unfairly, or who might expropriate them for insincere purposes

That's a charge of political correctness not wrong analysis.

If Cohen really felt that even with GWB at the helm, we should invade Iraq, he should write that.

If Cohen felt that invading Iraq was a good idea, but only with certain requirements (like a non idiot President) he should write that.

If Cohen didn't consider who was implementing his policy, Cohen is a crappy pundit.

But if Cohen felt that invading Iraq was a good idea, even with GWB, but that it would make it hard for Dems to regain Congress, and if Cohen then didn't write about Iraq, that would be intellectually dishonest political correctness, which is a worse crime, IMNSHO, than being a mere crappy pundit.

I think there are several areas in which Ezra is an excellent pundit and writer, and some areas in which Ezra and Matt are intellectually dishonest politically correct hacks. It can be seen in their blogroll and what they choose NOT to talk about.

Posted by: feh | Oct 13, 2007 10:36:19 AM

Someone help me out here. Has anyone worth listening to ever worked at The New Republic?

Posted by: porgy tirebiter | Oct 13, 2007 10:40:44 AM

I don't think it's lack of labor, I think it's lack of guts the Conservatives lack. I think you have to be pretty goddamned brave to allow comments. Personally, I would fucking hate taking the time to write a post and then seeing anonymous douchebags like myself shit all over me. I totally understand why Instafucktard, PowerAssholes, Michelle AnchorBaby, and 5th Column Power Glutes can't afford to allow comments.

It's why you see in the tier of conservative bloggers, why it's the second tier bloggers that allow comments -- they need to offer more "value" to the reader to get their traffic.

I actually feel that "comment policy" is an interesting way to split the blogosphere up. Who allows comments. Who insists commenters must be preapproved before allowing a comment to be shown. Who is quick to delete comments. Who is quick to ban people. Who is quick to ban people without announcing they have been banned. Who, even, modifies comments without making that clear. Who bans people, or modifies comments not because of outrageous behavior of the commenter, but SOLELY because of the content of the ARGUMENT that the comment makes, that is, not deletion due to profane language, or threats, or issues like that, but deletion because the comment makes an argument or provides evidence that the blog owner doesn't want seen.

It's why it's clear that the Modern Mainstream Feminist Blogs (Pandagon, Feministing, Feministe) are much closer in philosophy to the fucktard right (LGF, Hot Air, Red State, Protein Wisdom,...) than to the progressive left (Atrios, Digby, TBogg, Ezra, Yglesias.)

Posted by: feh | Oct 13, 2007 10:50:10 AM

Thinking of magazines, I'm still unable to read The Atlantic without noting how it's been neoconned.

Posted by: David W. | Oct 13, 2007 10:50:41 AM

Someone help me out here. Has anyone worth listening to ever worked at The New Republic?

Yes.

Posted by: Antid Oto | Oct 13, 2007 10:58:26 AM

Personally, I would fucking hate taking the time to write a post and then seeing anonymous douchebags like myself shit all over me.

Hee hee hee. You're right, of course.

Who, even, modifies comments without making that clear.

Ok, confession time. I closed an italics tag once and didn't tell anyone. I'm sorry.

Posted by: Stephen | Oct 13, 2007 11:09:31 AM

feh,
I want to add "whiskeyfire" to that list of blogs that are closer to the "fucktard right." On this very issue of SCHIP expansion, I posted a few polite comments, got some responses equally nasty to anything that might be on a "rightwing" blog and then my efforts to post comments started to come up as "You are not allowed to post comments."

Its a big mistake, IMO, to drive anyone away from the discussion because of the content of their argument. Blogs where everyone agrees are not interesting.

Posted by: Randy | Oct 13, 2007 11:09:55 AM

I have always thought that Andrew Sullivan is the gay version (no slur intended) of any of the hack uberboys at the Corner but with better writing skills.

What you mean is "English".

Posted by: Righteous Bubba | Oct 13, 2007 11:18:22 AM

Some of you have a point, no matter what personal opinion I have of Ezra and some of his beliefs, I also have a tremendous amount of respect for him because he never stiffles debate. He clearly reads his comment section, and he has a healthy respect for the fact that his ideas can, and should, be challenged. There are many on the left that believe opinions are best formed in an echo chamber, though there are far more of those type of sites on the right. This isn't one of those places, and Ezra isn't one of those people.

Posted by: soullite | Oct 13, 2007 11:21:19 AM

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Roger Cohen spent all his time attacking the imaginary super-powerful hippies who hate America, and, now, patting himself on the back for his agonizing.

But his support for the war helped enable the Bush administration-- not the Roger Cohen administration-- to wage its catastrophic, hellish, unplanned war (if you think that 20 retired generals are right about how it's all gone down there).

So Cohen prized his perception of his own tough-mindedness too much to try to figure out what the consequences of a Bush administration-led invasion of Iraq.

He therefore deserves the criticism Ezra offers.

And Sullivan wants nothing to do with defending the accuracy of the McHaughey article, or the content of Cohen's columns. Nope, it's just, "Ezra's a baby." Thanks, Andy, that really adds to the debate.

Posted by: Elvis Elvisberg | Oct 13, 2007 11:23:25 AM

Andrew Sullivan?

Remember he's the bare-backing toilet troll with the trans-Atlantic wide-stance.

Posted by: GOPHypyCritters | Oct 13, 2007 11:26:45 AM

I side with Ezra on this one, but I do not blame Sullivan for not allowing comments. He occasionally posts hate emails he gets, and they are some of the most offensive things I've read on the internet.

Posted by: neil in ottawa | Oct 13, 2007 11:26:56 AM

And I don't think you guys are helping Ezra's no comments argument at all when you post homophobic comments right here.

Posted by: neil in Ottawa | Oct 13, 2007 11:29:43 AM

Andrew, since you will read this, please know that I hope your publishing of the McHaughey article and "the fifth column" smear follows you throughout your life and are written on your tombstone. You see, with things like Google, you can't hide your miserable lapses in judgment nor your continuing shifts across the ideological spectrum as you flail around seeking to find some type of readership base. It's fun to watch you squirm when you are called on your terrible mistakes. Your impact on public discourse, sadly, is not so funny.

Posted by: Hank Essay | Oct 13, 2007 11:34:11 AM

"""top 50 percent of the population have only 50 percent of the wealth."""

We aren't talking WEALTH...remember Maryland does not asset test for who can get coverage, its based on annual income.

many, many wealthy don't actually make too much annually in taxable income.

And the MEDIUM hjousehold income in the US is 48,000 dollars, go figure.

Posted by: Patton | Oct 13, 2007 11:46:29 AM

feh,

That's a charge of political correctness not wrong analysis.

Yeah, it's a charge by Sullivan directed at Ezra, not Cohen. My complaint is that Sullivan is disguising wrong analysis as truth-telling, and criticism of wrong analysis as political correctness.

Yeah, and nobody recommended Cohen do that, so it's kind of irrelevant. No reasonable reading of Ezra or Cohen would support the idea that this is what either of them was talking about. The problem wasn't Dems losing political power, the problem was that Dems had already lost political power and Republican dominance of government was a fact of life that had to be taken into account in your policy recommendations.

This is why it would pointless for Ezra to actually re-explain his original point, because any explanation is just as easy to misread as the original post. I suppose that makes it pointless for me too, but I'm stubborn that way.

So you're distinguishing between two things that Sullivan definitely didn't distinguish. Cohen is a bad pundit who's only defense is his moral sanctimony. Ezra calls him on this. Sullivan attacks Ezra for political correctness. It's not political correctness to point out that someone's a bad pundit! This is only a temporary confusion on Sullivan's part

If Cohen didn't consider who was implementing his policy, Cohen is a crappy pundit.

Exactly! This falls under "how the world might greet them, who might use them unfairly, or who might expropriate them for insincere purposes". (Interestingly, your example of not supporting GOP policies you think are correct because you hate the GOP does NOT fall under that phrase). If the world greets your statement that we should invade Iraq by supporting George Bush's invasion of Iraq, how can you not take responsibility for that as someone who seeks to inform the public?

Even Hitchens knows better than that.

Posted by: Consumatopia | Oct 13, 2007 11:52:29 AM

This is only a temporary confusion on Sullivan's part

I hadn't finished my point. I meant to point out that in some of Sullivan's various Iraq mea culpas, he expressed regret that he hadn't taken into account the incompetence of the implementors of his policy. He normally understands this principle, he's just completely forgotten about it today.

Posted by: Consumatopia | Oct 13, 2007 11:55:15 AM

Who insists commenters must be preapproved before allowing a comment to be shown. Who is quick to delete comments. Who is quick to ban people. Who is quick to ban people without announcing they have been banned. Who, even, modifies comments without making that clear. Who bans people, or modifies comments not because of outrageous behavior of the commenter, but SOLELY because of the content of the ARGUMENT that the comment makes, that is, not deletion due to profane language, or threats, or issues like that, but deletion because the comment makes an argument or provides evidence that the blog owner doesn't want seen.

Pandagon

Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 13, 2007 12:09:33 PM

Does Maryland require reporting of tax free income (municipal bonds, etc.) for SCHIP elegibility? We already know that the Frosts would not show their tax returns and I have yet to see any documentation of full scholarships to the children (there are 4 children and they all go to private schools).

Income from US savings bonds doesn't show on anything until you cash them in. Income from bank accounts and certificates of deposit are reportable every year but if you consider a family trying to show a low income to keep the children on SCHIP coverage, those savings bonds would be a good way to go. You could shield the income for the 25 years until the children are no longer age elegible.

Posted by: Randy | Oct 13, 2007 12:13:17 PM

SCHIP makes the distinction between the ability to pay for health insurance and outright poverty. It does so because even a middle-class income is no longer any assurance of that ability. So unless you think the Frost kids' medical expenses should have resulted in the impoverishment of that family, you might want to consider what if any program should work here. Conservatives who think health care is a privilege will have no problem here morally or politically. It's why they spend so much time crying crocodile tears about fetuses while spitting contempt on those actually up and walking around.

Posted by: walt | Oct 13, 2007 12:17:30 PM

Ezra:

Don't sweat things with little Andy. By the way, has he ever gotten things right? From Iraq, to social security, towards supply side economics, etc/ The twit needs to be obliterated. Hang on in there Ezra you are the brightest and little Any will never rise to your stature. I've just read Jonathan's Chait book "The big Con", he makes an interesting point "Conservatives lie to advance their agenda, democrats deal with the facts". Anyway good for you to taking that asshole to the woodshed!

Posted by: el loco | Oct 13, 2007 12:19:01 PM

Patton: if a person's assets aren't generating something that can be measured as taxable income, they are probably not all that wealthy - or else are so wealthy they can afford platinum plated financial management.

Posted by: karounia | Oct 13, 2007 12:26:17 PM

Vanity, thy name is "Andrew Sullivan."

Andrew Sullivan takes great pains to elevate himself. This post by Klein looking at Sullivan's actual record is, no doubt, the work of an inferior person.

Rather than address Klein's core point about Cohen's enabling for Bush, Sullivan just calls names, apparatchik, while contributing nothing.

Posted by: AlphaLiberal | Oct 13, 2007 12:31:12 PM

Posted by: karounia | Oct 13, 2007 12:39:51 PM

Porgy--James Wood, until very recently at TNR, was very much worth reading. The NY'er just cherry-picked him, though, much to their credit. The dude who writes about DVDs is also pretty good.

Sullivan is an opportunist, plain and simple. When we were at war, glorious war, he was ready and willing to throw the left (all of it) under a bus. When the war didn't work out so hot he turned on the people running it.

That's it. When people say "he's one of the conservatives whose writing I can tolerate," it's only because the momentum has swung in such a way that the vanguard of the CW is tolerable to you, and Sullivan is there too.

If the zeitgeist turned against Portugal and in favor of gin rummy, Sully would be at the gates raging about the Portugese and dealing cards. Don't believe a damn word he says, he's just trying to get paid.

Posted by: whetstone | Oct 13, 2007 12:45:33 PM

Patton, I am trying to find words to describe your description of health insurance and all I can come up with is that you are an idiot, and other idiots, please accept my apologies. You might as well propose a health insurance for healthy people only; and if you get sick you are thrown off the plan.

Posted by: Raoul | Oct 13, 2007 12:50:12 PM

Social Security has popular support because everyone is going to get it, unless you die first. Its a program "for the middle class" and the only way to fund it is to tax middle class people.

SCHIP is a middle class program that is not intended to benefit most middle class Americans but the funding is and will be from middle class Americans. It can't stand much public scrutiny, obviously.

Posted by: Randy | Oct 13, 2007 1:04:53 PM

Is it true that the Frosts would not divulge their tax returns and other financial information? Don't they have to do this in order to qualify for SCHIP?

And here's the real question: The accident suffered by the children was several years ago and they were covered under that level. What we are talking here is an expansion into financial levels that heretofore did not qualify.

How is this veto going to affect the Frosts, anyway? They're still covered at the old level, aren't they?

Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 13, 2007 1:08:29 PM

Do you think states just hand out stuff willy-nilly(well besides for the rich and well connected)? Why should the Frost's have to show some fuckwit reporter(or douchebag Malkin) their tax returns? They shouldn't!! In all states, there is a process for applying for benefits. Have any other bright ideas, Randy?

Posted by: Joe Klein's conscience | Oct 13, 2007 1:10:53 PM

Don't they have to do this in order to qualify for SCHIP?

Yes, to SCHIP and the state of Maryland, not to you, in the same way I don't have to show you the documentation I filed to get my subsidized education loan. What's amazing is the outsized sense of entitlement that conservatives seem to have.

How is this veto going to affect the Frosts, anyway? They're still covered at the old level, aren't they?

Like many good human beings, they feel that programs that helped them should be expanded to help others, as well, even though they've already "got theirs."

And isn't this thread about Andrew Sullivan and the Roger Cohen op-ed?

Posted by: Tyro | Oct 13, 2007 1:12:23 PM

Randy and Patton are right. The Frosts should have spent themselves into indigency to pay for their health insurance. Even though that would have resulted in them being eligible for a genuine welfare program like Medicaid. And it would have defeated the whole purpose of insurance, namely the protection against economic and other damages by contingent events, by creating that economic hardship to gain the protection in the first place. Brilliant.

Posted by: Lewis Carroll | Oct 13, 2007 1:14:23 PM

Posted by: Joe Klein's conscience | Oct 13, 2007 1:15:45 PM

And isn't this thread about Andrew Sullivan and the Roger Cohen op-ed?

Haven't you figured it out by now? When ever the Republicans are losing the argument on merit, they quickly change the subject to something else.

Posted by: Joe Klein's conscience | Oct 13, 2007 1:15:55 PM

One word, five letters: PWNED!

Posted by: max | Oct 13, 2007 1:25:49 PM

I can understand that Sullivan is sometimes a skilled writer, and sometimes says funny things, or even things I agree with.

But I can still think anyone who has been so mendacious as he has deserves to be called on it. And if he can't respond with honor (which he apparently can't) then why does anyone on the left still read him, promote him or praise him? He's done. He's untrustworthy and unreliable. Yet many liberals still accept him or say "he's ok", allowing him to continue to do damage, much more than if he were simply a wingnut.

I am not an ideological purist, and if Sullivan's beefs were simply ideological, I could respect him. But they're not; he is simply a very skilled and intelligent ass-kisser. Granted, there's a lot to be said for that; you get the best gigs, by far, even if everyone knows you're a liar. That doesn't make it right to continue to facilitate his behavior. The only true punishment for a guy like this is dismissing him out of hand, and refusing to pay attention. Now that he's shown himself clearly, can we just...do that? I don't care about his soul or his anguish; I want to read people who care about the truth.

Posted by: emjaybee | Oct 13, 2007 1:44:30 PM

Joe Klein's conscience,
The Frosts inserted themselves in the public debate as partisans (the Democratic radio address). Of course, they have to prove themselves. Saying doesn't make it so. As of right now, I have nothing but their word for it that all 4 of their children are on scholarships where the school is paying all but $500 each child.

Posted by: Randy | Oct 13, 2007 1:51:23 PM

The Frosts inserted themselves in the public debate as partisans (the Democratic radio address). Of course, they have to prove themselves.

Your sense of entitlement is stunning. They proved themselves to SCHIP. Now, if you're making accusations of fraud in the SCHIP program, I suggest you get in touch with the Maryland attorney general.

Let's face it-- you're angry that a family publicly disagreed with Bush on a policy issue and decided to vent your frustration on a thread about a completely different topic (ironically, an issue in which Bush and most Republicans are also out of touch with the American people on).

Posted by: Tyro | Oct 13, 2007 2:01:00 PM

Randy,

I am going to read your comment and think about it but first you have to prove to me you are a real person and not a computer program. Please post all of your personal information now so we know whether you are on the up-and-up. You can't complain that it is none of my business because, after all, you inserted yourself into this debate and those are your ground rules.

Posted by: k | Oct 13, 2007 2:02:57 PM

God forbid you ever need any kind of public help. So you believe the state government of Maryland is lying? The Frosts? Which is it? If you think the Frost's are full of shit(which in your warped brain, you do), why not file a complaint with the proper department in Maryland? Otherwise, take your dunb ass back to HotAir.

Posted by: Joe Klein's conscience | Oct 13, 2007 2:05:28 PM

"One of my proudest moments in journalism was publishing an expanded extract of a chapter from "The Bell Curve" in the New Republic before anyone else dared touch it."

Andrew Sullivan.

Because it was provocative. Mr. Sullivan likes to stir the pot, because it gets him attention. Kiss my fifth-columnist ass, Andy.

Posted by: Johnny Coelacanth | Oct 13, 2007 2:58:23 PM

I remember hearing Sully, during MonicaDaze, call Clinton a sociopath. Does anyone else? Was it projection on Sully's part?

Posted by: ec1009 | Oct 13, 2007 3:06:19 PM

Andrew Sullivan is a self-described 'conservative' and frequently appears on television as an intellectual homosexual analyst on issues of spirituality, ethics, monogamy, and faith.

STOP THE PRESSES!! WTF?!! I have never understood how this came to be. Sullivan wrote mockingly of the "hairy-backed homos" in San Francisco and their degenerate promiscuity and lack of values. At the same time Sullivan was publishing advertisements seeking anonymous bareback orgies (while he was HIV+). He even specified that he preferred Black men in whom to inject the virulent semen. Later Sullivan called those who opposed the Iraq War - a fifth column of traitorous Leftists. Yet this same psychotic freak will be on with Chris Matthews next week, on with Bill Maher the week after, and a guest on Howard Kurtz' show. How did we get here?

Posted by: Lee | Oct 13, 2007 3:11:30 PM

"Don't believe a damn word he says, he's just trying to get paid."

Can anyone explain how Sullivan has been able to pay for his expensive AIDS med regime all these years? I know he is against any type of hand-out and socialized medicine. But if you check the timeline, he was fired from New Republic and yet has somehow managed to pay for all his meds (over $300,000/decade) while not even being a US citizen. Somehow it doesn't add up. Are his previous employers allowing him to continue using their coverage as a form of payoff for keeping him quiet or what? I can't think of anyone else who is getting free AIDS coverage while decrying socialized medicine.

Posted by: DeeDee | Oct 13, 2007 3:16:18 PM

Question:
Now that Sully is against the war, is he now part of THE FIFTH COLUMN, or just a hack columnist?

Posted by: ec1009 | Oct 13, 2007 3:18:26 PM

Andrew Sullivan has printed some pretty outlandish stuff on his blog over the years. Much of it he has scrubbed from his archives to eliminate any evidence. Does anyone remember during his own 'MilkyLoads' scandal, he wrote high praise of the site 'FreeRepublic.com' for supporting him. They were claiming that the barebacking ads were all fake and a set-up by liberal operatives. Anyone who is familiar with FreeRepublic.com should be astounded that Sullivan wrote how great they are.

Posted by: Daniel | Oct 13, 2007 3:23:53 PM

Ezra has done a good thing confronting Sullivan with this story from his past about the Clinton healthcare article. For me, Sullivan has become increasingly more insufferable, smug, snarky and self-indulgent. It's difficult to say who his targeted audience is because he seems to be going out of his way to irritate everybody. Do libertarians approve of him? Is this group his natural base? And why all the religion talk? Also think he takes it all too personally and couldn't handle comments with such a seemingly fragile ego. He gives me the cooties.

Posted by: Roseann | Oct 13, 2007 3:25:28 PM

The cooties?

This is funny, Ezra, because Sullivan's charge against you is that the organ has to be univocal. You prove that his magazine was not, and see that as problematic.

Posted by: Dan Collins | Oct 13, 2007 3:40:12 PM

Re: "Now that Sully is against the war, is he now part of THE FIFTH COLUMN, or just a hack columnist?"

Clearly the groups aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sullivan says
“.. it is the duty of any writer and thinker to state his own views as best he can without concern for how the world might greet them.”

I can’t see how we can be expected to believe Sullivan believes this is true considering this is the guy that used to run around questioning other writers’ patriotism and basically attacking anyone who’s writing wasn’t written in a manner consistent and supportive of his idea of how to win the war on terror. We’re well beyond just changing your mind about one foreign policy question, this is a 180 degree world-view switch.

Although he is consistent in his willingness to attack writers that disagree with him on a personal level both now and then, so it’s probably safe to assume he is in fact the same person.

Posted by: Christopher Colaninno | Oct 13, 2007 3:53:32 PM

Because it was provocative. Mr. Sullivan likes to stir the pot, because it gets him attention.

Wait! That's it! Andrew Sullivan is Chazz Michael Michaels from Blades of Glory:

Chazz: We're gonna dance to one song, and one song only: "Lady Humps" by the Blackeyed Peas...
Jimmy: I'm not skating to anything with references to lady humps. I don't even know what that means.

Chazz: No one knows what it means, but it's provocative...

Posted by: Tyro | Oct 13, 2007 3:56:19 PM

These mainstream media types like Malkin and Sullivan sure do have a tough time with you Ezra.
Keep up the good work.

Posted by: DJMurphy | Oct 13, 2007 4:32:31 PM

Ezra, I don't believe you understood Andrew Sullivan's argument. It had nothing to do with honesty, but being a mouth piece of what is known.

Your writing mimics the same socialized remedies as DailyKos, Huffington Post, or some other boring drapery trying to fiat truth. You come off as knowing what is true, while Sullivan, more knowledgeable, plays with the idea of what is known. Sullivan did this on Iraq, on Bush and other issues, while you claim, like many young writers, to have the answer on health care, or Iraq.

Sullivan's style wins by challenging the political establishment to acknowledge a different argument, while your writing can only inspire others to rally behind yourself. The following is more self-loving than anything Sullivan has ever wrote and probably Ayn Rand too.

Steven

Posted by: Steven | Oct 13, 2007 4:37:04 PM

Andrew Sullivan is more provocatively honest than you could ever hope to be. He was right that it was provocative to devote an entire issue to black genetic intellectual inferiority, to publish a series of misleading articles about the Clinton health care, and in a stunningly brave move, to expose the leftist fifth column that was undermining America's will(which has lead to the disaster in Iraq) Andy Sullivan was against the war in Iraq right from the start(of 2006) but had the courage and intellectual honesty to support the administration and question the patriotism of its critics.

By your response, you have proven yourself to be a rather young, dishonest subjugator of free peoples and ideas everywhere.

PS - Although you are always wrong, you should write more posts about Sullivan. He is an exceptional thinker, paragon of virtue and an unparalleled writer.

Posted by: not a pompous gay Tory | Oct 13, 2007 4:38:41 PM

How sad to be late to the party. However, if Sully is looking for counter-examples, he might want to review Ezra's various immigration postings. I'm not going to bother looking through my past comments here and elsewhere, but at the very least Ezra is guilty of not looking into things in detail. For instance, this.

Posted by: TLB | Oct 13, 2007 5:16:36 PM

I'm with Ezra about Sullivan on health care, and with Sullivan on Ezra's post about Roger Cohen.

Obviously one might not expect Ezra to actually address the main point of Sullivan's posting since his reputation was attacked or whatever. Still, it would be nice if he did. The post really did sound hackish.

Posted by: Korha | Oct 13, 2007 5:21:36 PM

Ezra,

You better be careful. It might not be "honesty" that Sullivan wants to compare. After your recent offer to your would be boxing foe, Andy might want to see what you're packing. And whether it leans left.

As for the post on Cohen being "hackish," please. If one doesn't understand that the guy is an utter, disingenuous douchebag, there really isn't much left to say.

Posted by: Klein's tiny left nut | Oct 13, 2007 5:37:46 PM

Sullivan's been on a wild Clinton/Gore-bashing kick of late. Maybe he's trying to reestablish his right wing bona fides. I've had to unsubscribe; it's a shame in one sense because he does find some funny YouTube videos on occasion.

Posted by: Tom | Oct 13, 2007 5:52:43 PM

Isn't Sullivan the one who got in trouble for taking money from pharmaceutical companies at the same time he ws writing favorably about them for the New York Times? I believe he eventually returned the money when it was discovered.

Posted by: mad6798j | Oct 13, 2007 6:08:34 PM

Tom, I agree. Between the HRC, and Hillary, and Bill and Al, he's finally persuaded me to remove him from my favorites. He was getting too shrill for me.

Posted by: mattsmom | Oct 13, 2007 6:11:50 PM

The continued popularity of Andrew Sullivan is the best example I know of the media's indifference to the truth.

I do not share you opinion, Ezra, that Sullivan has become a writer of more substance. He is, as many noted, simply setting his sails in more opportune directions and it's important not to fall for his modus op. Setting sail in the left's direction does not make him more substantial or truthful.

This man never would have gotten where he is without his connections. He has continually tried to pass off his personal views and experience as general truth -- whether it be his racism by printing the notorious Bell Curve piece or his incredibly classist view by announcing the end of a global AIDS pandemic because he responded well to protease inhibitors.

He has attacked the sexual behavior of gay men, advocating marriage, while he conducted (and still conducts) a completely promiscuous lifestyle. (Yes his writing occasionally confesses his own promiscuity but understates it hugely.) He attacked the gay "bear" community in San Francisco and, then, after porking up and becoming a "bear" himself, he wrote a piece celebrating that subculture.

He has ALWAYS resorted to ad hominem attacks when cornered. Ask anyone who has received one of his rambling, insane (stoned) emails written in the middle of the night. Or google his work on Salon, where he bitterly attacks one critic after another.

Were Sullivan not gay, nobody would be hiring him. His role is to play the freak -- the gay, religious conservative. I'm sick of reading about his reversal on Iraq and the Bush administration. None of that started until Bush signed onto the Const. amendment to outlaw gay marriage. It's ALWAYS personal for Andrew.

Posted by: jackson | Oct 13, 2007 6:18:38 PM

I interpreted Ezra's comment about Roger Cohen the common sensical way - that is, if opinion makers express opinions that turn out to be lousy, they should suffer for it professionally, the way a carpenter would suffer if he built lousy houses. That doesn't mean that the carpenter should be chillingly banned from lifting a hammer, but it does mean one should question the motives of an organization that kept sub-contracting the lousy carpenter. Is he somebody's brother in law? How is he connected? The same questions should be evoked by what we all see, which is that the people who got Iraq right in 2002, whose predictions paid off - people like Duncan Black at Eschaton - are never subject to soft focus profiles in the NYT Magazine, are not moving up to positions in the op ed world of the major media, and in general have not even evoked any curiosity by the media at large - who still rush, by default, to a narrow set of hyperaggressive commentators for news story 'analysis' about Iraq, Iran, etc. The Washington Post would collectively turn over and die if one of their reporters asked for comment about some development in Iraq from Moveon.org, although they will blindly go to Michael O'Hanlon, for example, even though Moveon's track record is so much better than O'hanlon's about Iraq that there's no competition. So it is totally fair to ask about the failure of the neo-con tribe to suffer any consequences at all in the feathering of their niches. I do think the questioning hasn't gone deep enough - I do think, even on the liberal side, there is a blindness to the profit motive among media corporations which could very well explain the rightward tilt. But even above that level, it says something deep about the convergence of elite interests and the afteraffects of groupthink on a group that has no intention of being displaced from its perch at the top.

Posted by: roger | Oct 13, 2007 6:19:33 PM

"Isn't Sullivan the one who got in trouble for taking money from pharmaceutical companies at the same time he ws writing favorably about them for the New York Times? I believe he eventually returned the money when it was discovered."

Yes...

Posted by: jackson | Oct 13, 2007 6:20:48 PM

Well I must admit, I cannot compare my situation to the Frosts, why I just don't know how the poor buggers get by.

Let's look at my history:

I was the 9th of 10 children.
My Dad dropped out of highschool at 16 to work in a lumber yard because his parents couldn't feed their 8 children. They never took a dime from any government program.
My Dad worked until he was 56, we never had health insurance, we never took welfare. I went to work for my Dad when I was twelve, but didn't get paid. I'd haul lumber, brick, block etc. on weekends. On top
of weeding the garden, moring the yard with a non-motorized push mower.

We never owned a house, we rented small houses, sometimes that my Dad was renovating for the owners.
The only charity we would except was from people giving their own. My Dad knew a guy that delivered dairy to the stores and he would give us the expired yogurt and some cheese. Mostly plain yogurt because that was what was left.
We would freeze it and that was our special treat 'desert'.
We had a garden and grew a big field of potatoes, which we would eat through the winter from a bin in the basement. My Mom would make homemade bread because it was cheaper and she knew 100 ways to make potatoes.
When we got home from school when I was smaller, homework was not the priority, first you went and collected firewood, if we couldn't afford coal that year. I only remember coal being delivered once.

When it got real lean, we would only have a kerosene
flame thrower that my Dad had for doing jobs in the winter in buildings with no heat. We would heat the kitchen with it during the day and bundle up under tons of covers to sleep in our freezing bedroom at night, me and 4 brothers in one room with army cots we got from good will.

I took a job outside the home when I was 16. I would be dropped off by the bus, work 5 hours and walk the 4 miles home. I gave my Mom half my pay to help pay bills.

I could go on and on about how much better I had it then the Frosts and why they are so deserving of my
paycheck, but you probably don't want to hear the gorey details about when I burnt my hand and we had no way to get to a doctor.

The bottom line is, we worked hard, and paid our own bills, soemtimes 10 dollars at a time my Mom would pay for things like dental work, etc.

I remember the most disappointing thing I ever did in my Moms eyes was steal a pack of gum from the grocery store. She made us drive all the way back and I had to return the gum to the manager and apologize. She said I shamed the family..I wonder if the Frosts ever felt that way....

Posted by: Patton | Oct 13, 2007 6:30:21 PM

Like many good human beings, they feel that programs that helped them should be expanded to help others...

I think you are being deliberately obtuse. The Frosts were attempting to extend SCHIP, not to more people like themselves, but to those who are better off than themselves.

No one wishes to address this and I think I know why. It's not about needy people at all, but a back door to the left's dream of providing government sponsored health insurance to the masses without as much regard to their economic status. The Frosts were shilling for changing the very nature of SCHIP.

Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 13, 2007 6:37:03 PM

El Viajero,

The Frosts are not attempting to extend SCHIP, they were simply testifying to how the program had helped them. If the veto is not overridden the program even as it exists now does not continue. As for whether to program is being extended to the non-"needy," the overwhelming majority of people in this country seem to disagree with you. I wonder why you don't want to address that?

Posted by: k | Oct 13, 2007 6:55:08 PM

Patton,

Did you get in an auto accident that caused brain damage and cost your family hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills?

Posted by: k | Oct 13, 2007 6:57:29 PM

"Were Sullivan not gay, nobody would be hiring him. His role is to play the freak -- the gay, religious conservative. I'm sick of reading about his reversal on Iraq and the Bush administration. None of that started until Bush signed onto the Const. amendment to outlaw gay marriage. It's ALWAYS personal for Andrew."

Best explanation I've heard yet. There was a profile of Sullivan years ago in some periodical in which they interviewed his friends. A couple commented that he was always angry and held a deep hatred for certain individuals that this resentment was what motivated him. They basically portrayed him as a person consumed with personal vendettas.

Posted by: Bishop | Oct 13, 2007 6:58:55 PM

For some reason Andrew Sullivan was walking his beagles through Adams Morgan this afternoon. I didn't realize he lived here.

Posted by: KevStar | Oct 13, 2007 7:03:16 PM

As I demonstrated several years agoe (in an article that's even more relevant today what with Kaposi's Sarcoma making a comeback.) Patient Less Than Zero (seen here with his Blatino Husbear) wouldn't know honesty if it bit him in his testosterone-engorged neck.

He's a piece of middle-class British detrius whose mendacity is rivalled only by that of loathesome fascist tosspot Christopher Hitchens.

When I think of England (and I often do) it's in reagArd to the life and work of a lower-middle-class Jewish tailor's son -- Harold Pinter.

Oh how I long for Sir Harold to let fly with a ripping two-hander on Sully and Hitch!

Timothy Spall could do both parts.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Oct 13, 2007 7:37:05 PM

"""Patton,

Did you get in an auto accident that caused brain damage and cost your family hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills?"""

Well, we children were seldom in a car since we could only afford one, not three. And the Frosts haven't been in that situation either.
Otherwise they would have had to sell their assets and go on Medicaid/Medicare, or rely on family and friends.

But realizing the Frosts situation was dangerous, it probably would have made sense to buy health insurance BEFORE the accident.

Maybe after you have one child that you can't afford to insure, you think twice before wou have the second, the third, the forth.
I'm pretty sure their house had insurance, their cars have insurance, its just the kids that weren't quite up to that level as a car and home was.

I was in an accident that left me with a severely
disfigured finger, cut through to the bone and got blood poisiong and was hospitalized for over week in hopes the poisoning would not damage my heart.
I survived. My parents paid the bill, I think it was
about 2800.oo dollars back then in the 60s. My Dad sold all his plumbing supplies and had a friend do the plumbing work on jobs he was hired on, and sold his farm equipment and they made payments on the rest.

Posted by: Patton | Oct 13, 2007 7:45:19 PM

Well said, young Ezra. Very well said! I read Sullivan daily, and generally find him amusing, but he does get pompous sometimes. Like now, when he is not so subtly trying to put you 'in your place.' Let some of the air out, Andrew. You'll feel better.

Posted by: mollycoddle | Oct 13, 2007 7:57:24 PM

Maybe after you have one child that you can't afford to insure, you think twice before wou have the second, the third, the forth.

Oh, the wonders of the pro-life movement. Maybe, just maybe SCHIP meant that they could afford to insure their chidren? Maybe it wasn't offered as some kind of moral temptation, which, by accepting, made them somehow un-fucking-worthy?

But, again: you wore out your welcome at Drum's site, and you're a tiresome prurient wretch.

Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Oct 13, 2007 8:00:07 PM

David, what does Sullivan being "middle class" have to do with anything?

Posted by: mad6798j | Oct 13, 2007 8:06:07 PM

Given Ezra's response, Sullivan obviously struck a nerve, which isn't surprising since Ezra is clearly vulnerable on the "groupthink" charge.

Posted by: JasonR | Oct 13, 2007 8:19:06 PM

Plenty.

This side of the pond we think anyone with a British accent is "classy" and therefore informed, if not worldly-wise. Clss distinctions must bemade the better to examine presicely who is speaking and why. This country is rife with tenth-rate arrivistes.

And I say that as someone with enormous admiration for the British-born American transplants -- particularly Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Gavin Lambert, David Hockney, Ronald Neame, Jacqueline Bissett and Barbara Steele.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Oct 13, 2007 8:20:00 PM

I have carefully reviewed Maryland's S-CHIP program and found that on a certain page it awards millions of dollars for Al Qa'ida training camps to be established in Baltimore.

In fact the entire S-CHIP program was designed on a laptop in the original Al Qa'ida training camps of Taliban Afghanistan, with Osama bin Laden himself using a secret document recovered from the Knights Templar to design it.

Please do not stifle the spirit of free inquiry by disagreeing with my unquestionable and completely independent research.

Posted by: El Cid | Oct 13, 2007 8:21:15 PM

"Struck a nerve"? Hardly. Sully's an ant at a picnic.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Oct 13, 2007 8:21:36 PM

Patton,

Ah yes, the good old days! Wouldn't it be great if we could go back to them and everyone today could be screwed just like you and your family were! By the way, $2800 in 1965 would be the same as about $17,500. Nice try.

Posted by: k | Oct 13, 2007 8:31:44 PM

I'm always late to the party because of the stinkin' day job.

AS is a narcissist and there isn't much sense in trying to argue with a narcissist. People with personality disorders don't have insight into their own behavior. I've actually been surprised that AS has come as close as he has to admitting culpability over the run up to the Iraq war. Roger Cohen, on the other hand, is just plain dumb. He's kind of a neoliberal Jonah Goldberg and I don't waste any more time reading his drivel than I would the Doughy Pantload's.

Patton: We had one car in 1965 when I was young too. Unlike your family my dad was an executive with a Fortune 500 corporation and my mom didn't work, because that was how it was done back then. Garages of the day were mostly one car affairs. Where I live now multiple vehicles is frequently a sign of fairly low socio-economic status. The fact that the Frosts have multiple vehicles or have been aggressive about getting their children scholarships to private schools hardly implies that they are wealthy.

Individual insurance is very expensive and often not available to anyone with the barest hint of a pre-existing condition. When my father retired, my younger mother had trouble getting insurance since she had once fractured a leg slipping down a hill on some wet leaves. She eventually obtained insurance that excluded her right leg. People who take lipid lowering drugs may only be able to get insurance that covers non-cardiac events. If your $14000/yr policy will only cover a $120 Pap smear and an $80 mammogram per year, you may indeed be better off without it.

Affordable insurance is one problem, but I know plenty of reasonably affluent people who can't get insurance either. The employment-based insurance system sucks. I have several patients in my practice who are forced to continue working past 65 and despite medical problems so that their younger spouse will continue to receive employer provided insurance.

Posted by: J Bean | Oct 13, 2007 9:57:43 PM

That's called "nutpicking." He uses some extreme examples (which I expect every open comments section gets) to justify his refusal to engage his refusal to engage his readers.

And I'm sorry that commenter "Patton" had such a Dickensian childhood. It sounds awful for a 20th century American family. But why he would want others to share that experience eludes me.

He was the 9th of 10 children, his father was the 8th in his family. Does he really want to compare the choices that went into that with the Frosts and their two children? Do a commenter's revelations about their life make them "fair game?"

I think Ezra dismantles Sully the Pooh pretty well here: the bareback-riding provocateur thinks it's fun to stir up controversy but doesn't want to take responsibility for the results. How conservative of him.

Posted by: paul beard | Oct 13, 2007 10:05:18 PM

What is the deal with the Sidney Blumenthal references? I don't know his work, so I don't get them. Will someone please parse that for me?

Posted by: John-Paul Pagano | Oct 13, 2007 10:30:20 PM

Sidney Blumenthal was the journalist AND Clinton aide who apparently personifed everything terrible about liberalism. I'm not sure exactly who started the meme, but it's a popular tactic on the right to group-attack someone like him and thereby neutralize him. AS joined in since he was fairly tight with those people during the late 90s and early 00s. Blumenthal is a brilliant polemicist and wrote for The New Republic in the 80s. I'm not aware if his tenure overlapped with Sullivan's.

Posted by: walt | Oct 13, 2007 11:14:43 PM

David, that is an excellent article. The media never really honestly covered the scandal Sullivan was involved in. I looked at both his advertisements for anonymous bareback orgies. In one ad he didn't even mention his HIV status. Sullivan was literally engaging in what is called "AIDS gifting" and I don't understand why the media has never discussed that. There is no way for him to have known the serostatus of his victims in the first place, so he was willingly injecting anonymous people with a virulent virus. I would think most people would consider that unconscionable. Yet he is not a US citizen and still seems to be milking our struggling healthcare industry for all its worth. No wonder he has been so conspicuously silent on the illegal immigrant issue.

Posted by: Sean | Oct 13, 2007 11:34:26 PM

I would question whether Sullivan is middle class or not. I remember him writing about making a killing in the internet stock boom and that is what allowed him to invest in a Provincetown condo and other investments. His AIDS care is apparently free, so he seems to be financially set.

Posted by: Terrence | Oct 13, 2007 11:37:58 PM

...the overwhelming majority of people in this country seem to disagree with you. I wonder why you don't want to address that?

OK, do you also wish to apply that same standard to gay marriage there, k?

Posted by: El Viajero | Oct 14, 2007 1:18:03 AM

Hey Mattsmom -

That's good to know - I'm glad I'm not the only one who seemed to think this. I found him fairly enjoyable in 2006, but he seems to snap when the Clintons enter the picture. He can damn Bush, but he can't connect A to B and see how the persecution of the Clintons was really a preview of coming attractions.

Posted by: Tom | Oct 14, 2007 3:43:32 AM

My understanding is that TNR, at the behest of Martin Peretz, pays for his healthcare.

In the 1940's and 1950's, major European communist intellectuals like Sartre felt that attacking communism as practiced in the Soviet Union would prevent the emergence of a better world, so they smeared anyone who questioned the Moscow line. They knowingly espoused the virtues of communism knowing full well that people like Stalin and Mao were the ones putting such ideas into practice and that the leaders of communist parties in Western nations were often thugs.

They deliberately avoided addressing this truth and as such had difficulty admitting that in the real world, the effect of the advocacy was to lend Stalin and Mao a degree of respectability and integrity in the democratic world (at least their own intellectual circles) that such dictators did not deserve. Roger Cohen and company are engaging in the same sort of lie by omission when they complain that everyone is being mean to them while ignoring the consequences of their own actions. Conservatives were right to attack Sartre for failing to take responsibility for his actions. They and their liberal hawk counterparts are wrong to fail to heed that advice now. Orwell understood the value of personal responsibility that accompanies advocacy. When you lend your name to an idea, a policy or a project, you bear some responsibility for the results. If the pre-conditions for success were not there but the idea was good in the abstract, you still fail to take responsibility for failing to foresee this. If you are a pundit, you are supposed to know things and know how to analyze things and thus lend the strength of your reputation to ideas you back.

Posted by: Reality Man | Oct 14, 2007 6:09:08 AM

I saw Sullivan's link to your post a couple of days ago and thought "Wow, Andrew really missed the point of that." He completely twisted around what you were saying. Your point, I believe, was that it doesn't matter if people like Roger Cohen call themselves neoconservatives or liberal interventionists or whatever. If they enable the policies of the current administration, it's all the same. Sully believes that makes you an enemy of free inquiry? Hmm. That's pretty bad form on Sullivan's part. And pretty poor reading comprehension.

Posted by: Gabriel | Oct 14, 2007 6:45:50 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVUO7voM-ns

I think this video says it best. Why those Bushs are just to soft on the meany Saddam Hussein.

Good thing the Nodel guys didn't get their hands on this.

Posted by: Patton | Oct 14, 2007 7:01:30 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVUO7voM-ns

Gore was the very first NEO-CON even quoting Richard Perle...too rich.

Gore proclaims regarding Saddam Husseins terrorism and attempts to acquire WMD: ""We believe that this kind of behavior simply cannot be tolerated."""

Not any more, you tolerated away for years Al..

Gore the original NEO-CON wins the Nobel...too funny.

Posted by: Patton | Oct 14, 2007 7:12:48 AM

Thanks Sean.

He's middle-class alright. The accent is a dead giveaway. Shaw's Professor Higgins was right. And Harold Pinter is Higgins' finest pupil.

There as a teriffic AIDS documentary made a number of years back called The Gift. Seek it out.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Oct 14, 2007 9:26:02 AM

When I think of England (and I often do) it's in regard to the life and work of a lower-middle-class Jewish tailor's son -- Harold Pinter.

Oh how I long for Sir Harold to let fly with a ripping two-hander on Sully and Hitch!

Me too, David, me too. Sir Harold is someone I quote all the time at family dinners, and not just because it pisses off my rabid neocon brother (Peace Be Upon Him Even Though He Doesn't Want It).

Posted by: litbrit | Oct 14, 2007 10:22:12 AM

Captain Bareback: PWN3D!!!!!!!1!!1!!!

Posted by: ghost of tom joad | Oct 14, 2007 10:33:40 AM

David Ehrenstein: but what does that have to do with anything? Do you just not like the middle class?

Posted by: mad6798j | Oct 14, 2007 12:50:20 PM

I dislike fakes, poseurs and hypocrits.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Oct 14, 2007 12:59:46 PM

"My understanding is that TNR, at the behest of Martin Peretz, pays for his healthcare."

So he has secured some kind of backdoor deal, essentially a handout? Anyone else who quits a job or is fired has to pay the exhorbitant Cobra fees to continue their coverage. This really blows my mind, because can you imagine if Sullivan hadn't been cut a special deal, he would have been financially gutted instantaneously by the cost of AIDS.

Anyone else in his position would have had to stay on with an employer they hated or else go completely bankrupt and destitute. I see no other explanation for this scenario than that Sullivan is the most extreme moocher, or welfare/healthcare queen of all time - ripping off the insurance industry while at the same time purchasing posh vacation condos.

Posted by: Don | Oct 14, 2007 1:39:46 PM

"I dislike fakes, poseurs and hypocrits"

OK, now would you please answer my question?

Posted by: mad6798j | Oct 14, 2007 1:45:52 PM

One of Sullivan's tactics is to change his views just before critiques that he can't dismiss are published if he knows they are coming down the road or before they are noticed. In this case, he writes a short post introducing qualifications, contradictions, and re-phrasing that, he believes, enable him to deny the force of the argument he knows is coming. He does this especially around gay issues.

Posted by: Bennett | Oct 14, 2007 1:56:16 PM

While I appreciate that Sullivan has backtracked on his support for the GOP, the policy of endless war and the malign, malformed, malodorous beast that labels itself as the American Conservative movement, I think any writer who attacks his political opponents with rhetoric that would have found a comfortable home within the pages of "Die Angrif" is not to be trusted to make serious judgements, period.

Posted by: WB Reeves | Oct 14, 2007 4:11:14 PM

"It's a peculiar quirk of Washington that repeatedly being wrong doesn't harm your reputation for accuracy or prescience."

It's hardly peculiar. Most totalitarian societies function the same way.

Posted by: Peter Principle | Oct 14, 2007 4:19:42 PM

It's hardly peculiar. Most totalitarian societies function the same way.

True. It is the hallmark of degenerate and decayed ruling class.

Posted by: WB Reeves | Oct 14, 2007 4:31:04 PM

Correct. One example of many that shows just how much

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