December 17, 2009

Has Althouse, like Andrew Sullivan, ever relied on ghostbloggers?

I'm a month away from my 6-year anniversary writing this blog, posting every single day — averaging at least 7 posts a day — and never once handing this blog over to a guestblogger. But what about a ghostblogger? Do I ever give an assistant my password and let him post under my name, letting my readers think they are reading me when they are not? Because that's what Andrew Sullivan has been doing. On December 12th, over on Sullivan's blog, Patrick Appel put up a post titled "Minding The Store":
As always, it a pleasure to step in while Andrew gets some much needed rest. Guest-blogging is not all that different than my day-to-day activities on the Dish – 24 of the 50 posts currently on the front page were written by me.
So why does Andrew need the rest? Is he ghost-resting for Patrick? Sullivan trusts this guy to write for him and he turns around and takes credit while Andrew is trying to rest?
All the substantive posts are Andrew's work, but it's my and Chris's job to read through the blogosphere and pick out the choicest bits. Andrew edits, approves, and spins what we find, but the illusion of an all-reading blogger is maintained by employing two extra sets of eyes.
But you just said "written by me"! Do you read lots of things and pass selections on to Andrew or do you write the posts? Presumably, the phrase "Andrew's work" means Andrew has looked at what Patrick and Chris write — not just what they "find" — and had the chance to add or change whatever words he likes. That is, if he feels like it, he can polish the Appel.

Do I do that sort of thing? Commenter EDH asked:
We know Meade does some of the photography, but does Althouse have him slavishly ghostwriting posts anonymously, like over at The Dish?
Just as I quote the writings of others, I sometimes use someone else's photography. I think it's always obvious when I'm doing that. I've started using a tag "photos by Meade" — Meade is my husband — but there are some Meade photos that predate that tag. You can normally tell that it's not one of my photos by the fact that it's a picture of me and it's not one of those arm's-length pictures. I quote Meade sometimes too, when he lets me, and sometimes he sends me a link to something he thinks I might be interested in. He sends me the links in iChat, but other than that, he's like readers who are nice enough to send me links in the email or the comments.

But no one has ever written a post for me. Not as a guest-blogger and not as a ghost-blogger. I have never even given a password for this blog to another person. No one has so much as corrected a typo for me. Every sentence that isn't marked as a quote was written by me. And I mean all 18,000+ posts.

You know, I have had my run-ins with Sullivan. He mocked my engagement announcement. He's given me Sarah-Palin-related assignments. I have paid a lot of attention to these things on my blog. (Here and here, for example.) I seriously believed I was interacting with Sullivan, a writer I have respected for maybe 20 years. I wouldn't have bothered with Patrick (or Chris). I really don't care what they think. If they insult me, they are to me like any number of bloggers who insult me and whose bait I don't take. I would always take Sullivan's bait, because Sullivan is important. Not to know whether it's Sullivan or one of them makes a mush out of the whole blog. I'm not wading through all of this ghost-generated verbiage and guessing about what might be the real thing.

It was impressive if one man could write all that stuff. The number of posts over there has been crazy. I think I write a lot, but Andrew... Andrew was the gold standard for solo bloggers.

And now... Trig is not his baby!

UPDATE: Appel tries to backtrack:
News Busters has a field day with my ["written by me"] post. Lachlan Markay pretends that my doing research for Andrew is the same as Lynn Vincent writing Sarah Palin's book. I wish I'd the talent to ghostblog for Andrew. As I've written numerous times, basically everything I write under Andrew's name is a naked link or excerpt.
"Basically"? But a ghostblogger would deny it. That hardly cancels out the claim that "24 of the 50 posts currently on the front page were written by me." So what's with the bullshit about Markay "pretend[ing]"? At least eat your words and don't blame others.

Appel goes on to abase himself with praise of Andrew Sullivan's "inhuman" writing prowess. He can't be ghostblogging, you see, because his inferiority would show, etc. etc.

83 comments:

Hoosier Daddy said...

and never once handing this blog over to a guestblogger.

You tellin us you never let Sir Archy hold the reins for a day?

Hey in the spirit of the season, pull this leg and it plays jingle bells.

Anonymous said...

You, a ghostwriter posing as a law professor!

John said...

Andrew was promoted way beyond his abilities. When you get right down to it, is not a particularly smart or interesting writer. There is no way he could maintain a block and keep his reader's interests alone, especially after Palin drove him to insanity. So this is not surprising.

One of his ghost bloggers said something to the effect of "I have been stewing in his (Sullivan's) cerebral juices for years". That is a really disturbing image.

So Ann, has Meade been stewing in your cerebral juices? Or your in his?

AllenS said...

This isn't going to sound very nice, but what the hell.

So why does Andrew need the rest?

Because his ass hurts, and he can't type while standing up.

The Crack Emcee said...

"Sullivan is important."

Why? He's a loony conspiracy theorist to me.

Please explain.

wv: "houge" - a really big abode.

Salamandyr said...

"Sullivan is important."

Why? He's a loony conspiracy theorist to me.

Please explain.


Loony he is, and important he is. Important people read his blog, like for instance, the President.

Loony or not, when you have the ears of the powerful to the extent he does, you're important.

SteveR said...

Hopefully you'll no longer feel the need to pay attention to him.

Diamondhead said...

"Sullivan is important."

Self-fulfilling prophecy. If you and others realized that he's finally lost it in some strange way, you wouldn't engage with him, and he'd become that much less important.

holdfast said...

Idiots read his blog, like for instance the President. FIFY

Seriously? If that's where Obama's getting his ideas, we are even more screwed than I thought.

VW: comicli 'nuff said.

John said...

Sullivan is like a rash. The best thing to do is ignore him and hope he goes away. Since he is clinically insane, there is no way to engage him in any kind of rational discourse. And the air he breaths is attention and site hits. The best thing anyone can do is ignore him and never go to his blog. I think that his days as a significant person are numbered. Obamamania is over. And I don't think Palin will run in 2012. Without Obama and Palin, what purpose does Sullivan serve? Also, if the left turns on Obama, they may turn on Sullivan to. And since Sullivan has no friends on the Right or in the gay community, who would he have left once the "stuff white people like" crowd leaves?

traditionalguy said...

That was a masterful slice and dice Professor. Sullivan stands accused by his blog's own words of being a mixture and therefore not worthy to be read or responded to when those words may not be Andrew's anymore, or are they, or are they Maureen Dowd's or are they written by a space alien. That's a high standard, Professor. But you have earned it the old fashioned way by being the real deal in a world full of counterfeits. IMO your standards come from the high ethical standards taught in great Law Schools.That's right, all of you lawyer haters out there.

Ron said...

There you go...sniffing around Andrew's uterus!

David said...

Shaggy Dog post alert.

"Trig is not his baby."

David said...

Plus this blog has such erudite, interesting, thoughtful, funny, informed and articulate commentors.

Ricardo said...

"Plus this blog has such erudite, interesting, thoughtful, funny, informed and articulate commentors."

Thank you, David. That was really nice.

Henry said...

I don't think Sullivan is clinically insane. I do think he is rhetorically insane.

I'm tempted to go get me some ghost commenters. I write slowly and try to avoid commenting if I don't have something pertinent to say. This is obviously hurting my commenter presence. I need a consortium.

Peter Hoh said...

Ah, yes, the standard "Sullivan is not important" argument here in the threads. Again.

Take a look at a thread critical of Althouse, and you'll see the same song played there.

Ron said...

Maybe Andrew thinks he's doing this as part of a jobs bill. The Moral Subtext of the New Sloth.

Diamondhead said...

"Ah, yes, the standard "Sullivan is not important" argument here in the threads. Again."

It's more like the standard Sullivan should not be important argument. He has no discernible qualities as a social critic or commentator. At best, he's a has-been.

Scott said...

Wasn't it an open secret that big chunks of James Michener's fat books written by poor grad students? I think the practice of a "name" writer having some of their product ghostwritten is not unheard of.

But then again, it's one mark of a hack -- a label that fits when applied to Sullivan.

His gig at The Atlantic is wrecking him. If he wants to get his integrity back, he ought to stop blogging and do something different. Maybe he should take his precious Ph.D. and teach for awhile -- some second-rate liberal arts college would be happy to trade on his name to attract students. He could then use some time away from the hoi polloi to collect his thoughts and do some serious writing again.

(Maybe a stint in drug rehab would help him too, if his September pot posession arrest is indicative of a deeper problem.)

The Crack Emcee said...

When so many crazy people are reading each other, and commenting on each other, and supporting each other to the point where insanity is the default "thinking" position, where's the air for actual intelligence to breathe?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because (while trying to get me to calm down) a few people, here, have suggested I write differently - less screaming - but when there's this loop of ignorance that doesn't allow for anything but insanity to flourish (and, I'm sorry, but the calm crowd are just insanity's gate-keepers) I think I've gone in the only direction left open to me:

What traditionalguy has called the "John The Baptist" route.

Zachary Sire said...

The last line...LOL.

Patrick Appel is a good kid. I graduated college same year and same program as him. He was an over-achiever (double major I believe, Literary Journalism and Fine Arts), so it's no surprise Andrew is using him to such an extent.

Zachary Sire said...

Perez Hilton doesn't write his own blog either. Just sayin'.

Unknown said...

You stand astride the blogosphere like a colossus (colossa?).

On the subject of Sullivan, he started coming unglued about the time he threw a hissy fit at Dubya for supporting a Constitutional amendment to define marriage (lousy idea, BTW). After that, he just unraveled more and more. Both the ghosting and the weird political positions (no pun) may well be a result of the HIV.

Hoosier Daddy said...

and never once handing this blog over to a guestblogger.

You tellin us you never let Sir Archy hold the reins for a day?


Nobody holds Ann's reins but Meade :)

Henry said...

I don't think Sullivan is clinically insane. I do think he is rhetorically insane.

Very droll.

ricpic said...

Well, now I know I'm not important. Drat.

Ricardo said...

Important people always have a "staff". It's the way the world works. And seldom do the important people give credit to the staff. That's also the way the world works.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that closing line, it really made me laugh.

Kaus suggests that this has been Sully's MO for a long time.

WV: outedear - as in Andrew's been outed, dear.

Lynne said...

Um, I've never read Sullivan, but I think there's an elephant in the room here:

Sullivan is supposed to be this terrific, important writer/blogger...

...and nobody notices the difference when he sends in the B team?

If Sullivan really is the "gold standard" in blogging, then the blogosphere has been breathelessly chasing all that glitters.

Sullivan isn't the only one who looks bad after this discovery.

Just sayin'.

kjbe said...

You sound a little disappointed.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

I'm not so bothered by this. Most of The Dish is links, and it seems to me that the longer pieces are clearly Sullivan talking.

Is it that different from magazines that employ uncredited editorial assistants?

Are blogs really all that special? I think the solo blogger format is just an accident, and it seems to me it went as far as it was going to go some years ago. There was a discussion about this a long time ago on Volokh Conspiracy, but it's buried in the archives somewhere.

Does the writer matter more than the content? If Sullivan is writing trash is it higher quality trash because his name is attached to it?

I guess it is, since people insist on giving so much attention to the utter nonsense he publishes from time to time. I'm pretty sure almost everything controversial posted on that site is Sullivan himself. Who else would want to own it?

I'm a big believer in the power of inattention. Ignore behavior you don't want to reward. Sullivan gets links from outrageous pronouncements, and no attention when he's doing something productive.

His Iran coverage during the election aftermath was excellent, and I bet it was because of his assistants constantly updating the site. I assumed he wasn't staying up 24 hours a day and that he had help. It seemed obvious to me. I don't get why this is so shocking.

John Stodder said...

Sullivan was important. The original Daily Dish was not much like the cant and nonsense it's filled with today. I actually looked at it a couple of times a day and often was rewarded with a well-written, fresh political observation or a great link.

That Andrew Sullivan is gone. He has literally undergone a personality change. I'm not much for long-distance diagnosis when I'm not even a doctor, but I have to figure the combination of conventional and unconventional medications, added to a creeping rage and paranoia owing to his immigration status and thwarted hopes for gay marriage has literally blown his mind. He's like an old guy with dementia who you want to feel sorry for, except he keeps saying these unbelievably nasty and stupid things.

So I'm not surprised he's hired ghostwriters, and that these ghostwriters are trying to please the boss by adopting what they think is his approach. If they want to do their boss a favor, the ghosts should go back and read Sullivan from 2002. Although, I suppose at what he can probably afford to pay them, these fill-ins are probably lacking in the education and erudition Sullivan once had.

Matt Eckert said...

Is this a contest to count how many fruits there are in the Daily Dish?

I thought we covered that with the oranges?

Matt Eckert said...

NTTAWWT.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

And Sullivan is important because of his writing. The man invented gay marriage as a political cause. Read some of his older stuff. It's actually pretty good. I remember one essay in particular about the role of testosterone that was really excellent. I must have read it close to ten years ago, but I still remember it.

I think blogging destroyed his writing. He used to write longer essays and books. Now, he's writing short blog posts. I think everyone on the internet tends to write shorter sentences and paragraphs over time.

For some people this is an improvement, but it turns others into snark bots. The internet is a cynical place and overvalues flippancy.

Sydney said...

"I think blogging destroyed his writing."

Yes, and I think it destroyed his mind, too. The pressure to write something every day gave way to the tendency to write whatever he was thinking at the moment without every stopping to think about it. The blogging format isn't as conducive to thoughtful writing as the long essay format. He gave up thinking a long time ago.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

From Ace

Because like a lot of people who never had any particular talent, Sullivan was endlessly promoted far beyond his abilities, and now that he is a "name," he intends to sell the only thing of any value he has -- that name -- .

Sounds a lot like President Obama.

wv - stile - and little substance.

John said...

John Lynch,

Yes, Sullivan invented gay marriage as a poltical issue. He made his career by chastizing the gay left for their decedent ways and easy sex. He thought the way for the gay community to be accepted was to embrace marriage and traditional values. And he made his career by calling out those in the gay community who didn't.

Then he was found running personal ads looking for anonomous bareback anal sex with other HIV sufferers. Sullivan turned out to be in his personal life everything that he was smugly condeming in his public life.

Shortly after that came 9-11 and he was able to latch on to the war on terror. One side always likes it when someone from the other side converts. Conservatives loved it that an openly gay British writer had embraced their agenda terror. It was a godsend to Sullivan's career. And right at the point the wind began to turn against Bush, Sullivan jumped ship and went to the left and was welcomed back as a prodigal son for the same reason the right had embraced him a few years before.

Sullivan is nothing but a mediocre, hypocritical opportunist of the worst sort. And he is a deeply troubled man. You can only sell your integrity to get ahead so many times before it starts to affect you.

Anonymous said...

Now it can finally be said: The Empress of Urania has no clothes.


(Ah, gawd, I'll never get that image out of my brain.)

bagoh20 said...

Your 6 year accomplishment is impressive Ann. It shows great dedication to us and I thank you for doing it. There must certainly have been a few days when blogging was the last thing you wanted to do, but you pushed it out anyway. Thanks.

So now that you know, why continue to promote this marginal thinker and fraud. Time to step out of that stagnant pond. You are just too good for his stuff. He just got lucky early on like that Perez Hilton loser or many other participants in our culture that have simply outlived their expiration date. Sully sullies your blog. I know he's famous, but that's no reason to give him a piece of you. That's how you get on Tigers speed dial.

The Crack Emcee said...

"The internet is a cynical place and overvalues flippancy."

Whoo-boy, did you say a mouth-full there! It's really embarrassing, and has lowered my appreciation for humanity, greatly.

Anonymous said...

And Sullivan is important because of his writing. The man invented gay marriage as a political cause. Read some of his older stuff. It's actually pretty good. I remember one essay in particular about the role of testosterone that was really excellent. I must have read it close to ten years ago, but I still remember it.


Actually, Sullivan didn't invent gay marriage as a political issue--a recent exhibition of homosexual publications at the National Museum of American History included material promoting SSM published before Queen Mary Jane Milky Loads was born--he simply rode the issue bareback to prominence.

And as for his 2000 NYTM testosterone essay, it may have been there that the Sultana of Sodom first admitted to regularly using mind altering substances. And yet he retained credibility? And who are the rubes?

lucid said...

althouse wrote:
"And now... Trig is not his baby!"

I think you have discovered a possible source of Sullivan's obsession with a lunatic theory about Trig--Sullivan's sense of his own fraudulence.

John said...

"I think you have discovered a possible source of Sullivan's obsession with a lunatic theory about Trig--Sullivan's sense of his own fraudulence."

Palin, whatever her faults, appears to be absolutely genuine. It makes sense that genuiness would drive someone who is a complete fraud over the edge. There is nothing genuine about Sullivan. He never believed or lived a word of his exortations to gays for clean living and monogomous sex. Whatever he beleives about the war on terror in Iraq, he has taken diametrically opposed positions over the years and switched sides wihtout a hint of shame.

When Sullivan saw Palin, a person who was everything he wasn't, it must driven him mad; and thus explains his obsession with Trig. Trig must not be Palin's child. If he is, not everyone is a fraud like Sullivan. That is a possibly too dark for Sullivan to even contemplate.

Matt Eckert said...

I thought the chair is not his son.

MikeDC said...

I want to see Ann compare and contrast the importance of Sullivan and Tiger Woods.

If Accenture was silly not investigate Woods before deciding it was worth engaging him, are you silly for not investigating Sullivan and deciding that, even if he were once important, he's now a clown and not worth your time?

Unknown said...

I read Sullivan for precisely the same reasons as Ann - he really was a brilliant writer when he allowed himself the time to breathe a little. Still is at times.

Oddly recently I'd begun to really like it when he took a vacation - Patrick, Chris and Conor are wonderful writers and are more than willing to debate one another as adults. Which makes it all the weirder that they may have been responsible for some of the childishly excitable pap that Sullivan wanders off into when he starts bullying those who disagree with him.

At most though he clearly likes a fight - a gay Thatcherite Catholic? Talk about an enigma. That is IF I believed he really is that. He clearly is prone to swapping viewpoints at an instant to support whatever current position he professes to hold. He so wants to be Christopher Hitchens, and to some degree he is. I just wish he'd open his blog to a four-man thing, slow down and start writing some of the great stuff he did years ago.

John said...

"At most though he clearly likes a fight - a gay Thatcherite Catholic? Talk about an enigma."

There is nothing enigmatic about him. he doesn't appear to be any of those things. He just claims to be and pretends they don't really mean what they say. Sullivan has never believed in and lived by anything. He is very easy to figrure out. Sullivan will say and do whatever is best for Sullivan, principle or integrity be damned.

Unknown said...

Precisley why I read him - he clearly wants to be thought of as a gay Thatcherite Catholic without having to adhere to any of what that actually would mean.

vbspurs said...

— Meade is my husband —

Oh my goodness! I had NO idea the NYT had written up about Ann and Meade in such a fashion -- the article was definitely the royal treatment. What makes this charming, modern coupling between Ann and Meade so cool, is that the commenters got more than their fair share of credit for egging on their romance. At least in the NYT.

I still don't know why J-school insists that any article must include a person's age after their names. In Brazil, they include not their ages but which Brazilian State they were born in, like: João dos Santos Cavalcante, Mineiro (from the State of Minas Gerais).

I'm sure Ann would much rather have been written up as "Ann Althouse, Delaware", than having them use her age. I know I would.

Cheers,
Victoria

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

I hope Althouse and Meade know I was only teasing about Meade "slavishly ghostwriting posts anonymously," (ghostwriting anonymously = redundant?) to segue into the Sullivan revelations on pretty much open thread.

I don't think there's anything wrong with named guestblogging.

But I did detect a hint of passive-aggression in Appel's disclosure.

Eric said...

"At most though he clearly likes a fight - a gay Thatcherite Catholic? Talk about an enigma."

There is nothing enigmatic about him. he doesn't appear to be any of those things.


He's no Thatcherite and he's not Catholic, but I think he probably really is gay.

Ralph L said...

Plus this blog has such erudite, interesting, thoughtful, funny, informed and articulate commentors
And Jeremy.

They're using bylines at the DD, since last evening.

LoafingOaf said...

People out to score points against Sullivan are gonna pretend they can't tell the difference between his substantive posts and the posts where we no longer know who should have gotten the byline. Still, it is eyebrow-raising that there's ghost-blogging over there.

It was impressive if one man could write all that stuff. The number of posts over there has been crazy. I think I write a lot, but Andrew... Andrew was the gold standard for solo bloggers.

And now... Trig is not his baby!

I knew the post was leading up to some zinger at the end. This one made me REALLY laugh out loud. :)

LoafingOaf said...

There are lots of blogs where underlings get bylines on some of the posts. I have often found it annoying when a blog I like responds to the pressure to keep the posts coming by hiring a bunch of clowns I know nothing about, and suddenly two-thirds of what was once a solo blog is now a bunch of strange people writing the posts.

I've stopped reading blogs entirely because of that sort of thing. Other times, I just skip past all the posts from the underlings to find the posts by the blogger I came there to read. I also tend to not read a blog at all when the blogger is on break and has an army of guest-bloggers take over, unless it's a guest-blogger I already am familiar with and interested in.

Finding out there are ghost-bloggers is disappointing and the Dish should make a new vow to clearly indicate who wrote what.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't Sullivan have a Harvard Ph.D.? This passing off the work of other as your own, they must teach that up there in Cambridge. See: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Charles Ogletree, Laurence Tribe, Alan Dershowitz, Kaavya Viswanathan, etc.

See the wonderful but not recently updated Harvard Plagiarism Archive.

Steven said...

"At most though he clearly likes a fight - a gay Thatcherite Catholic?"

Andrew may have been raised Catholic, but he doesn't even accept the Nicene Creed, openly endorsing speculation as to the nature of Jesus. When you reject the basic, core theology of the Church, as defined for 1,684 years, no, you are not a Catholic.

The Crack Emcee said...

"He so wants to be Christopher Hitchens, and to some degree he is."

That's easily the funniest, and most off-base, thing I've read all day. Where do you guys get this stuff? Barack Obama was supposed to be "brilliant" because he's black. Andrew Sullivan - Andrew Fucking Sullivan! - is supposed to be "important" because he's gay. Any other "giants" you liberals got back there to wow the rest of us with? I can't wait.

No, on second thought, I really, really, can.

Republican said...

Malkin was busted years ago fir allowing her husband to write under her name. It was shrugged off by the world-- but for me everything she writes is now suspect.

Ralph L said...

for me everything she writes is now suspect
Flesh of his flesh, boned on his boner. Presumably, Sullivan isn't paying his ghostbloggers with sex.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm sure Ann would much rather have been written up as "Ann Althouse, Delaware", than having them use her age."

You're wrong. I'm proud of my age, and it was certainly part of the story. I lived without a mate for 20 years.

Methadras said...

Well, I guess the 'Methadras said, "I told you Little Miss Sullivan was a phony."' did make it on the tags now did it?

AST said...

You've got to be really, REALLY important to be able to hire a ghost blogger. Or to have someone else hire one for you.

1775OGG said...

Who is Andrew Sullivan and why are you bothering with any mention of that person?

However, I do fear that you made up the spirit of Sir Archy out of whole cloth.

dementofan said...

"So why does Andrew need the rest?"

That should be "rest". As in electroshock treatment to overcome his obsession with Sarah Palin and his heterosexual tendencies.

peaceout said...

ignore what is not important.
Andrew Sullivan has demonstrated his lack of seriousness on many matters and does not matter.
i used to read him but he has become useless.
i read the daily kos to find out what people who hate me and my beliefs think on issues of the day
hope Andy and his significant other the best, just don't have the time for them

Barry Dauphin said...

Sullivan was important. Not just because he turned against the WoT he once championed. But because he has become small, petty, and comically out of it. He writes either pathetic stuff or cliches.

Luther said...

"I would always take Sullivan's bait, because Sullivan is important."

Why, Ann?

I truly don't understand.

I canceled a thirty+ year subscription to TNR because of him, several years ago. He's an idiot.

algie said...

Is it Andrew or not you can't tell
Unless it is just by the smell
Now Andrew or not
He's still drooling snot
Tolling reasoned discourse's death knell

....uuuu..'o.o'..nn!n....algie
Illegitimi nOn carborundum

Brian Macker said...

"Sullivan is important."

No he isn't and neither are you. Let's be real here.

Unknown said...

I was disappointed to hear about the ghostblogging by Andrew et al. All this time I thought that he was either very prolific, or perhaps just verbally incontinent.

Fred4Pres said...

Ann, no slight on Meade, but no one could replace you.

Andrew Sullivan on the other hand, Patrick fills in just fine. Except for going after Sarah Palin, then that is work for the master.

Francis W. Porretto said...

-- Andrew was the gold standard for solo bloggers. --

Oh, please. Sullivan got the respect he did because of his connections to The Atlantic and The New Republic. His writing is pedestrian, he repeats the same sentiments endlessly, he's obsessed with his sexual orientation, and he displays a venomous contempt for those who disagree with him.

If that's a "gold standard," I'm happy with silver.

Fen said...

Andrew Sullivan wasted barrels of ink proclaiming that no one is above the law, esp Bush.

Until Andrew got busted for pot, then he invoked his status as an Elite.

Frickin hypocrite.

Fen said...

"Malkin was busted years ago fir allowing her husband to write under her name."

Bull Shit.

Fen said...

And take your false equivalence and shove it up your ass. I'm sick of libtards justifying every scandal with "but x did it too!"

What a pathetic set of values you must have, always lowering your standard to the lowest common denominator.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Nobody--but yours truly--has focused on the real ethical issue here. Sullivan has been passing off the work of others as his own--apparently for years now. By any definition this is plagiarism. It is a violation of academic and journalistic professional ethics. I mean, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist like Rick Bragg lost his gig at the NY Times for pretty much the same behavior.

I think it's high time that The Atlantic pulls the plug.


-30-

Kensington said...

What is this about Malin being "busted" for the same thing? Can someone please cite that? I know the Left loves to smear her, but I don't recall anyone actually proving anything of the sort.

Jeff Weimer said...

I would always take Sullivan's bait, because Sullivan is important.

No, he's not important. He obviously thinks so little of his readership, including you, Ann, that he and his "ghostbloggers" let this fiction go on for how long? Years, maybe?

He doesn't respect his readers enough to be honest with them.

Nagarajan Sivakumar said...

Perez Hilton doesn't write his own blog either. Just sayin.

Hey Zachary, thanks for pointing out that the two biggest drama queens on the blogosphere share more than just the same sexual orientation.

Jim Treacher said...

To the Sullivan defenders: What's your favorite Andrew Sullivan quote?

Go ahead, we'll wait.

Anonymous said...

Excitable Andy is a hack of the first order. Now we find out that he's been taking the credit for other writers' work. Anybody who takes this juiced-up hypocrite fraud seriously is deluded.

Sullivan might've been relevant ten or fifteen years ago. Maybe. But now, he's the Daily Kos with male pattern baldness and a penchant for plagiarism. No thanks.