1. 15 years is "long enough to do any single job." You've got to do "new things, shake your world up, or recognize before you crash that burn-out does happen." He's talking about everyone, but one can extract that he feels burnt out.
2. He wants to get out of "digital life" and back "to the actual world again." He wants the slower, truer world of reading "difficult" books and writing "long essays" that go more deeply into the topics he's been blogging over the years. He wants a less stressful life and time with his friends and family.
There's some hint of the disappointment in blogging as a business:
In just two years, you built a million dollar revenue company, with 30,000 subscribers, a million monthly readers, and revenue growth of 17 percent over the first year. You made us unique in this media world – and we were able to avoid the sirens of clickbait and sponsored content. We will never forget it.You limit your audience, and you only get 30,000. They're not paying that much. What is it, $20 a year or $2 a month — or did the price go up a bit? It's hard to see how that gets up to a million and hard to know how well a million dollars covers the expenses and justifies cutting out the bigger audience you'd get without a paywall. It's gratifying to have 30,000 subscribers, but I suspect the limitations are part of that stress he's talking about.
I know I moved away from Sullivan's blog after it put up the paywall, but back in the old days when it was one of the few real blogs — years before I started blogging — I read it all the time. It played a major role in my own idea of what blogging is, and so it has had a big effect on my life, and it will continue to have that effect until the day comes when I decide I've burned out and need to get back to the slow absorption of difficult books, the brooding over deep thoughts, and the mining of the immense blog archive for all the things that could have coalesced into long essays deserving of binding into tomes.
Until then, it's all spontaneity, wisecracks, and shreds of insight — not fully cooked and never burned out.
ADDED: The Washington Post has some details on the business side of Sullivan's blog:
According to Sullivan’s frequent self-disclosures, he had 30,478 paying customers as of two weeks ago, down from more than 34,000 last year. Revenue was just less than $1 million — about 10 percent more than a year ago. The site is approaching its annual renewal period, in which it loses and gains thousands of subscribers....So the subscriber numbers had a downward trend, and the decision to stop means he won't have to see what the next data point in that trend. If he took the subscriptions, he'd have to deliver the product. That would be a drag if the numbers were down.
Although the revenue figure grew in the two years that the Dish asked for subscriptions, it apparently has been barely enough to cover expenses. Sullivan has said he does not take a salary. However, there were no outward indications that the site was in financial trouble.He didn't even make any money?! I guess he must have hoped that as an owner, he'd ultimately make a lot of money. But slogging away on no money would be awful. What were the expenses? The sidebar lists 7 editors (not counting Sullivan, the "blogger-in-chief"). That's not much money to spread around, especially if there was any kind of office space. I preferred the blog when it was just Sullivan, producing his own material, but that's a lot for one person to do.
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Never read his blog. Though your comment about him inspiring you, inspired me to look back at your early blog posts. Marginalia, eh?
Anyway, I find that my reading is generally of two types: either the quick blog pieces or actual books (though right now I've started three that I haven't finished). My son is always after me to read fiction, and I owe it to him to read the paperback he bought me for Christmas, but the closest I come, usually, are biographies/memoirs. And I read actual bound books, almost always from the library (regretfully, we have a one-in, one-out policy for the bookshelves, which limits my purchases).
I haven't read Sullivan in years and his crowing over his role in Obama's election is one reason why and proves he is a man with little insight, political and other wise. There was a time back in the Go-Go days of blogging when he was a must read. Today not so much. Good riddance.
Shreds of insight? Is that string theory for the mind?
Sullivan is a strong debater. Sorry to see him burn out.
"I owe it to him to read the paperback he bought me for Christmas"
Makes you wonder why books even count as gifts.
If someone gives you a book, you could say: And my gift to you will be reading this book.
"Not fully cooked"--I think that's my favorite part.
I preferred Andrew Sullivan before he turned against George Bush, when he had this independent and conservative voice. That had more value in the over mix of what's out there to read. The real hatred to Sarah Palin was offputting.
If you click my Andrew Sullivan tag, you can get to the story of my changing opinion of him... including the part where he insults me for marrying Meade!
15 years is pretty impressive. He's Lou Gehrig to Althouse's Cal Ripken.
My son is 12. He loves fiction -- fantasy, specifically. He's read every book Brandon Mull has written. And he wants me (and his Dad) to See The Light and read fiction, too.
It's kind of a Mom thing, I guess.
Don't miss him any more than the little green footballs guy. A thousand of both of them couldn't equal one Steven Den Beste. That's an early retirement that actually hurt.
Anne Althouse says:
"He's talking about everyone, but one can extract that he feels burnt out."
Extract? Hmm...
Here's what Sullivan wrote"
"And that’s why, before our annual auto-renewals, I want to let you know I’ve decided to stop blogging in the near future.
Why? Two reasons. The first is one I hope anyone can understand: although it has been the most rewarding experience in my writing career, I’ve now been blogging daily for fifteen years straight (well kinda straight). That’s long enough to do any single job. In some ways, it’s as simple as that. There comes a time when you have to move on to new things, shake your world up, or recognize before you crash that burn-out does happen."
How did you get the impression Sully was talking about anyone but himself? His purpose seems straightforward, as does his language.
Or were you merely being disingenuous, as seems, at times, from a distance, to be your wont?
BREAKING: Andrew Sullivan Retires to Spend More Time With His Head Inside Sarah Palin's Uterus.
Don't miss him any more than the little green footballs guy.
That dude retired?
Man, I haven't thought about LGF in about 10 years.
And before the Palin obsession, Sullivan was readable.
No the lgf guy didn't retire, he just disappeared from my life and any discussion among normal people. The effect was the same.
Sullivan was informative and reliably conservative/libertarian early on, but he melted down, live on the web, in 2004,when W Bush came out strongly against same sex marriage. Since then, he has been all over the place politically, with a weird man-crush on Obama. He's still readable, but you can't take him seriously about anything serious.
"Andrew Sullivan immediately leaped into the fray. Unlike the rest of these non-experts, many of whom began to back off of the story when word emerged that Mrs. Palin’s daughter was pregnant and had been close to the time of Trig’s birth, Sullivan, who apparently received a secret medical degree while attending Harvard, began obsessively following this story, turning the Atlantic from a fairly uninteresting opinion website into a leading journal of gynecology and obstetrics. Rarely in human history has a gay man been that obsessed with a married woman’s vagina."
Great stuff.
I, too, read him back before the Iraq invasion, when he very well crystallized a conservatism, negative rights, limited government contrariness I found appealing. He has an Irish Catholic background which also appeals. I can roll with some Oakeshott, too.
I also have to give him credit for taking some risks and pioneering blogging. He still puts together a decent blog with a team of people behind it, even if I disagree/not interested in most of it.
That said, his hysterical, dishonorable response when he concluded he was wrong in supporting the war, was a real lesson in character for me. Blame, blather, and personal attacks was all I saw. Couldn't take him too seriously after that, then came Sarah Palin trutherism and he went off the deep end.
Since then, he's stayed on the pro-pot, pro-environmental message, trolling more and more Lefties/progressives for views and to justify what seems his own strange, personal fixation on political figures, especially those who may well be trolling him for gay causes.
Lots of talking, not much listening.
Don't you quit on me, Althouse.
How are we going to get updates about Sarah Palin's uterus?
Is he going into OB/GYN full-time...?
It's also possible he's failed to bring in enough revenue, too, and that is weighing on the decision.
He markets, barks, and positions himself in a quite competitive fashion, so maybe it isn't the success he was hoping/aiming for.
I've generally enjoyed his blog, particularly as it covered just about any topic and often had interesting takes on issues. I didn't agree much on a lot of things (particularly his deference to Obama, though even that had limits) but he did seem to think things out a great deal. I'll miss his blogging.
Sullivan had his quirks and obsessions but he has been one of the leading public intellectuals of his time, according to Ross Douthat. I largely agree.
He is detested here for his turn against Bush Jr, but his views largely reflected public opinion. His obsession with Palin is impossible to defend. No one's perfect.
Who says creative destruction's a negative?
Like Jane I have the one-in, one-out policy and no more than one large bookshelf will hold. I try to apply the necessary, interesting or beautiful test to determine if I'll keep a possession, but books probably have the greatest potential for pulling me down into hoarderdom.
As for Sullivan, yeah, once he freaked out he just became another sandwich-board doomsayer. Any blogger, left or right, who can't maintain a measured voice is not worth reading. More importantly, their goose-stopping commenters are boring as shit. K&R! What a pack of jerk-offs.
"He is detested here for his turn against Bush Jr, but his views largely reflected public opinion"
Ummm, no. Other way around. Sullivan turned on Bush not because of Iraq or Katrina but because of gay marriage, and he did it at least a year before the general public soured on Bush. The election of 2004 and the GOP's use of anti-gay marriage referendums at the state level to drive up social conservative voter turnout was what deranged Sullivan. And it did very much derange him.
No gay marriage issue, no Andrew Sullivan renting space in Sarah Palin's uterus. It really is as simple as that.
Chris N said...
It's also possible he's failed to bring in enough revenue, too, and that is weighing on the decision.
He markets, barks, and positions himself in a quite competitive fashion, so maybe it isn't the success he was hoping/aiming for.
Based on his stated goals at the start of the pay wall this is not true. They seemed to exceed their initial financial goals.
The kind of blogging he did is not something that can be easily delegated. There was a noticeable decline in the number of interesting posts when he went of vacation. Burn-out appears to be the main reason for this decision.
Goose-stepping. I wouldn't dream of interfering with the progress of a goose.
I actually think that Sullivan's high water mark was his editorship of the New Republic.
While he did run too many "in the life" gay articles, he did much to nudge TNR out of its east coast, liberal Jewish bubble. Sullivan made the New Republic act as if there actually were a couple of billion Christians living on the planet.
I enjoyed Sullivan much more when he was a true conservative, even though back then, I was a true liberal.
Adored reading Sullivan back in the day and loved catching him on TV. Then he went all gay issues all the time. I agreed with him but found it boring. Who wants to read the same old stuff day after day and never a thought provoked? Wandered away, didn't bookmark him on the next computer, and didn't miss him.
He should have quit about 10 years ago. If he had, he would have gone out on a high note.
@Kevin -
"A thousand of both of them couldn't equal one Steven Den Beste. That's an early retirement that actually hurt."
This, as the kids say.
"K&R! What a pack of jerk-offs."
Here now. I won't have the fathers of the C programming language disrespected in such a fashion.
Good riddance.
Don't get any ideas Althouse. Not yet.
3. His blog has sucked for over a decade because he went batshit crazy.
I'm gobsmacked.
In my experience, Sullivan would take on only those opposing viewpoints he knew (or thought) he could shoot down.
And his metamorphosis was necessary to bring his views in line with the cultural milieu he wanted to live in with his spouse. The photo of Provincetown above his post is where his heart is and necessitated how he had to amend his heterodoxy in order to fit in.
That said, I think he's a really skilled writer.
When he was eclectic, a sort of outsider, he was very good.
He was never a conservative or a gay writer or a ________ fill in the blank writer. Parts of him were; but just that, parts. He could see things from a wide range of perspectives. He still has some of that; but not as much.
He lost himself along the way. His views on Israel are just ga-ga.
He can be quite ugly sometimes. Unthinking and just a reactionary.
Going from a blogger you rely on to get instant perspective on current events to a blogger you visit to challenger your ideas isn't an easy transition.
But it can be a healthy one if it teaches you not to take the disagreements too personally or view it as betrayal.
Sullivan was one of the first Bloggers I started reading. I stopped reading him when he started going off the deep end. The crazy end.
Once he became doctrinaire left wing he became utterly boring.
"I read it all the time. It played a major role in my own idea of what blogging is, and so it has had a big effect on my life, and it will continue to have that effect until the day comes when I decide I've burned out and need to get back to the slow absorption of difficult books, the brooding over deep thoughts, and the mining of the immense blog archive for all the things that could have coalesced into long essays deserving of binding into tomes."
I could say the same thing about Althouse, which I started reading shortly after its launch. I only read a couple of blogs in addition to this one before I started blogging in 2006. I tried to quit once and it didn't work. So I don't fight it. Blogging's entertainment for me, how I get much of the news, and a public outlet for my politics. And I've learned over time that hit counts are great but don't really matter that much. I'd still write. And when I don't have time to blog, I don't worry about "losing readers." I always say "It'll still be up there tomorrow, when I have more time."
Thanks Althouse!
Until then, it's all spontaneity, wisecracks, and shreds of insight — not fully cooked and never burned out.
I loved that sentence. Thanks.
That said, his hysterical, dishonorable response when he concluded he was wrong in supporting the war, was a real lesson in character for me. Blame, blather, and personal attacks was all I saw. Couldn't take him too seriously after that, then came Sarah Palin trutherism and he went off the deep end.
After 9/11 Sullivan was as outspoken in his contempt for Western dhimmitude as was Christopher Hitchens. Either/both not to everyone's taste. Maybe it's a British thing.
Thanks for that link, Gerry!
Great stuff.
I remember in the very early days of blogging, before I read blogs, my dad was an early adopter. He'd practically beg me to read Sullivan and Instapundit. "What? Dad, it's weird; it's all out of order or something. How do you get to the beginning? What do you mean the beginning doesn't matter?"
Later, I was hooked.
Sullivan was my dad's favorite back in Sullivan's first couple years.
You've got to do "new things, shake your world up, or recognize before you crash that burn-out does happen." He's talking about everyone, but one can extract that he feels burnt out.
I hate when people say "you" when they mean "I." You stopped reading Andrew Sullivan at least 10 years ago. Oh wait, that was me.
The guy is is a whack job and you say he influenced you a lot??
Re: Charles Johnson(LGF), I've never seen such an abrupt 180 ideologically like ever. He went from staunch libertarian-ish conservative to radical, foaming-the-mouth Communist in 2009.
Surprised you didn't tag this "things not believed".
You guys are funny. While it's probably true Sullivan was more interesting earlier, others have filled in that earlier, intensely introspective mode, and no one will be able to blend eclecticism with insight as well as he does. But it takes focus to maintain one's unique edge, so his reasons for quitting sound sincere. Short, numerous, but still colorful posts ultimately became his unmatchable niche as the web evolved, and the toll that takes on one's integrity is undeniable. Probably why he resented his competitors' corporatizing of it all into focus-group constructed "click-bait".
That said, this rallying lament that he didn't remain as doctrinaire as you wanted him to is entertaining. He received a far better education than anyone here has, and simply resented pols who were later shown to be stupid and incompetent. It's really that simple; there's no "libertarian-conservative" rulebook that says "thou shalt support dumbass politicians and dumbass moves because the party says so." He chose not to because he remained just as thoughtful and heterodox as ever. His only oversight was missing that the American people largely hate for intelligence to permeate the public sphere. Gets in the way of all that entertainment. Priority #1.
Let him take his well-deserved rest and put some good long-form out there every now and then once he decides to weigh in. There will be plenty of robot chuckleheads to cater to America's preternatural short-term attention span in the meantime, and long after.
R&B - why am I not shocked that you worship a liberal Democrat?
"That said, this rallying lament that he didn't remain as doctrinaire as you wanted him to is entertaining"
Au contraire, he became very doctrinaire.
Anyone who held some of the same positions that he held - and didn't change - was vile and evil and outrageous and disgusting.
It wasn't enough to point out their mistakes; no, they needed to be drawn and quartered.
If someone can explain his metamorphosis on Israel, please help me out. It's illogical.
Re: Sullivan didn't change politically. He grew up in Britain a Tory. I challenge any one of you partisans to tell me how British conservative Tories are politically incorrect for not sharing a single one of the insane policy goals that you hate Sullivan for also not sharing. Different countries, different emphases on intellectual inquiry, empiric truth and rational decision-making. There are a couple commenters here whom I'd love to see withstanding Question Time and defend their stances with their nuts, hair follicles, and opinions intact. The British not only don't put up with bullshit; they also don't love it or commercialize it or campaign on it nearly as much as their trans-Atlantic cousins surely do.
"The real hatred to Sarah Palin was offputting. "
That was about the time I sent him an e-mail asking if he was alright. I was concerned that he might be getting AIDS dementia. I got a nasty reply ns stopped reading his blog.
His flip on Bush coincided with the DOMA issue and it was obvious that Sullivan was a one issue type.
His blog was great back in the day, but after he turned against Bush over the gay marriage thing it became tedious.
And then somewhat ludicrous with the whole Palin/Trig birther crap. It seemed like he had lost his mind completely.
I loved it when he did a poll of his readers and was shocked to discover that they were all liberals. He really thought that a bunch of conservatives and moderates had followed him on his personal journey.
Alex's post is a prime example of America's tolerance (and reward for) stupidity.
For anyone tempted to take his remark seriously, Sullivan's "conservatism" obviously doesn't deny 17th century classical liberalism as an anchor of Western civilization that only a fool would deny. But in Alex's short-term memory idiot bubble, the pejorativization of a respectable word by a Republican VP in 1988 for short-term political gain should upend anything anyone has known about government since Plato.
Yeah. Tina Fey should have gotten emails and notices of concern regarding her disdain for Sarah Governor Half-Term Palin, also. Because ever since Dan Quayle, it's just wrong to question the intelligence of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about and says they read "all the magazines". The Entertainer-In-Chief is an equal opportunity office to be elected to, so PC concerns should obviously overwhelm any questioning about what's gone wrong with a country so mad as to not care about competence anymore. Little Starbursts and winking at the audience are more important.
When you expect to be hailed as victor in the identity wars and your not... well that can be disheartening.
You can't debate… it's not a matter of won't, or "not having time". You have plenty of time to do the intellectual jerk-off equivalent of summarizing your political convictions on bumper stickers and Hello Kitty lunch-boxes. Because that's how simple-minded they are. You prove the point.
Keep up the homophobic insults, too. A real credit to your political thought process.
R&B - you seem to know a lot of Hello Kitty, do you own a doll house too?
R&B - your years of ad argumentum strawmanum has rendered you irrelevant to debate. Go debate a wall.
In which the politically schizophrenic non-entity known as "Alex" proves that the one thing he won't tolerate is being distracted from his own distractions.
I feel like he should be given the kind of air that you'd give a guy like Eric Garner after he might have recovered. A real wide-berth just to see if an ounce of intellectual life might struggle to make it to the surface amidst all the gasps, wheezes and grunts. Surely he might actually have something relevant to say, after all.
Or surely not.
Guys like Alex are the reason Sullivan was as successful as he was without a comments section and why Althouse had to shut hers down.
I don't think Dems can make fun of Quayle anymore after Biden. Neither is impressive. But Quayle has real hair.
So says the blue windows icon whose 75% of his comments are nothing but blatantly empty ad hominems.
Yes, I realize you had nothing to say before I posted. And you'll have nothing to say when I don't put up with your ad homs, either.
Come back, Alex.
Your insight is missed.
Sullivan will probably be back after a short break. He changes his mind so often.
I stopped reading him consistently in 2004 with the Bush hatred and his flip flop on the Iraq war.
I stopped reading him period after his unhinged "Trig's Baby" nonsense. Any one else who engaged in that type of lunacy against say Joe Biden would have been written off by everyone. But because it was good Ol' Sully and Palin, it was swept under the rug.
I moved away from Sullivan when he backtracked on the Iraq war and then made his blog 24/7 gay marriage and Bush bashing.
Way back in the day Jonah Goldberg's mom said not to put faith or trust in Sullivan. And she was proven right.
Once he got into a coservativism of doubt, he all but said he was a liberal.
More comments parroting the conservative consensus that "Sullivan was a good and thoughtful blogger until he took a more active interest in the same struggle, once it became more newsworthy, on securing his rights, that he had famously wrote about years before in innovative, influential and well-argued essays."
I guess it's not a coincidence that a conservative like Ross Douthat realizes this, doesn't feel need to make a disparaging judgment of it, and has a job at the nation's newspaper of record.
"Anyone who held some of the same positions that he held - and didn't change - was vile and evil and outrageous and disgusting."
Yep, that's whats so absurd about him. When he was for the war - everyone who disagreed were haters of Israel and Western civilization. Then once he flipped and opposed the war - everyone who disagreed were bloodthirsty, heartless morons, and tools of Faux News and Bush II.
Hating Sarah Palin is so original, clever and charming.
It's amazing everybody doesn't do it.
Loving incompetent, self-serving fools is better than hating Sarah Palin.
I never thought much of Sullivan, even before the Bush-bashing and Palin-hate. I never really found much of his content interesting, and my frequent wanders to his corner of the web became less frequent. Finally, as the Palin-bashing began in earnest, I tuned out completely.
"War on Women" indeed.
Loving incompetent, self-serving fools is better than hating Sarah Palin.
Obama supporters get to do both! It is win-win. :)
Rhythm and Balls said...
More comments parroting the conservative consensus that "Sullivan was a good and thoughtful blogger until he took a more active interest in the same struggle, once it became more newsworthy, on securing his rights, that he had famously wrote about years before in innovative, influential and well-argued essays."
I guess it's not a coincidence that a conservative like Ross Douthat realizes this, doesn't feel need to make a disparaging judgment of it, and has a job at the nation's newspaper of record.
1/28/15, 7:40 PM"
No offense pal but when a blogger gets obsessed with Sarah Palin's uterus it's time to move on. He jumped the shark a number of years back.
EDH said...
Going from a blogger you rely on to get instant perspective on current events to a blogger you visit to challenger your ideas isn't an easy transition.
But it can be a healthy one if it teaches you not to take the disagreements too personally or view it as betrayal.
This is a very fair assessment that everyone could take to heart.
I had the exact opposite experience of Sullivan from most here. I came across him via Drudge and read him throughout the lead up to the war. I even corresponded with him a few times when I found some of his musings about Arabs to be flat out racist. He was surprisingly gracious in his replies.
As his views came more into alignment with my own I still found his blog interesting although I probably would not have made it a ritual read if it had started there.
I have known a lot of gay men and a few gay women over the decades but I have never had a significant discussion with any one of them about what it is like to be gay in a straight society. Sullivan's blog, in small ways and big, illuminated that part of life for his straight readers. I think this will prove to be one of his more substantial contributions.
jr565 said...
Way back in the day Jonah Goldberg's mom said not to put faith or trust in Sullivan.
Only the very stupid should require that piece of advice. Not surprising then that it came from Jonah Goldberg's mother. She, no doubt, found expounding on the self-evident to be an essential part of her parenting experience.
Gov. Scott Walker to UW faculty: Consider teaching one more class per semester
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_46cd33d1-18bb-509e-aa2c-d3b0b66ccee8.html
Why am I not surprised that Ann has not done a post on Walker attacking the University of Wisconsin? Does it have something to do with Ann's tenure abuse and ripping off Wisconsin taxpayers?
Andrew Sullivan, you mean A/K/A
RAWMUSLGLUTES at Milkyloads.com?
Note: Link NSFW but it does have a cute picture of Andy's naked butt.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010606105110/milkyloads.tripod.com/bareback/index.html
He wasn't obsessed with her uterus -- he was obsessed with what a reflexive liar she was. He also thought it was incredible that she would say she took a ten-hour flight from the continental U.S. back to Alaska after her water broke. At the least, it's one hell of a story. Maybe you believe it. Maybe you don't. Maybe you think Saint Sarah should never be questioned, even though your pundits like to go on about whether HRC had a blood clot or whatnot.
But you can't go on about how you need to get the state into women's uteruses to protect the little not-yet-people and make it sound like he's anti-woman or obsessed with vaginas or whatever. You're just doing that because you hate being known as the party that does this, and would like to dish that out on Sullivan instead, just because he bothered to be a competent journalist.
If you say it wouldn't matter that she wants to cover up a false pregnancy, then say it. But Sullivan's not obsessed to wonder what she's lying about, and how far her lies extend. Remember, you're the guys who want to make a show of a fertility cult around your candidates, not Democrats. So if the fertility was legit, you should be the one asking the questions. Not Sullivan. But I guess he was the only one who cared about getting the facts right, so there.
I used to go read the Daily Dish to get points of view I couldn't get anywhere else. Once it became an echo of Kos comment threads, and you could get the same opinion shoved in your face a dozen times a day by slobbering lefty haters with a commenter logon, what was the point?
Sullivan's problem, if thats the right word, is the same one the Democrat's have had for a generation. Dividing people into tribes, and sub tribes, and then viewing everything thru that point of view. Its tedious and dishonest.
Hyphenated Americans is a waste of time. We have in the past, and hopefully will in the future, referred to ourselves as American's. Not gay or black or whatever.
But yeah, he went off the deep end, especially with Palin.
And that sentence, ..'not fully cooked, and never burned out" is simply gorgeous, sentence wise.
So please stick around Althouse, you are a joy to read-always something new and different. Tickles the brain nicely. Thanks.
R&B is obsessed with Palin's uterus too! Ha ha ha ha ha ha fucking ha!
OMG? He has the tick toc all worked out on how she fooled almost everybody... but not him and Andrew, no sirree! (Clicks steel marbles together.)
Ann Althouse said...If you click my Andrew Sullivan tag, you can get to the story of my changing opinion of him... including the part where he insults me for marrying Meade!
I thought said "No comment possible"? That's the phrase I memorialized in my fractured fairy tale: The Story of Mann and Eade
I even corresponded with him a few times when I found some of his musings about Arabs to be flat out racist. He was surprisingly gracious in his replies.
Arabs are not a "race," but a culture - and cultural practices should be criticized. I criticize American culture all the time. Conservatives criticize American culture all the time. They are social extensions of the people comprising them, and we should be able to criticize them the same we would would people - either our own or others.
That said, it's interesting that the two of you corresponded, which it seems you mean in the sense that he responded personally. That's pretty cool, and I'd be curious to know what he would have said - though I realize that etiquette requests that those sorts of communications would be kept private unless both parties agree otherwise.
Nope, nothing I wrote indicated anything of the sort, Tim. But if you are afraid of "lady parts" you can pretend that my mere mention of them indicates some kind of "obsession".
Geez, have you ever been laid? What do the women you date (if you ever do) think when it's time to do the deed and you break out multiple condoms to wrap around each other, and/or rubber gloves? Do you think that vaginal lubrication will eat a hole through your skin, like acid? Do you think women's "nether regions" should be shielded from the view of male physicians, as they were in the middle ages?
No wonder your party can't even get the support of Republican women on these matters.
Nope, nothing I wrote indicated anything of the sort, Tim. But if you are afraid of "lady parts" you can pretend that my mere mention of them indicates some kind of "obsession
If a three paragraph rant full of details of stuff that happened years ago and occupies almost nobody's mindspace but yours and Andrew's counts as a "mere mention," I repeat:
Ha ha ha ha ha you fucking loser. Ha ha ha!
Maybe three (short) paragraphs counts as obsession in a land of cows and snow, but it's necessary given how obsessed these partisans (you included) are with characterizing his discomfort with her mendacity in that regard.
Loser!
Again, you're a gynophobe. You think they have teeth, or something. Resume getting your own (male?) dog to lick your own nuts then, Tim. No one cares. And we won't judge you for it until you admit it. You do seem awfully enamored of the beast.
And a ten-hour flight on broken water is hardly a "vagina" obsession. It's asking about one's sanity. It would be like calling someone worried about getting a woman in labor to the hospital a dirty name and calling them "mean woman hater." An absolutely stupid response.
No one's worried about how you managed to get your head out of the canal, man. It's a pretty basic question for those of us who aren't ignorant enough to believe in storks or zygote personhood.
And he brings up Palin's vagina one more time!
But he's not obsessed... Nooooo!
Rhythm and Balls said...
That said, it's interesting that the two of you corresponded, which it seems you mean in the sense that he responded personally. That's pretty cool, and I'd be curious to know what he would have said - though I realize that etiquette requests that those sorts of communications would be kept private unless both parties agree otherwise.
I don't have the emails or a very good memory so there won't be any etiquette problem with revealing specifics. I was struck at the time by the fact that he was genuinely interested in his readers point of view. He wanted me to defend my criticisms of his post. He was surprisingly humble. I didn't get the impression that he received an overwhelming amount of correspondence from his readers at that time, although I don't know this for a fact.
I understand people's frustration over the certainty with which Sullivan expressed his views and the attacking approach that he took towards alternative views. But, this is how intellectuals tend to work. They commit to a position and then defend it vigorously. Hacks never change their position, even in the face of new evidence. Whatever else he may have been he wasn't a hack.
"what's gone wrong with a country so mad as to not care about competence anymore."
Yes, well it worked twice so what can we say.
"Not surprising then that it came from Jonah Goldberg's mother."
Or anyone else.
I actually referred to childbirth, Tim - but glad to know that's a topic too sophisticated for you.
Any other ideas you'd like to censor? What about ankles? You know, the Victorians considered them so scandalous that they covered pedestals on furniture accordingly. Maybe we can't mention shoulders, either - because modesty used to dictate that they be covered, also.
Just to get everything straight - how long, dark and multi-layered a burka do we need to wrap around this topic?
Hacks never change their position, even in the face of new evidence. Whatever else he may have been he wasn't a hack.
And I suspect that this is precisely what many doctrinaire partisan operatives (here or elsewhere) respect and hate about him.
I stopped going out of my way to see AS's writing after reading what I remember as his 'gay marriage book'-- would have search for the title; perhaps he wrote more than one book that fits that description-- it being evident at that point that he had rejected the bimillennial wisdom of the Church. I hope life away from blogging suits him!
It must be discouraging for a megalomaniac like Sullivan to only be able to garner 30,000 paid subscribers.
But Sullivan's not obsessed to wonder what she's lying about, and how far her lies extend"
R & B you do realize that without intending to do so you made a far, far better case for excitable Andy to probe Hillary Clinton among other Democrat woman than he had/has for Sarah Palin.
The best way to protect the integrity and modesty of Sarah Palin's medical records might be to wrap a burka around them.
Back in the day Sullivan would personally correspond via email occasionally. One of my best friends died of AIDS and Andrew wrote a caring email in response to a note I sent him. His writing was interesting and pre-2004 he had good insight to te Long War that 9/11 started. After the DOMA meltdown I too visited his site less often. I too am of the opinion he became an inverse to what he was before. Suddenly he was monomaniacal and a by-the-book PC obsessed liberal. No different from any other Lib flogging their pet stories in Atlantic or the NYT. Sad. I liked the old Andrew even when I disagreed with his take.
Since this primarily seems to be about why we stopped reading Sullivan I'll just throw my own experience out there.
I never read him with any real consistency, typically I would just click through to some linked article. Truth be told, I never really found his writing all that interesting.
I suppose I stopped even clicking through to him around the time he became angry over an article attacking a book claiming Lincoln was gay. (Upon searching the Instapundit archives I've found that it was Jan 11, 2005).
I figured that anybody who got so worked up about whether Lincoln was gay probably wasn't worth reading. The fact that he was later angry that other people didn't take it as seriously as he did just kind of solidified my decision.
Oddly enough the Instapundit post that so bothered Sullivan contained a link to Althouse.
Incidentally R&B, a person who decided to treat Alex as a serious commenter may not be the best individual to remark upon the intellectual capabilities of others.
You may as well have a discussion with America's Politico while you're at it.
But, this is how intellectuals tend to work. They commit to a position and then defend it vigorously. Hacks never change their position, even in the face of new evidence.
Que?
I'm not surprised that a blogger who built a corporate structure then wanted to leave blogging. Long faces around a long conference table - "Andy, what does this mean?" "Well, that was a joke." "A joke?" "Yes, a joke." Pause. "Ha, ha, Well, Andy ...maybe you should ... well, jokes can go anywhere, well ... Oh of course it's your blog. Just saying.. the lawyers, Andy ... Sarah Palin, Bush yes ... disagree with progressives? bring up the pedophile rings that threaten young gays? tell jokes? Andy, Andy ..."
Damn, Rhythm and Balls seems weirdly obsessed with a married woman's vagina.
The first post with three paragraphs of humina humina humina was creepy enough but this cretin keeps coming back to the topic in post after post.
Hee--he wants to pursue other interests and spend more time with his family. The eternal cliché rationale of loser quitter failures.
The eternal cliché rationale of loser quitter failures.
And also of those who want to spend time with their family. How sad if they stayed in the place of burnout simply because they feared the estimation of smaller haters such as Smilin' Jack.
Don't paint with a broad brush, Jack. Detail brush, man, details matter.
@ Rhythm and Balls: Sullivan's a hack and a hypocrite. An elite education and erudition is no protection against ideological insanity. The Trig-trutherism is by far the most bizarre sustained campaign of misogynistic terror I can recall. And Sully's turn as "RAWMUSCLEGLUTES" has simply no match in the realm of political and sexual hypocrisy in the era of the web. Screw him. He's a bore and a hypocritical d-bag.
“It is becoming impossible to avoid the conclusion that Obama has a visceral hatred of America and its middle class which has largely (and positively) shaped its civic culture for 200+ years.”
When I first read the above line on Instapundit, I was thinking it was about ARM.
$2 X 30,000 subscribers = $60,000. Every month. Not bad, for a creep best known for Trig Trutherism. If there's one thing Sullivan excelled at, it was collecting cash for blogging. I still remember back in days when many still had dial-up connections, when he would hold fund-raising drives and collect in the neighborhood of $100,000 for things such as "server costs." Then he'd declare of of his many burn-outs and go on vacation.
The best way to protect the integrity and modesty of Sarah Palin's medical records might be to wrap a burka around them.
Or we could hide her modesty wherever Barry hid everything related to his time in college, along with Michelle's college papers....
"He'a forgotten more about economics than I'll ever know. Unfortunately he's forgotten the most important parts."
Bush? meh. But his obsession over Palin was like watching a toothless sideshow geek try to bite the head off a chicken.
If there's one thing Sullivan excelled at, it was collecting cash for blogging.
I always respected him for that.
R&B, keep digging man, keep digging.
"It must be discouraging for a megalomaniac like Sullivan to only be able to garner 30,000 paid subscribers."
I wouldn't accept a pay wall that limited me to 30,000 readers, even though that is about the number of daily readers I have. He must want far more -- numbers more like 100,000 or 200,000. That would be some comfortable money with a number of readers that wouldn't make you feel closed off. There's also the trend of readers: was the number increasing the way he wanted.
Keep in mind that he had employees who were doing a lot of the writing. That was the main reason I stopped being interested in the blog. I simply don't care what those other people had to say and I didn't like having to check to see who I was reading.
tim in vermont said...
“It is becoming impossible to avoid the conclusion that Obama has a visceral hatred of America and its middle class which has largely (and positively) shaped its civic culture for 200+ years.”
When I first read the above line on Instapundit, I was thinking it was about ARM.
As a middle class moderate, under Obama I have seen my house value increase significantly, the value of my stock portfolio more than double and the price of oil plummet while the efficiency of the cars I can buy has increased. But I do resent the health insurance for the poor and those with pre-existing conditions. Those fuckers should show some personal responsibility.
Ann Althouse said...
I wouldn't accept a pay wall that limited me to 30,000 readers, even though that is about the number of daily readers I have.
His readership was much larger than this. The paywall was almost nonexistent if you had a few computers.
It was a similar setup to NPR, where most readers were free riders.
As a middle class moderate, under Obama I have seen my house value increase significantly, the value of my stock portfolio more than double and the price of oil plummet while the efficiency of the cars I can buy has increased.
Which happened despite this administartions meddling. Capitalism is a wonderful thing.
AReasonableMan wrote:
His readership was much larger than this. The paywall was almost nonexistent if you had a few computers.
It was a similar setup to NPR, where most readers were free riders.
The free riders kill most ventures.
Ow My Balls: The British not only don't put up with bullshit; they also don't love it or commercialize it or campaign on it nearly as much as their trans-Atlantic cousins surely do.
You have a laughably rube-ish view of British politics. Granted, Question Time and parliamentary debate in general look good relative to the mind-numbingly stupid level of political "debate" in America, but somehow that doesn't translate into getting any better quality government for them, does it? As a matter of fact, for all their alleged political wisdom, they always seem to end up following the American political class down the rabbit hole.
Different countries, different emphases on intellectual inquiry, empiric truth and rational decision-making.
The Tory establishment stopped being sane British conservatives sometime in the 1960s. (There are still some around; that Sullivan had a moron neocon phase - let alone his subsequent sordid, not to say batshit, enthusiasms - is pretty good evidence that he wasn't one.)
Large numbers of the British public, to their credit, were strongly opposed to the Iraq war. Fat lot of difference it made for them. Funny how different countries, with "different emphases on intellectual inquiry, empiric truth and rational decision-making" all end up in the same place - maintaining in power exactly the same sort of ratty-ass, out-of-touch, worthless governing classes. But I guess it's some consolation that public debate and public speaking (though as circumscribed by taboo and witch-hunting as it is in the U.S., if not more so) hasn't yet been degraded to the point where a banal drone like Obama is considered a fine speaker.
As a middle class moderate, under Obama I have seen my house value increase significantly, the value of my stock portfolio more than double and the price of oil plummet while the efficiency of the cars I can buy has increased.
Give Democrats credit for the auto the efficiency, for sure.
If interest rates never rise in the future and inflation never comes, from the QE, then I will have to credit Obama for discovering some new kind of economics. When they do rise, or if inflation comes, I am sure arguments to blame it all on Republicans are at the ready and you will swallow them uncritically.
Regarding Oil? The man is in the process of closing off even more American oil from drilling and just made an anti-drilling video while sitting on a plane with a 50,000 gallon fuel tank. You want to give him credit for the drop in oil prices when he set out to raise them, just shows how dishonest you can be. To your credit, you haven't argued too strenuously that Obama deserves credit for this development.
Would 30,000 people spend $20/year to subscribe to this blog? Probably not. Its main attraction is the comments section, and the content is little more than chum for hungry little fishies. 300? Probably a much closer guess.
No doubt, the advertising + i-beg-you-to-click-through-to-Amazon model is appropriate for bloggers less ambitious than Sullivan.
Tim to make it short and sweet ARM is the guy who won a lottery and therefore thinks he is a financial wizard.
He doesn't connect the dots very well. The fed has to keep interest as low as possible otherwise the federal government and most states would implode from the debt burden. Cheap money has the side effect of boosting real-estate and the stock market. I don't recall ARM high-fiving Bush during the real-estate and stock market booms that happened during W's Administration prior to the correction. Unfortunately no matter what the fed does eventually bubbles burst and life being what it is the next bust will be after Obama leaves office.
"...prior to the correction."
Yeah. It was a "correction." Got it?
Now, about that unpleasantness on 9-11...
cubanbob said...
I don't recall ARM high-fiving Bush during the real-estate and stock market booms that happened during W's Administration prior to the correction.
The largest financial collapse since the Great Depression, was just a 'correction'. A little ole' correction. Nothing to see here folks.
"Sullivan was my dad's favorite back in Sullivan's first couple years."
Sullivan was my favorite too.
And soon after September 11, Sullivan was the first writer I found who perceived and wrote clearly
about what America and her allies faced:
Following Locke, the founders established as a central element of the new American order a stark separation of church and state, ensuring that no single religion could use political means to enforce its own orthodoxies. We cite this as a platitude today without absorbing or even realizing its radical nature in human history -- and the deep human predicament it was designed to solve. It was an attempt to answer the eternal human question of how to pursue the goal of religious salvation for ourselves and others and yet also maintain civil peace. What the founders and Locke were saying was that the ultimate claims of religion should simply not be allowed to interfere with political and religious freedom. They did this to preserve peace above all -- but also to preserve true religion itself.
I'll always be grateful to him for that.
The largest financial collapse since the Great Depression, was just a 'correction'. A little ole' correction. Nothing to see here folks.
The democrats were in charge of the purse strings.
The largest financial collapse since the Great Depression, was just a 'correction'. A little ole' correction. Nothing to see here folks.
Well as long as near zero interest rates last forever, we can safely say that Obama's economy will never face a correction, no sirree!
ARM,
I would be very interested in your view of whether cheap money can last forever, and if it doesn't, will there be a correction of the Obama "boom"?
You dodge this question time and again.
It's always good to watch the hopelessly opinionated endlessly assert without evidence.
But I guess it's some consolation that public debate and public speaking (though as circumscribed by taboo and witch-hunting as it is in the U.S., if not more so) hasn't yet been degraded to the point where a banal drone like Obama is considered a fine speaker.
Not every American is stupid and ignorant enough to have that opinion. Watch this speech and try to come up with your own link to something better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp85zRg2cwg
Meade, I also remember Sullivan being quite the stalwart, post 911. That's why its so strange how much he changed in 2004.
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