Most Annoying Left-Of-Center BloggerActually, if I were Andrew Sullivan, I'd be damned pleased with that.
2) Unclaimed Territory/Glenn Greenwald (6)
2) Andrew Sullivan (6)
1) Daily Kos/Kos (18)
Most Annoying Right-Of-Center Blogger
3) Michelle Malkin (3)
2) Stop the ACLU4)
1) Andrew Sullivan (11)
December 11, 2006
Annoying... is that a bad thing?
John Hawkins has the "5th Annual Warblogger Awards." I'm just going to highlight my favorite part:
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But one suspects that Sullivan will be screeching:
"See? See?"
the posted linked failed for me
Edward:
Do you actually read Sullivan?
Knowing how to disagree with someone while respecting them as people
Sullivan usually doesn't even respect people enough to read the works he's attacking!
I almost never see his critics refer to his homosexuality in a negative sense, but he is trying to claim credit for coining a term to refer to people's religious beliefs in a negative light.
And if you are at all familiar with Sullivan it is entirely appropriate to refer to much of his writing as "screeching", if not his verbalizations.
Writing as one of the people who voted him Most Annoying Left-Of-Center Blogger with the express, humorous(?) intention of calling him "left-of-center," I don't think he should be too quick to feel pleased.
I would imagine that the other five people who voted for him in the left category are also well-aware that he's generally classified as a right-of-center blogger.
I agree with Ann - Sullivan must be pleased. Any publicity is good publicity and it gives him yet another opportunity to flog his pitifully over-wrought book.
"And none of this deserves to be characterized as “screeching."
Edward, you must not be a regular reader of Sullivan's site. If you were, "screeching" is the least of the perjoratives you'd use to describe the shrill, peevish tone of Sullivan's writing.
I used to be a regular Sullivan reader until both the incoherence and the decibel level reached their present heights.
Re: Edward:
His tendency to relate today’s issues to political first principles may seem like gross exaggeration at times, but it’s really a sign of his intellectual depth.
Political first principles? I haven't read him regularly for the past few years, but I thought his new thing was the so-called "conservatism of doubt," rejecting complex intellectual constructs reasoned from abstract first principles, in favour of more skeptical, pragmatic, and concrete solutions. Not that I would claim I've seen any evidence of that in the arguments of his I've read -- he seems as much taken with the grandiose and the sweeping as he ever was. But, at least rhetorically, that's what I thought he was advocating.
Edward:
Internet ronin: Have you actually read Sullivan’s book “The Conservative Soul”?
Unfortunately, yes. A forwarded copy. I would never pay for one.
If so, could you tell me which sections you find “pitifully overwrought”?
From beginning to end.
I’m asking this question with the utmost sincerity. I haven’t read the book. I know Sullivan’s latest opinions only from reading his blog every day.
I'm sure that you are sincere. I do not, however, recommend the book.
I’d be interested in having a dialogue with someone who’s actually read “The Conservative Soul”, even if that person disagrees with it.
I'm sorry, but I am not. With regard to Andrew Sullivan, I earnestly believe that the best policy is silence, or failing that, ridicule.
one problem I have with the term "Christianist" is that is tries to argue Sullivan is merely criticizing the recent politicization of religion.
In doing this it entirely avoids the centuries long conversation about politics and Christian involvement. It seeks to describe something as new that isn't new, except for the particular issues at hand.
The very word "Evangelical" is a lot more appropriate as it describes fundamentalists who sought more intellectual, cultural, and political involvement.
But using that word would be to direct, not allow a slippery form of arguing that makes the user of a new word always, and only, able to define the word as he sees fit. It also would mean that politics and religion are nothing new at all, that as citizens even Christians have a right to choose issues and vote in similar patterns, and have done so whenever they are giving such a right.
It is an attempt to define for oneself the "right" form of a religion by using newly formed categories and is merely a not-so-subtle attempt to hold onto a religion that happens to disagree with presently held opinions.
He's trying to reshape the religion and the history rather than let that history and religion shape his views. That he does this for many topics besides religion is a big reason why he's disliked.
My alma mater was formed on two principles -- a strong conservative Christianity and an absolute passion for the overthrow of slavery in this country. The first president saw abolition by whatever means were available as his primary Christian mission.
He was, according to Sullivan's definition, a Christianist I suppose -- but I would guess a fight against slavery wouldn't get this label as does a fight against, well, whatever topic Sullivan thinks is most important now.
Paddy: If you dare to disagree with the man, you are by definition a "Christianist." (You could be a practicing Orthodox Jew but that's a minor niggling and unimportant detail. Distortion and intentional misrepresentation has become his stock-in-trade.)
"Perhaps I found it tiresome because it wasn't my issue"
Christy, it's just as boring if you're gay and it is your issue. All gay marriage, all the time -- and judging every other issue solely on its impact on gay marriage -- would be tedious and shrill to any reader.
would be tedious and shrill to any reader.
Unless it is their one and only issue, their reason for being as it were ;-)
And with that crack my play-time ends.
the entire government in the name of one narrow interpretation of religion is unprecedented in American history.
I don't know -- I kind of grew up under the impression that the American colonies were founded primarily by bankrupts, criminals, and religious fanatics. Pilgrims and Puritans and suchlike. Wasn't Rhode Island founded as a result of some sort of obscure doctrinal schism in Massachusetts? Certainly not unprecedented in American history.
Well, unless you take the narrow view of things, and restrict "American history" to history post-1776 (or post-1789). And even then, although I am not an historian, my sense is that the claim is a bit of an ahistorical stretch, given the religious zeal underpinning the abolitionist movement.
Sullivan doesn't "screech" about anything.
Wow. I tried to imagine a sentence that was more fundamentally wrong and easily disproved. I tried "The sky is a blend of fuschia and that off-brown color I left in the little boy's room this morning." Then I came up with "George W. Bush is the greatest President America has ever had."
Lastly, my brain coughed up "Microsoft Windows 95 was the most stable, useful and powerful operating system in the history of computing."
None of them compare to the disturbingly sycophantic sentence you came up with, or, what is clearly worse, the dozens of paragraphs you wrote to further defend the undefendable.
These personal attacks usually amount to homophobia disguised to varying degrees.
You know, the more I look at this the more it disgusts me.
You should be shamed of yourself to classify people who can't stand Sullivan's hysterical, screech-filled nonsense anymore as homophobic.
Interestingly, no one here is using Sullivan's sexuality as an argument at all...except you. The complaints here are perfectly valid and are about the tone and repetitiveness of his content over the last 2.5 years. He could be a straight man, a purple woman or a friggin Martian with three sexes, and if he posted non-stop about gay marriage and abu ghraib - and labeled all those who disagree with him on *any* issue as homophobes as you have - the complaints would still be valid.
"Ann Althouse also blogs frequently on gay issues. Why don’t you take offense when she does it?"
Because that's not the only thing Ann's interested in. Edward, it's like hanging out in a gay bar -- as we both know, it can be highly stimulating on occasion, but if you had to be there 24/7, you'd long for the exit.
Methinks Internet Ronin has indeed NOT read Andrew Sullivan's book
Kind of like how Sullivan condemned "Party of Death" without reading it?
Methinks Internet Ronin has indeed NOT read Andrew Sullivan's book
You'd be wrong. Very wrong, indeed. Not for the first time, I'm sure, nor the last.
So, Internet Ronin, you'd never buy anything written by AS, and you found The Conservative Soul overwrought from the very beginning--so why the hell did you read all of it? Why do you spend valuable time reading books you find poor and unworthy of detailed discussion by writers you dislike?
Not that it is any business of yours, Jarz, but the answer to your question is that my well-intentioned brother purchased the book to give to me to read while caring for my parents, one of whom left the hospital on Thanksgiving, and the other who, until recently his primary caregiver, lies paralyzed in the hospital.
As I spent many hours sitting in emergency rooms on three separate occasions within a single week, and countless hours at both bedsides depending on the time of day, I trudged through Sullivan's purple prose because it was important to my brother for private reasons that I have not and will not discussed here or elsewhere, unlike my parent's condition.
I do appreciate your concern that I would willingly waste time reading such twaddle, however. I don't make a habit of it, but have done it on occasion for various reasons, just as I occasionally answer impertinent queries by those who have no genuine interest in a reply.
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