Pay the Piper

Look, I can understand not wanting to take one's medicine. People have a tendency, when they feel optimistic, to shoot their mouths off and then, later when reality bites deep and hard, to pretend they aren't the same partisans they once were.

Enter Andrew Sullivan, a man I've never particularly cared for--perhaps it's his forced air of aloofness when beneath the skin I think he's really more than a little in love with the militarism and hints of fascism in the Republican project of the past three decades. Maybe it's just that he uses his phoney distant persona to avoid taking his lumps. Sullivan, as much as any "intelligent" conservative (sorry, "moderate"), was a willing rider on the Bush express 8 years ago, but now he's so very, very disappointed that he simply must set the record straight about how misled he was. It's not that we should doubt his intelligence or sincerity, or re-examine the respect we afford him despite his failing judgment; no, we must understand how bad wrong the GOP plans went, not because they were bad plans (cue Hitchens) but because they were botched by one or two unsuitable and unfortunate appointees.

So, now Sullivan spends his time attacking the one symbol of liberalism that most Americans somehow still accept as an excuse for conservatives' intellectual, moral, and real failure: the Clintons.

I'm not going to link to his shitty, shitty columns in the Atlantic (.com!). But the quick read on the last week or so is that Sullivan just luuuurves himself some Obama and hates hates hates (as only gay men can...he is gay, right? He looked gay on Colbert) Hillary Clinton because she's a bitter and faded "Pied Piper" who senses that her prospects have diminished and she's on the cusp of irrelevancy (and that's why she's so uppity and "crazy" and, to Sullivan, who must be watching a different horse race, "desperate"). Up come all the leftover resentments for the 1990s Clintons, the visceral, intangible discomforts and qualms and things Sullivan can't put his finger on because they're just so, you know, like total or whatever.

I know why I hate George Bush. He's a lying, sociopathic idiot, and I have mountains of evidence to support my view. Real stuff, like his actual words, and deeds, and the consequences. Sullivan's hatred of Hillary Clinton begins and ends with, "yeah, everything in America was just fine, but I don't LIKE her, OK? Now agree with me!"

He wants every Democrat to embrace Obama instead of Hillary. Now, why would he want that? Maybe he really, really thinks Obama is the answer--the shining avatar for the "moderate" agenda he secretly pushes when he's not, you know, pushing George Bush as a cool experiment in government. Or maybe he thinks a black man is the least likely Democrat to get elected. Very sneaky.

Or, possibly, like Mike has been saying, Obama's message of unity, hope, and togetherness resonates with weak water GOP-ers who fear a Clinton presidency as condemned men fear the gallows. Maybe Obama really speaks to Republicans and erstwhile Bush faithful who think he's offering a pardon and a seat at the table.

In which case, double fuck that.