TIME’s “People Who Mattered” include Jon & Kate, the “Twilight” actors, Adam Lambert, Taylor Swift. What, no Balloon Boy & Party Crashers?!?
TIME’s “People Who Mattered” include Jon & Kate, the “Twilight” actors, Adam Lambert, Taylor Swift. What, no Balloon Boy & Party Crashers?!?
No Salahis? Man, what is this world coming to, when obivious frauds who bluffed their way into a state dinner can’t even get into Time’s People who Mattered?
Time magazine has steadily worked to vent intellectual credibility. They’re trying to be more like “People Weekly” and less like… a serious magazine.
I can’t think of any remaining serious news magazines.
New Republic? maybe.
Now I’m sad.
The Atlantic?
[insert mandatory Joe Mama comment here: OMG ANDREW SULLIVAN SARAH PALIN TRIG BLAH BLAH BLAH]
Speaking of Adam Lambert– Whatever happened to the guy who actually won American Idol this year? And what about Russel from Survivor:Somoa, he matters to me. And the American treasure Joy Behar.
[insert mandatory Joe Mama comment here: OMG ANDREW SULLIVAN SARAH PALIN TRIG BLAH BLAH BLAH]
I think you meant Jazz.
Anyhoo….The Atlantic is definitely worth reading, particularly Megan McArdle, Clive Crook, Jeffrey Goldberg….pretty much everyone except their wannabe Head of Obstetrics.
The New Republic just dropped half their staff.
The Atlantic and the Economist are serious news mags, but who knows how much longer they are for this world. Not a good time out there for journalism.
Regardless of what one thinks of Trig-gate (and Jazz’s comments on that issue are certainly interesting, although my general reaction to the whole thing is, “Even if there is something ‘fishy’ about the official account… who cares?!? There are far, far more important points to be made about, and against, Sarah Palin, and obsessing about Trig creates a massive and easy-to-attack distraction from those vastly more serious issues”), the fact remains that Andrew Sullivan is, at least 95 percent of the time, manifestly “worth reading,” and those who fail to recognize this fact — to borrow a phrase — beclown themselves.
The Twilight actors? Jon and Kate?! Adam Lambert?!?! None of those people mattered. Hell the twilight actors could have been replaced by cardboard cut outs and there would have been about as much skill involved. Jon and Kate only mattered because the media MADE them matter, and Adam Lambert is just some dude who likes to sing while rubbing his crotch in a dudes face. In a few years time most of them will have drifted off to obscurity.
As someone who regularly read Sullivan circa 2000-2004 and has lamented his distinctly downward spiral since then on a wide array of topics, if I am “beclowning” myself then so be it.
The quality of Sullivan’s writing, thinking and analysis hasn’t gone on a “downward spiral” since 2000-2004. He just doesn’t agree with you as often. Applying the values and opinions he’s always held, through the analytical framework he’s always used, to the new facts and circumstances surrounding him, he has reached different conclusions than in the past, which you don’t like. This does not mean Sullivan has declined in some way. Rather, it suggests the reason you liked Sullivan in the first place wasn’t so much because of the quality of his reasoning and argumentation and analysis, but simply because he agreed with you.
Peggy Noonan sometimes says things I agree with. She sometimes says things I disagree with. She sometimes says things that make me uncomfortable, but that make me think and re-assess my preconceived notions. Regardless, I have to take her seriously, because I respect her as a commentator and a thinker and an observer of the world we live in. If she says something I don’t like, I don’t say, “Well, Noonan has clearly changed. She’s an idiot now.” That’s way too easy. It’s a cop-out. Yet that’s precisely what the Right has done, en masse, with regard to Sullivan. (Admittedly, he made it even easier, unnecessarily so, with his perhaps-marginally-justifiable-but-still-unwise Trig obsession.)
You’re saying he’s no longer worth listening to. I say bullshit. If he’s not worth listening to now, then he was never worth listening to. He’s the same guy. He’s got the same brain. He hasn’t magically changed. The world around him has, and he calls it like he sees it. Just because his vision is different than yours, is no reason to dismiss him as worthless. Certainly he’s wrong about some things, sometimes, as we all are — but he hasn’t gone from genius to dumbass in five years flat.
[Insert retort about me and Lieberman. Ahem. But I think I can tangibly identify how Lieberman has indeed declined. I don’t think you can do that with regard to Sullivan, outside of Trig-gate, and even on that issue, you aren’t really engaging the substance of it, you’re just sort of sneering at something unseemly.]
Andrew Sullivan is proof positive of what keeping an open mind can do for oneself. Obviously, I detested Sullivan during the earlier part of this decade and his original opinions of W and the wars in the Middle East, but I admire the fact that he did not remain steadfast in his defense of that opinion like so many other spokesholes like Larry Elder, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, et al. It gives me renewed hope in all pundits across the country.
With regards to his Trig Palin theory. Does that rise to the level of conspiracy theory? Seems like it. After reading his belief about Trig’s origins, on this very blog, I have to say I’m sold. But really who cares, Palin’s usefulness will expire after the next election when she runs 3rd party and takes the moron majority away from the Evil Republican and therefore guarantees an easy Obama 2nd term.
My, uh, ears were burning. Oh, and, re: Trig birth theories – what Sandy said, when he said who cares. Even though it doesn’t matter at all, I care because I can’t look away. If you’re ever in a one-hour traffic jam on the highway because of an ambiguous accident on the other side, there’s a fair chance the queue’s my fault. Full disclosure…
The interesting thing about Sullivan and the Trig birth story, as I have fruitlessly pointed out here several times, is that no one ever says that they believe that the reported facts of the Trig birth story (specifically, that anyone, much less a sitting governor, could give birth to a child without forewarning a soul outside their immediate family). No believes that a governor gave birth to a child in secret. By implication, everyone believes that something like the Sullivan conspiracy (real mother = Palin’s sister, Palin’s silence an indication of a fairly clever “real option” given the difficulty of pulling the thing off) more than the true story.
But, predictably, the Fox News Right calls him names like Wannabe Head of Obstretics, which dig is sort of supposed to make you think that Sullivan is nuts without getting to the substance of what Sullivan believes, which is less nuts than what Joe Mama believes.
The Fox News Right is sort of what would happen to a political ideology if Nelson from the Simpsons took over a political movement.
Shoot! Meant to say “reported story”, not “true story” at the end of the first paragraph. And forgot to make one of my main points: Sullivan persists in applying a historic standard of journalism (ask questions about stuff that doesn’t make sense) which got him very far, at a very young age, at around the same time that Sean Hannity was repairing dishwashers in upstate New York, sans the pouffy hair or access to “great Amurricans!”
Sullivan has pointed out repeatedly that in the Hannity era it is far less important to get to the bottom of weird fact patterns than to be a cool guy in the right clique, resorting to insidery digs like “Wannabe Head of Obstetrics” where an earlier generation might have persisted with questions until they got answers.
Sullivan knows all this and yet can’t stop himself, so in a way, he deserves all the pain he receives in re Palin.
Beyond my own lame penchant for rubbernecking, the most fascinating aspect of the Trig birth story is how clearly it reveals the depraved, cliquey, content-free nature of the Fox News Right, which is so depressing to this RINO. This is true because the “official” birth story says so many bad things about Palin, things that are easily reconciled in the Sullivan version, yet the dittohead sheeple continue to believe the “reported” story is true – and, *sigh*, that Palin is competent.
Just one example: Palin informed none of her staffers that she was pregnant. Assuming the Sullivan theory is true, this makes sense, as she can’t know until the last minute whether she will be Trig’s “mom”, or Trig’s aunt (and possibly adoptive mother). She can’t know because even in a small town like Wasilla, Down Syndrome births are complicated enough to make it difficult to keep things under wraps. So, if Sullivan is right, it makes sense that Palin would keep the whole thing under wraps.
If Joe Mama is right, and the story is true as reported, then that means that Governor Sarah Palin, middle-aged soon-to-be-Grandma, made the brave, minority, evangelical-friendly choice to carry a Down Syndrome child to term, a fact pattern that quite likely would be the biggest story in Alaska in ages, and yet she gave none of her staffers the heads-up, you know, in case the media wanted a quote about this highly interesting story.
For message control incompetence alone, the reported Trig birth story makes Sarah Palin the single most shockingly unqualified Presidential candidate, possibly in history. Maybe the reason this doesn’t bother the Foxy Newsy Dittoheads is because they think the media really is mean, and someone like a President Palin shouldn’t be expected to have to manage her message, even if it is on something, you know, really significant happening in her life.
[Insert retort about me and Lieberman. Ahem. But I think I can tangibly identify how Lieberman has indeed declined. I don’t think you can do that with regard to Sullivan, outside of Trig-gate, and even on that issue, you aren’t really engaging the substance of it, you’re just sort of sneering at something unseemly.]
LOL….I’ve commented numerous times on the merits of Sullivan’s decline apart from the dopey and unjustifiable Trig-gate nonsense (which I don’t engage the substance of because I have NO FRIGGIN’ BUSINESS WHATSOEVER offering medical opinions or diagnosing a woman’s pregnancy forensically at all, let alone based on second- and third-hand information). How could you have missed this? You certainly have no business speculating on the reasons I used to enjoy reading Sullivan but now find him not worth reading when you don’t even know what my criticisms of him are. You’re also way off base in saying that I think he’s just an “idiot” or a “dumbass.” I’ve never said that. I think he’s a joke because his polemics have become unserious and increasingly unbalanced, but I’ve never said he was stupid (at least not that I recall). On the contrary, I’ve always thought his writing is articulate — albeit misguided — and have said as much.
Joe Mama, the suggestion that Sullivan (and, uh, me) is engaging in medical diagnosis, misses the point, but perhaps its a clever way to avoid saying what is so obvious, and that is that Sullivan’s theory quite simply fits the facts better than the public story, unless you are willing to disavow Palin’s sanity, in which case (you, I suppose), might be at risk of a devastating blow from Rush Limbaugh (as Simon from Lord of the Flies)’s conch shell.
Seriously, we don’t need to be OBs to understand that Palin, post-starbursts, and with Presidential aspirations, was a fucking moron not to tell her fellow Republican governors that she was leaving early to go give birth to a Down Syndrome child (and thus jumping the queue in securing evangelical support), assuming the truth is as reported, which you believe. If the truth is as Sullivan/Jazz believe, her actions – as always – make sense, because she can’t know if the plot will work until the last minute. For fun, here’s a list of Republican governors from Red or Purple states, whose support would be essential to a Palin presidential run, and who might not appreciate being blindsided by the media regarding the very newsworthy reason the sexy governor from Alaska had for leaving the Republican governor’s conference early:
Arnold Schwartzenegger – California
Jodi Rell – Connecticut
Charlie Crist – Florida
Linda Lingle – Hawaii
Mitch Daniels – Indiana
Tim Pawlenty – Minnesota
Jim Gibbons – Nevada
Don Carcieri – Rhode Island
Jim Douglas – Vermont
Fucking. stupid. if the published story is true. You don’t need to be an OB to realize that. But rational if Sullivan’s version is true.
On a friendlier note, Joe Mama, after we disagreed about Andrew Sullivan last week, I started paying more attention to things I dislike about the guy, and my view of him has dimmed somewhat. My take is that the particular problem with Sullivan is that, having staked out a fairly unique RINO spot on the landscape, Sullivan sees it as his duty to poke his finger in the eye of the cliquey Republican mainstream, which frankly is a bit assholish.
And the assholishness is magnified by the fact that there is no countervailing voice, with no opportunity for comments. I enjoy going on McArdle or Coates’ blog, after either one has made a particularly strident post, and the true believers echo it, and then you make the opposing point, only to find there are a lot of others who feel like you. No opportunity for that on Sullivan’s blog, which in this highly emotionally-charged era, kind of sucks.
Case in point: Ann Althouse. Sullivan and Althouse hate each other, which is obvious reading either blog. Sullivan is pissed because Althouse’s commenters are excessively malicious, about which Althouse does nothing, but Sullivan was shitty about Althouse’s marriage (for which he, in fairness, apologized).
Point is, as a non-partisan RINO, I am not much interested in reading Althouse’s blog. This means though, as a reader of the Dish, I’m going to get ‘Althouse according to Sullivan’, which I don’t much want either, to be honest. If I were super-partisan, Fox News partisan, Ann Althouse partisan, I could see myself really hating Sullivan.
On Sullivan and Trig, it wasn’t so much the theory that caused us to think Sullivan had gone looney; it was his obsession with the theory. Remember when he checked out for a few days, just posting that link to the Desperate Houswives youtube video where the one mom was faking a pregnancy to cover for her daughter and got stabbed in her fake belly? Sullivan went a little nuts while covering that story, and you all know it. Frankly, I agree that the whole thing official Trig birth story sounded fishy. But that is no excuse for him to go stark raving mad and expect us to continue treating him as a respected journalist.
One other thing about the Trig birth conspiracy that separates me from Andrew Sullivan – for him, its evidence of Palin’s madness, for me its a source of admiration. I’m so Jekyll-and-Hyde in re Palin, in that I agree with most of what someone like Brendan says about her unfitness for high office, but I also have a profound admiration for the woman’s brio.
I bet a lot of you think, re Trig and the “Real-option-to-take-my-sister’s-kid,-if-it-works” proposal, that while the alleged conspiracy fits the fact patterrn better than the reported story, and it would certainly be preferable for Palin to “have” the Down Syndrome kid (in the eyes of the evangelicals) than the obviously-pandering choice to adopt it, still the conspiracy requires so much chutzpah, for so many reasons (leaving the staffers, fellow governors, airlines, etc, out in the cold), that you simply can’t believe anyone would try. And that’s the difference between you and Palin.
If you’re like me, you’ve found the website TMZ.com indispensable in the developing Tiger Woods story. And you probably noticed yesterday, amidst the Tiger clips, photos of the Palin family vacationing in Hawaii, with Palin (allegedly) wearing a hat with McCain’s name inked out. And you probably thought, well surely that is doctored, surely Palin didn’t wear such a thing in public, I mean we know about the allegations of cat fights in the campaign. Without knowing if the photos are real, again, that’s the difference between you and Palin. You fear things that she doesn’t.
And finally, suppose you and I were sitting in the Anchorage Public Library in the Spring of 1996, and a futurist walked by, explaining that just three short Presidential election cycles from this one, ostensibly the most coveted Vice-Presidential slot in history would open up, on a major ticket next to an ancient, multiple-cancer survivor (whose mid-term death would extend one’s time to be President), running against….a black guy…and then you picked up that day’s Anchorage Daily News, and read this article, and the futurist said that most coveted-ever VP candidacy would go to the “lady who smells like salmon for a large part of the summer”, would you have nodded in agreement? Probably the same way you nod in “agreement” when a crazy person is ranting insanely.
My wife and I talk from time to time about what passes for role modelling for our small daughters. We haven’t specifically spoken of this, but the lady who dared to go from smelling like salmon all summer to VP candidate on a major ticket embodies many traits that we would love our daughters to embrace. Think Palin wouldn’t have dared to keep the switcheroo option open regarding Trig’s birth? You’re trying to contain her in much too small a box, it seems to me…
As long as I am just rambling here, the under-reported fabulousness of Palin’s twelve year journey from “salmon-smelling” to Republican VP candidate is yet another reason why, even if I found a party that exactly represented every one of my ideological positions, I’d still reject partisanship on principle.
Because Palin’s strange and wonderful journey is equal parts awe-inspiring (from Palin’s perspective) and cringeworthy (from the powers-that-be perspective). For the ideologue, implicitly trusting the powers that be, it is not possible that said powers may have shown poor judgment in the Palin case, which leads one to the conclusion that there is nothing at all unusual about Kristol’s starbursts and the strangling of dissent on the right, salmon-smelly to the Presidency is just about an everyday occurence…and out with the bathwater of poor judgment from the powers-that-be is thrown the beautiful baby of what a magnificent accomplishment Palin’s political career really is.
After reading this thread, I’m convinced Sarah Palin should have been named Time’s Person of the Year. Not just because of Jazz’ seeming obsession over her, but America’s obsession over her. There are millions of Americans who love Sarah Palin and want her to run for President and think she’s intelligent and charismatic and would make a better leader than Obama. Then there’s millions of other Americans (like me) who can’t stop following Palin stories because they can’t believe there are millions of Americans who love Sarah Palin and want her to run for president.
No matter how preposterous her stances are, or how incoherent and irrational and illogical her retirement speeches are, the people who agree with her never dismiss her. After falling short in the election the media continued to give her a stage to voice her thoughts, then she retired from being the governor of Alaska after about 18 months because she didn’t want her family in the public eye, so she wrote a book and went on a publicity junket with her family, her oldest daughter became the spokesperson for abstinence while toting her illegitimate bastard 1 year old around with her, and just yesterday Sarah Palin said at the present time she still has more executive experience than Barack Obama.
How is she not the most fascinating person of the year? At least someone needs to say that Sarah Palin had the Best Year Ever.
…And what other serious political figure could have a public fued with their daughter’s 18 year old baby-daddy (who’s mom is in jail on drug charges) who flung insults her way via Tyra Banks daytime trash show and from the pages of his nude spread in Playgirl magazine, with Palin returning trash talk about him from her Facebook page.
I don’t know if she wants to be a political figure or get a role on “Gossip Girl”.
Among other fascinating traits, Palin’s preternatural fearlessness (she really was wearing that anti-McCain visor on a public beach with her family) stands in stark contrast with the current President, who has somehow managed to alienate favorably disposed moderates such as dcl with his disastrous, arguably spineless mismanagement of the health reform process.
For me, Palin v. Obama is an overwhelming win for Obama on every trait I care about, such as intelligence, intellectual curiosity, public speaking, gravitas, etc. Every trait except one: fearlessness. As the health reform process sputters and wheezes to the finish line, I’m thinking I may value fearlessness more than the rest.
Maybe its not just Steve Schmidt who mishandled Palin. Maybe the whole Foxy machine doesn’t know how to position her, attempting to cram down Kathleen Parker’s gullet the notion that Palin is smarter, more curious, more adept than any reasonable person believes she is. When Palin is caught wearing a visor with McCain’s name blotted out, maybe the appropriate response from her handlers is, “Yeah, she was wearing a hat with McCain’s name blotted out….what’s it to ya?” And the handler in question would be named Vinny, but everyone would call him Sluggo.
Its pretty unfashionable to promote or campaign on fearlessness, but I suspect that Joe Average may really respect that sort of thing, especially in an era of hyper-political correctness and public figures who are all so excessively overmanaged.