"See, what Andrew Sullivan is trying to say is that Liberals were right all along."

[phantom power]

What Mr. Sullivan has never come to terms with -- and will never come to terms with -- is the clear, damning and irrefutable lineage of American Conservatism. The fact that the eggs which Reagan's Conservatism and Nixon's Southern Strategy laid in our body politic hatched, and all beasts that are now stalking the land and freaking out poor, academic, Beltway True Conservative fops like Mr. Sullivan are the result.

And the reason those beasts survived to adulthood is because, all along the way, people like Sullivan nursed them. Helped them find their legs. Gave them intellectual cover as they grew to monstrous maturity. And assisted them in building an impregnable Reality Denial grid fueled by hippie punching.

And now he is shocked and horrified that what Liberals have warned him about all along has turned out to be true.

I really don't care about Andrew Sullivan's deep thoughts on the constellation of subjects -- free markets, tax reform, race, affirmative action, abortion -- about which he clearly knows little or nothing.

And there exists no subatomic level of fuck small enough to encompass how little I care about all the many exciting ways Mr. Sullivan fancies up his Pineapple Ice Cream Conservatism by festooning it with hyphenates. It's a free country and he can call himself a fiscal-conservative-radical-libertarian-traditionalist-gay-Catholic or a monadist-phlogiston-Spiralist-bivalve-Raëlian for all I care/ But no amount of tap dancing and garment rending is going to distract me from the plain, home truth that Liberals have been right from the start about everything, especially the barbaric nihilism at the core of American Conservatism.

See, what Andrew Sullivan is trying to say is that Liberals were right all along.

But don't count on him owning up to that anytime soon...

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2014/07/what-andrew-sullivan-is-trying-to-say.html

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. This I can happily rec. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

2. His verbal attacks upon those who demonstrated against the Iraq War should never be forgotten

He was venomous, McCarthyist, accusatory, and totally wrong about everything. He questioned the very loyalty of anyone who opposed that war crime.

[deurbano]

6. Being spectacularly wrong about everything was bad enough, but

his attacks on those who opposed the war put him in a whole other category.

[Joe Bacon]

11. That's why I refer to that fool as "SILLYVAN".

Remember how that liar torpedoed Hillary's health care reform?

Thanks to that liar, my parents lost their home due to doctor bills.

[Jeff Murdoch]

14. That seems to be amazingly common among conservatives.

[roguevalley]

3. at heart he is self loathing so all else is too. now sully hates them? now?

I love this thread. It saws it all

[closeupready]

10. +5000.

[vanlassie]

4. He " loves the Latin mass AND intends to go to Burning Man next month"

Isn't he just SO zany??

[YOHABLO]

25. Burning Man? Maybe he'll take a couple hits of acid and get with the program.

[Half-Century Man]

36. You're giving his excess credit on Burning Man.

He thinks we actually burn people there. He's going so he can research our methods to use as capital punishment.

[Enthusiast]

49. "He thinks we actually burn people there."

[Hekate]

5. That is choice. What the author said so wittily & conclusively about modern American Conservatism...

....is something I've been trying to say for many years now myself, only not quite so well.

The GOP is now split and in trouble? The GOP feels pain and now embarrassment at the Tea Partiers? Well the GOP invited that hell-spawn in and nurtured them, and now we all have to suffer the consequences.

The fact that the eggs which Reagan's Conservatism and Nixon's Southern Strategy laid in our body politic hatched, and all beasts that are now stalking the land and freaking out poor, academic, Beltway True Conservative fops like Mr. Sullivan are the result.

And the reason those beasts survived to adulthood is because, all along the way, people like Sullivan nursed them. Helped them find their legs. Gave them intellectual cover as they grew to monstrous maturity. And assisted them in building an impregnable Reality Denial grid fueled by hippie punching.

And now he is shocked and horrified...

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

32. You said it...

... but you beat me to it. I have pointed that out, since adulthood/education and Reagan.

[calimary]

41. Yep. The eternal dilemma of Dr. Frankenstein and his creation-from-Hell.

Gee, ya think???? OF COURSE liberals have been right all along! Look at the record. All the good stuff our nation has accomplished - the TRULY good stuff, that elevates us and moves us farther forward traces back to liberalism. All the best and most workable and most realistic ideas, the sensible and wise protections, for the security and sustenance of the greater good - traces back to us liberals. "Liberal" is NOT a dirty word, NEVER has been, and I think we need to actively and aggressively re-embrace and reassert it, and rehabilitate it after the shit-smear job the CONS have done on the whole concept and definition of liberalism over the past thirty-five years or so! I always like revisiting this little gem:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/21/1093478/-A-Day-in-the-Life-of-Joe-Republican

And that's just one aspect. We liberals were just as spot-on regarding the war in Iraq, and all the issues that really matter. OUR priorities would seem to reflect the teachings of Our Lord and all the other monumental spiritual leaders - that whole "least of My brethren" thing - than anything the greedy, hard-hearted, selfish, closed-minded CONservative column has come up with.

Indeed, ya think???? Seriously??? You're horrified, 'eh, Andrew? You couldn't have seen this coming? The rest of us over here on the left certainly did. And we're calling it correctly on all things teabagger, too. YOU crawled into bed with this CON-job, Andrew dear, and NOW it gets to FUCK you. Never anticipated that it'd be YOU reaching for the Maalox bottle every morning before you even get up outta bed.

[Laelth]

7. k&r for the truth. n/t

-Laelth

[dhill926]

8. cannot K and R this enough….

"And there exists no subatomic level of fuck small enough to encompass how little I care about all the many exciting ways Mr. Sullivan fancies up his Pineapple Ice Cream Conservatism by festooning it with hyphenates"

now that is some seriously good word-smithing right there….

[Enthusiast]

17. "subatomic level of fuck"

[Hekate]

43. Loved that, too!

Zowie, the burn!

[closeupready]

9. K&R - twice correct - Sullivan's irrelevant, and Liberals have always been right.

Pains me to no end to see other DU members post his, "oh, wow, I had an epiphany!" periodically.

[AgingAmerican]

12. What I don't understand

Is that in a time where American Conservatism repulses and drives folks away, why does the Third Way® embrace it?

[AlbertCat]

13. why does the Third Way® embrace it?

Kah-ching Kah-ching

[progressoid]

15. aaayup. $$$$

And, I think some of them actually believe the corporate third way is good.

[sendero]

45. As DJ Shadow said in..

... "why hip hop sucks in '96" - It's The Money.

[JHB]

34. Because they both hate progressive taxation.

Under Reagan all income tax progressivity for very high incomes was wiped out, and the neoliberal "pro-business"/DLC/Third Way wing (and the wealthy donors who support them) have had very little interest in restoring it.

It's not even a matter of rates. It's the distribution:

[vkkv]

16. Conservatives have been mostly WRONG coming around EVERY corner of history.

Conservatives have been mostly WRONG coming around EVERY corner of history.

I'll name one really easy one. Gay Marriage, okay another, minorities voting, okay another, women voting, okay another: Republicans fought against Dems in joining WWII until Pearl Harbor was struck (kinda like BushCo's unpreparedness for 911), okay, three more, the Roman, Spanish and French Inquisitions, more? The Civil War ( Repubs were the Big Gov liberals and the Dems were the conservative state's rights party in the 1800's until the Whig Party collapsed around 1900) More? Renewable energy, the environment. The Earth is round and not the center of the Universe by the way.. oh and it's not flat. Invading Iraq when Saddam was going to walk out before the bombs fell anyway? And how about our absurd military budget, It's killing our development as a future leader on this planet. Time will show again and again how conservatives just can't get over their ideology to make the correct social, environmental and economic long-term decisions.


The time-honored right-wing motto: "Frequently wrong, never in doubt."

[jmowreader]

29. I'm going to give you a small challenge

Please explain when conservatives have ever been right about anything when they were taking the opposite side of an issue from the liberals. Five will get you ten you can't do it, because conservatives have NEVER been right if they stood in opposition to liberals.

[Cosmocat]

46. YEP

what is mind boggling is no matter how incredibly wrong they are AND how repeatedly wrong they are they remain ABSOLUTE in their belief they are always right ...

You just can't reason it out with them ...

[Maximum Bob]

18. The Great White Temper Tantrum

I read Sullivan, and this is spot on....he is quick to throw a temper tantrum but loath to admit that the dirty hippies were right. Even when he admits it, kind of, it's always couched in some defensiveness like, 'the liberals were right about Bush but for the wrong reasons'. Let's face it, in the era of the Great White Temper Tantrum, it's hard to get an old white dude to admit that their 'gut instinct' is wrong.

[QC]

19. I have hated the way Sully has been treated like the Delphic Oracle around here.

This is the guy who accused gays of "libidinal pathology" while trolling for bugchasers on bareback.com, and who declared that a liberal "fifth column" would make common cause with Islamists to destroy America, and who for years sang the praises of Bush and Cheney, but then he said something nice about Obama so all was forgiven.

Bullshit.

[carolinayellowdog]

44. Five days after 9/11, he declared war on American liberals

Last edited Sun Jul 27, 2014, 10:02 AM - Edit history (1)

"The middle part of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead -and may well mount a fifth column."

The most outrageous remark from a supposed mainstream intellectual I can recall in my lifetime. It flatly denies the existence of those millions of us outside "enclaves on the coast" who fought against the war machine, and declares the mllions within those "enclaves" traitors.

Eschaton awarded an appropriate honor for this despicable hatemongering.

[arcane1]

52. And he was a collosal asshole to Naomi Klein on Real Time a while back.

And yes, I'm still bitter

He went in with the single purpose of discrediting her, not with facts but with innuendo and hostile trollery. That kind of behaviour is bad enough on its own, but I get extra-pissed when it's someone I crush on

[L0oniX]

20. ***

Yes almost 200 years ago Republicans were the liberal party and did good things but they have long ago abandoned the cause of people and turned to championing corporations. So Democrats which were formerly conservative saw the light and came to the liberal side ...well not really ....they're into corporations too. It isn't the name of your party that matters it is the parties core beliefs. Today the Third Way is destroying the Democratic party IMO.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. You might like this clip...

http://server4.whiterosesociety.org/content/malloy/MalloyMemories/Liberals_Win.mp3

[mountain grammy]

39. Nice, I liked that clip.

Thanks, Spitfire.

[toddwv]

21. I was thinking Sarah Palin

Youbetcha!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. "...especially the barbaric nihilism at the core of American Conservatism."

Exactly. They don't value LIFE.

They value PROPERTY. (MONEY is #1)

It's all about what they OWN. They feel they OWN this country too which is why they say they "want it back" and go crazy at the idea of foreigners in "their" country.

They believe all of America should have a "No Trespassers" sign on it.

It's also why they cheer when they hear some burglar got killed by a homeowner.

[freshwest]

23. And Driftglass has been great for years:

Don Segretti 4.0, A Teabagger Nation

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2010/06/don-segretti-40-teabagger-nation.html

A history lesson we can't afford to forget.

Posted as part of this OP here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110215862

[Uncle Joe]

26. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, phantom power.

[butterfly77]

27. And...

There are many more like him who are now afraid of the monsters they have created.

[JHB]

28. Links to Driftglass, Blue Gal, & The Professional Left Podcast

Driftglass' blog, at which you can get this kind of goodness on a regular basis:
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/

Blue Gal, contributor to Crooks And Liars, Driftglass's podcasting partner (and wife):
http://bgalrstate.blogspot.com/

...and their weekly podcast:
The Professional Left, with Driftglass & Blue Gal
http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/

[FoxNewsSucks]

31. I've been listening every week for a couple years,

I forgot how I found that podcast, but it's definitely one of my favorites.

[Danascot]

30. bivalve-Raëlian

... sums up Mr. Sullivan perfectly

... and would be a great name for a band (with apologies to Steve Barry)

[DeSwiss]

33. No truer words were ever spoken.

- And this is one of the best paragraphs I've read in a long time:

And there exists no subatomic level of fuck small enough to encompass how little I care about all the many exciting ways Mr. Sullivan fancies up his Pineapple Ice Cream Conservatism by festooning it with hyphenates. It's a free country and he can call himself a fiscal-conservative-radical-libertarian-traditionalist-gay-Catholic or a monadist-phlogiston-Spiralist-bivalve-Raëlian for all I care! But no amount of tap dancing and garment rending is going to distract me from the plain, home truth that Liberals have been right from the start about everything, especially the barbaric nihilism at the core of American Conservatism.

K&R

[busterbrown]

35. Wow... Incredibly well stated..

I’m amazed at the writing talents around here..
You guys give me inspiration..

Andrew Sullivan? With most of these guys I always think its about the money.. its so much easier to make a buck towing the right wing line.. BucK? I mean a nice comfortable life style..

[zentrum]

37. I thought I detected some drift glass

.....in all that deeply satisfying writing.

All so true.

[blackspade]

38. Bravo!

[DonCoquixote]

40. Sullivan, Huffington, and other Log cabin types

The GOP you aligned yourself with threw you off the boat, actually,they made you walk the plank, indeed, if these same people you used to protect ever got the poltical power they wanted, they would probably have you hung from a tree. Yet, when you came to our side, you helped many people (cough*Blue Dogs* Cough) kick us out of the Democratic base, and make it a home for the sort of Republicans you used to be.

Truth is, the days when people listened to you as if you had some sort of formula for connecting to the masses are fading fast, and when they do, people will see you were kicked out of your old home not ebcause you were moral, but because you were weak and worthless, as well as treacherous. Being that you are rich, you will find some other parasite to leech onto,perhaps that centrist third party idea that Huffington pushes, but you will merely be one step closer to the time when you will be cast adrift, with no one at your side.

[Marr]

42. The bar for "thinking Conservatives" is incredibly low.

You get to be 180 degrees wrong when that's easy (like say, during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq), and then you get to slowly, by degrees, over the course of years, come around to something like a sane position, getting applause every step of the way-- while never, ever, admitting you were wrong.

[Paladin]

47. Fuckin' bullseye on a most worthy target.

"Gave them intellectual cover as they grew to monstrous maturity." Now THERE'S something that ought to be carved in granite and placed in Sullivan's front yard. Nice legacy, Andrew.....

[KG]

48. i'd like to place something in sullivans front yard, and it aint granite

#turds%20on%20rug%20630x420

[Paladin]

50. Appropriate---but granite would last longer.

[pansypoo53219]

51. indeed. this is what trying to get civilization for free got us.

civilization is not free. reagan used bait & switch on a massive scale. nobody remembers turning back under clinton worked. they keep pushing tinkle + ayn rand.